EL CALAFATE - PERITO MORENO GLACIER

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Bye Bye whales! We are now in El Calafate, home to the Perito Moreno Glacier. It moves forward 2 metres per day. Incredible!!! Especially when you hear about all the global warming problems. The icefield where this glacier comes from produces 1 third of the whole world´s fresh water.
A lot of people who we met along the way told us about the sight and we were rally excited to see it, but it´s only when you get there that you realise about how massive it is and how small we are. There are no words that can describe it.
A few facts: It is 250 square Km, 32km long, 4km wide, 60m high and in places, it is 700m deep.
As we got there, we saw it from a distance, like 5km away, and the view was breathtaking. A few minutes more and we would see the whole grandeur. The bus drops us by the water where we took a boat which would take us at the foot of the glacier, well within safe distance as throughout the day, ice falls like rocks. When ice does fall into the water, it sounds like someone blew it up with dynamite. The whole day was spent just admiring the nature around it and realising how huge this thing is and being totally mesmerised by it. After the boat trip, we followed a few footpaths around the glacier but never got to touch the water.
Shame, we would´ve liked to see how it felt.
The village of El Calafate itself is pretty quaint. Lots of wind, but hey , what do you expect, you are in Patagonia. Strong winds. Besides that, everything in town is expensive. Basic things like internet, food were extortionate. We didn´t do any excursions as all trips were way out of our backpacker budget 😞
We learnt one thing here in Argentina: All places with excursions are monoplised by travel agencies that charge you hurrendous amounts of money... We didn´t fall into that trap. There are other ways, and it costs you a fraction of the price. You just have to ask the locals.
Together with the whales in Puerto Madryn, and the Iguazu Falls, the Perito Moreno Glacier have been the highlight of this trip in South America.

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Comments

[Alan]

Glacier
That is amazing - especially the pic where it shows the water freezing up close to the glacier! Wow!!