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Published: February 13th 2008
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Up early again for the bus ride to El Calafate. Long wait at the Argentinian border whilst the dogs had a good sniff of the luggage. Probably distracted by the smells of some trekkers who looked like they had not been near hot water for a while...
Arrived to find the town bathed in sunshine and very warm, our home for the next few nights is a glorified wooden tent, Susan thinks it is from the Snow White set. In lovely gardens with very friendly owners. From our initial stroll down the main street we realised that there are lots of souvenir shops and associated window shopping tourists to be walked around. Booked ourselves an "alternative" glacier trip for tomorrow and picked up info on how to get from here to further north.
The alternative trip to the Perito Moreno glacier was excellent. The tour took the old estancia road, unpaved, as far as it could, saw lots of wildlife and gots lots of interesting chat from Cecilia the guide. The glacier currently has managed to cross Lago Argentino to block off one arm of the lake. So the glacier has two faces until the water manages to break
through again. At this time the water on one side is 5m higher than the other.
The glacier itself is an amazing sight, beautiful white and blue in the sunshine. It is also noisy as it moves constantly and pieces fall into the lake. We spent a couple of hours here taking a boat ride and sitting in the sun.
When we got back to El Calafate we decided not to have another glacier trip tomorrow but to do some more horse riding. Lots of glaciers to see but this one had been great. Glad we saw the ones in Chile first so we could appreciate them before being blown away by this one. We also went and booked our seats for the two day bus ride from El Chalten to Bariloche for next week.
So next morning we had a 9.30 start, almost lie in, to go to Cerro Frias for the horse ride. Quite a group went, about 18 of differing experiences. Tito the manager of the estancia watched us all get off the bus, sized us up and asked each of us about our horse riding experience, he then matched each of us with
a horse to suit and gave a short 121 pep talk about do and do not, with the particular animal. Very professional.
We then rode off up the hill under blue skies with condors circling above. After a couple of hours ride we could see Torres del Paine, 75km, to the south. Back at the estancia we all had a very convivial asado lunch before being dropped back in town for a late siesta.
Next morning was spent arranging somewhere to stay in Bariloche and getting in supplies for the trip to El Chalten and book swapping. The trip to El Chalten was part paved part ripio with a halfway stop for coffee at a place where Butch and Sundance dropped in for a month or so way back when.
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Alan G
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Wow!
Tremendous pictures of the icefield. Bit of a change from Central London