El Calafate and the Perito Moreno Glaciar

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Geo: -50.33, -72.3

When I arrived to El Calafate on January 24 at 9 PM I was really hungry but had no more money to buy food and all ATM's in El Calafte were out of money... So I went to a pizzaria where I could pay with credit card and had some vegetable soup and an omlette with champignons. Afterwards I went to my hostel and arrived there at around 10:30 PM. I was very tired, my body was exhausted and my legs sour from walking in the heavy wind earlier in El Chaltén. The guy working in the hostel was an idiot : he talked like he's the smartest person in the world and you're stupid, he was incompetent, giving few and short infos and very unpolite... :-( He told me that the minitrekking-tour on the glaciar "Perito Moreno" was full and my option was to go to the terminal the next day and take a regular bus to the balconies from where you can look at the glaciar. He also told me that there are no busses to Puerto Natales in the evening, only in the morning, but that this hostel was full for the next night. So I booked another hostel for the next day and changed my plans. I planed on going to Puerto Natales in the evening after the mini-trekking and the next day starting the W-track. Now I was going to see the glaciar from the balconies only, leave for Puerto Natales the next morning and do the W-track one day later. Never mind, a few lighter days would be good too. After a hot shower I went to bed early (around 12 PM) to recover from the hikes in El Chaltén. The next day I arrived at the terminal around 7 AM where a very unfriendly woman (WHY are they all so unfriendly here???) told me that the 8 AM bus to the "Perito Moreno" is full. I booked a ticked for the 1 PM bus then and I also booked my ticket for the 8:30 AM bus to Puerto Natales the next day.

I went back to the hostel, checked my mails and right before leaving to the other hostel I saw Petra, a girl from Holland I had met in Cimas del Sol hostel in San Pedro de Atakama. We talked a bit about our travel and then I left. It was a torture getting to the other hostel. Since the evening before I had some pain in my right foot and it got worse with every step. I went to a pharmacy and the lady working there told me that I probably hiked to much the day before and that this caused an inflamation. I guess the strong winds on the way up and down the mirador at the laguna torre caused this... I bought some Ibuprophene and a bandage but it hurt a lot and got worse during the day. Goodbye to my plans of hiking the W-track... :-(At 1 PM I took the bus to the balconies of El Calafate and could enjoy the amazing "Perito Moreno" glaciar. I have never seen something like that : hectars and hectars of 60 m high and 5 km wide ice! I was very impressed by this view!
There I met Juan-Pablo from Buenos Aires and Daniela and Catalina from Colombia. I had seen Juan-Pablo a few times before, in the bus from El Chaltén, in the church in El Chaltén, in the city and now here we talked for the first time together. He studies letters and literature in Buenos Aires and he works on the side. He wants to travel to Europe in July to visit some friends and his cousin who lives in the south of Belgium. Daniela studied sales and has her own bikini-collection. Cata studies fashion. They are all very nice and we had a great time together, enjoying the glaciar, talking, drinking hot chocolate. We all agreed that people working in El Chaltén and El Calafate with tourists are very unfriendly and unhelpful, which surprising since they earn their money with these tourists...
Daniala was a bit sick and careful not to come too close or try my hot chocolate so I wouldn't get sick because she said that I don't deserve to be sick. :-) When we went to the bus, suddenly Cata had disappeared. Daniela went looking for her but the bus driver left without them. Fortunately for them, Juan-Pablo told the driver to stop and wait for them. Daniela came running to the bus but Cata still was nowhere to be seen. 5 minutes later she finally arrived : she had lost their bus tickets and had been searching for them on the balconies! The bus driver was nice and believed them that they had had the tickets and didn't make them pay again. :-)When we arrived back to El Calafate, we had dinner together (pasta) and some "calafate" and chocolate icecream for desert. We split up then to get to our hostels but we planed on meeting again in Buenos Aires 2 weeks later. :-D

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Comments

[karina]

Beautiful pics :)

[bianca.mertens]

Thank you! :-)

[Rita]

Super Bilder, super Report. Wir w?nschen deinem Fu? gute Besserung und noch viele interessante Begegnungen und Eindr?cke. Papa und mama