El Calafate

After checking out the sea lions in Puerto Madryn, we boarded a bus bound for Rio Gallegos, a transport hub 19 hours south that sends buses out to various Patagonia destinations, including El Calafate, where we were headed to visit the famous Glacier National Park. About an hour out of Puerto Madryn, our bus was having some issues so we stopped off for about two or three hours while it was being fixed. Jeff made some friends in the best way he knows how: a good ol' game of pick-up hacky sack. I think the little Argentine boy was humbling Jeff with his fancy footwork so it was good timing that the bus was ready to roll before Jeff got too frustrated (ha ha, just kidding...).

We arrived in El Calafate, a tourist destination with excursions for just about anything you could ever dream of paying too much to do: horseback riding, fly fishing, hiking, and glacier trekking. Being the hardcore adventurers that we are (yeah right) we decided to book a glacier trekking tour. On our first day we got up early and wandered all around El Calafate, accompanied by several dog companions that followed us all around town. We checked out the ecological reserve and were surprised to see flamingos standing around in the lake. And I thought they only hung out in the tropics! We tried getting close enough for some good shots, but our dog friends kept running into the water with the hopes of snatching a duck or some other rare and probably endangered bird. We eventually skipped out and wandered into town to check out the wares. El Calafate is entirely geared toward tourists, and their cute little shops and pricey restaurants reflect as much. It feels more like a chic mountain town than the rugged Patagonia that I was expecting.

Our last day in town we got up early for our 7:00 am tour and took the bus to see Glacier Perito Moreno. A boat picked us up and took us by the south face of the glacier before we landed on the shore near the place where the glacier trekking began. We were guided part way up the mountain where people were waiting to strap gamprons onto our shoes to help us walk around on the ice. Our guide gave us a mini lesson in how to stomp around so as to not fall off the face of the glacier and we were off! The temperature was around 50F but Patagonia is extremely windy so we kept our hats and gloves, though all that tramping around does warm you up quite a bit.

Our guide explained how glaciers are formed and I will try to give my basic understanding here: Glaciers are multi-layers of densely packed down snow, a process that occurs over many years, forming huge ice fields on the mountain. When the ice field becomes too built up, new ice on top pushes the denser glacier ice down the side of the mountain, and in the case of Perito Moreno, forces it down into Lake Argentina. They retain a blue tint because the ice is so dense that it absorbs all other colors of the spectrum but reflects back the blue color. The ice on the surface is transparent but when a few layers are chipped away, the brightest, most beautiful blue shows through, as you can see in any of the deep crevices in the middle of the glacier.

Once we neared the end of our trek, our guide led us toward a random table sitting in the middle of the glacier. He began to chip ice off the glacier with his pick and filled up a bunch of glasses before he poured out some whiskey on the "rocks" for us. What a nice treat to warm us up! We also had little dulce de leche snack cakes. Argentines really know how to do it up.

Even though our guide explained exactly how glaciers are formed and all about the blue coloration (and in English, so I definitely understood everything) I'm still completely dumbfounded and awestruck by these natural phenomena. Their size, color and general presence are overwhelmingly beautiful, and getting the chance to tramp around on one was pretty amazing! Perito Moreno is famous because every day huge pieces of ice are calved off and drop off the side of the glacier, creating a huge sonic boom-like sound and a giant splash as it falls into the water. I will add a video I managed to capture of a piece of ice calving off when I have a better internet connection.