El Calafate: Staring at ice for a while

Northern face of Perito Merino Glacier
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A bus ride from Puerto Natales took us to El Calafate. A town slightly bigger than the last one to see one of the most active icefields in the world. This was also our entrance into a new country, Argentina! Unfortunately, back at Natales we had stocked up on some delicious dried fruit and nuts for the journey, which was quite expensive (everything is more expensive down south). We did this without realizing that we would not be able to take it across the border from Chile to Argentina. When we crossed the border we were attempting to hide our stash until we saw the border police searching everyones bags. So we had to surrender our fruit and nuts, it was the good stuff too, like coconut and mangoes etc : (. We had the shakes for a while after our stash got seized by the police, so we have been searching for a new source ever since... Maybe in Columbia?

Southern face of Perito Merino Glacier
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Anyway, when we got to El Calafate we were hoping to stay at hostel America del Sur, which is supposedly one of the best lodgings in the town, with heated flooring and great views. Mark had stayed there 2 years ago previously and thought it was pretty good. Unfortunately when we arrived there, they told us that the bed we thought we had reserved had been taken by someone else able to supply their credit card details faster than we could : (.  Very annoying since we had just trekked up a huge hill with our packs on to get there. After expressing our annoyance.. we went across the road to another hostel and stayed in a dorm this time. A new experience for us, but it wasn't too bad, the people sharing the room with us were friendly and didn't seem too dodgy. The bad thing about the hostel was the common room and kitchen, it really stank of cigarette smoke. People smoke everywhere in Argentina!

3 hrs may seem like a long time to stare at a glacier but it is strangley mesmerizing waiting for the next chunk to fall off

Mark and Rachel in front of the glacier
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Going to the glacier Moreno was the highlight and purpose of the visit to El Calafate and it was pretty amazing. The size of it is massive. Think of a mountain valley covered in ice several stories high. The ice was colored bright blue to pale blue, which apparently is an indication of its age, thousands of years old. From the viewing platform we could hear amazing sounds like thunder, but which was actually huge chunks of ice cracking off and falling into the lake below. There chunks were perhaps the size of 100 square m. Unfortunately we must not have been there the best time of year to see it at its most active. In peak season, Mark said he saw chunks break off every minute. In the 3 hrs we were there perhaps we only saw 4 significant breaks. 3 hrs may seem like a long time to stare at a glacier but it is strangely mesmerizing waiting for the next chunk to fall off. When we got impatient waiting for something to happen we went for a walk to the other side, and of course we heard a massive crash back where we were and one huge chunk maybe the size of a football field crashed into the lake. Dóh! Despite this it was an amazing experience, definitely don´t see that in Perth!