Calafate & El Chalten: Glorious Glaciers

View of Mt. Fitzroy
see all photos »

for Glacier photos copy and paste the link:

http://oxford.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2093482&l=56c3a&id=36804972

Patagonia really takes on its mythical qualities once you start to hit El Calafate.  The landscape becomes more dramatic, the sky is endless and huge.  There is no escape from the fact you are nearing the edge of any civilisation.  For years Patagonia was anywhere south of Buenos Aires, rather like the wild west - anywhere that wasn´t colonized by ´civilised people´. Those that did live in deep Patagonia, apart from the Native indian groups, were anything but civilized - the welsh (see previous blog) and an interesting band of outlaws and bandits including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid at various intervals until they finally decided to give up the honest life in return for one last bank job.  They got killed by the Bolivian Army.  Not a nice way to go!

Very rare reflection of the moutains in the Lake!
see all photos »

El Calafate we had heard mixed reviews about.  It is certain very expensive for what it is, and a steak meal cost almost 8GB  without wine!  Crazy prices.  But it is close to Glacier Perito Moreno, one of the few expanding glaciers in the world (the rest are melting away...) Because it is expanding, its external walls are constantly breaking away and falling very dramatically into the lake it sits upon.  So we took the tour out there to sit for 3 hours and watch the ice fall. You´d think that this would be boring, but it is nothing like watching paint dry.  Instead you sit and watch, seeing "little" blocks of ice falling down.  The loud crash as they hit the water is often the first thing you´ll notice.  But then, all at once, a bit of wall that was only seeing a few flakes fall off, will become unstable.  Then the whole wall of ice, the vertical face of the glacier will crack and come crashing down to the water like a curtain at a school play.  The noise is huge, deafening everyone.  Because 90% of the glacier is underwater, the ice then rises up to the top of the surface like some terrible blue underwater creature risen from the dead.  I did for a few moments believe that it was a wale.  Turns out it was just very blue ice.

see all photos »

Once we had seen one massive wall come crashing down, we became voyeurs to see more destruction.  We became good at predicting which wall would crash next.  And then suddenly "whoosh & Crash" and then the next wall would disintegrate into the water.  Amazing.  Kept me quiet for nearly 3 hours.  Just to see the terrible and incredible destructiveness of nature and our own appetite for seeing such destruction and redemption is fascinating.

We travelled the 4 hours north from El Calafate to El Chalten which is a tiny little tinpot town which happens to be situated right in the middle of one of the loveliest national parks.  The fact that the town, which consists of little more than a big road and lots of shacky places off it, and very very expensive internet, is allowed to be in the national park is because it was part of the disputed land in the Argentinian- Chile boarder disputes of the 1980s.  In a bid to get it made Argentinian, they hastily put up a town. It worked, and it allowed us to do some brilliant hikes straight out of the hostel.  On the day we got there, we did a 6 hour hike up the mountains, where we got a great view of the two famous peaks - Fitzwilliam and Cerro Torre.  Both mountains have perma snow on them and are nestled up against the blue sky and the green valley below-. The wind was blowing so hard though on the top of the hill I thought i was going to blown down it.  This was not helped by the fact that the path was only marked by little mounds of rocks, rocks on a rocky surface.  So we kinda went the wrong way for a little bit.  Got a great view from our detour, but i was rather concerned that i would die with my rather comical pink hat on.  Luckily that was not to be, and we got down the hill safe and sound.

Ontop of the glacier
see all photos »

The next day i had an early start - 6am, to do a Glacier Ice trekk;  This lasted 13 hours from leaving the hostel.  Literally we walked out the door, and up the trail.  And we walked and walked.  We arrived at the Lago Tore which lays under the glacier Cerro Torre and we got a perfect reflection in the lake of the surrounding moutains.  We were busily taking photos of this lovely sight, but it was only when our guide told us that in the 3 years working there, this was only the second time the wind and weather conditions had allowed the lake water to be still enough to see a reflection.  As he said this, the wind picked up a tiny bit, and from being completely reflective and translucent, the lake became frosted and nothing could be seen in it.  So lucky!

Me on the glacier
see all photos »

To get to the other side of the lake, we took a rope zipline polley thing which you hoist yourself onto with a carabena, and then zip along held on only by your harness.   Very James Bond.

The glacier walk itself was great fun. You strap on these metal ´crap ons´onto your shoes, which highly resemble bear claws.  These allow you to walk across the surface of the glacier.  The glacier is all small peaks, so you climb up and down, setting your feet like a duck to avoid impaling yourself on the spikes.  Walking on such a piece of history, so reminiscent of mans destruction of the natural environment, and at the same time the way the world itself destroys through ice-ages multitudes of species makes one really consider the imprint we leave on the world.  So as I shared my bread and salami with an American girl called Beth, who having been told it was only a mini trek had come completely unprepared for the 13hours, and felt a real moment of realisation.  What that realisation is, i´m not sure, but we were in the middle of nowhere, with hardly anyone else around, eating on a glacier in the sun.  Can´t get much better than that!