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“glaciers are beautiful even in the rain and if you can´t see the mountains it is easier to pretend you are in the ... ” |
me and jamie arrived in el calafate tired and hungry after our mammoth journey (my 1st overnight bus trip, although i suspect i will have to get used to them in bolivia). we had a shower in our lovely hostel and warmed our feet on the UNDERFLOOR HEATING. we then booked ourselves lots of fun for the next few day and went out to a fancy restaurant for tea, i had yummy home made ravioli with smoked salmon, but we were to intimidated by the winelist to order any so had to back to the hostel and play card and swig pisco sours from the bottle. Jamie was very pleased to find out there are lots of shops in el calafate and went home with gaucho boots, wine, a t-shirt and a big leather bag to put it all in.
our first day of fun was another horse ride, this time i was allowed to control the horse myself as i am now an experienced rider. the horse did not require any controlling though and didn´t even try to eat. we went up cerro frias from were you can see the fitz roy massif and the torres del paine, however all we saw was cloud. as mine was the only horse keeping up with the guide i had a nice chat with him. he had a dog called colin - after colin mcrae! - and was a mad keen rally fan. i think i impressed him with my knowledge, especially being a laydee. after the ride came the best bit - as much meat and fire roasted butternut squash as we could eat. which was quite a lot. the second fun thing was that alex b turned up with a mostly fixed car.
the second day of fun was a boat trip to look at the faces of lots of glaciers, this is national parque los glaciares after all. we set off on a superfast catamaran from puerto bandera along with about 150 other folk, mostly old argentine ladies with red lippy and large sunglasses. the boat visits the upsala glacier which is 5km wide, 60km long and has a 60m high snout, the spegazzani glacier which is smaller but prettier and has a 120m high snout and glacier onelli which is further away and smaller but has a small lake in front of it where there is a restaurant. of course we had a picnic. as we were speeding away from glacier upsala one of the crew started shouting quick, quick the glacier is collapsing. the boat turned round and we could see a section about 500m x 60m falling off the glacier. we could hear the crash even though we were about 6km away. we zoomed back to get a closer look and there was a sea of bergs, some as big as blocks of flats, where we had been 15min previously. exciting. the bergs were all shuffling around and finding there equilibrium, some were white, some a really bright blue and some almost black. after this amazing performance spegazzini was a bit of an anticlimax but still very beautiful and we could get closer to the face and watch small bits fall off. this trip was quite expensive at about 40 pounds, but i though worth every peso. extra fun this day was eating another even bigger pile of meat in the evening.
day three of fun was an ice trekking trip on the most famous glacier - the perito moreno glacier. this glacier is in a constant battle with lake it flows into and the magellanes peninsula. Try and picture a long thin lake surrounding a peninsula. a glacier flows into the lake at the part near the tip of the peninsula. as the glacier advances it eventually meets the peninsula and cuts off part of the lake from the main body. the water pressure builds up in the lake and eventually forces its way through the glacier causing an enormous collapse that apparently can be heard 50km away. the last time this happened was 2004. see the attached picture of the channel between the peninsula and the glacier. anyway enough of the glacier lesson, back to our fun day. when we left el calafate all was well, the sun was shining, we were all feeling reasonable awake and we saw a most beautiful rainbow on the way. but what are the essential ingredients of a rainbow? yup, rain. the rain started as we got on the boat over to the glacier. and didn´t stop all day. luckily glaciers are beautiful even in the rain and if you can´t see the mountains it is easier to pretend you are in the antarctic isn´t it. and it is always exciting to be wearing crampons and sitting in ice caves, i thought it was a bit like fraggle rock, but blue and without the doozers. downside of the day was that alex and i discovered our coats have lost their waterproof coating. more shopping then. the trip cost 300 pesos (50 quid), involved 6 hrs of walking, 3.5 on the ice and was well worth it. it is open to anyone aged 18 - 45, there were only 4 of us on the trip and we had two guides. the same company (hielo y aventura) do a mini trek that costs 250 pesos, this is open to anyone aged 8-65 and has 1.5 hours on the ice. there were loads of people doing this trip, so the ice in this area was quite crowded and there were a lot of old people on it so the trekking is very easy and slow going. do the long one.
well that was all our fun. we spent the next day driving to punta arenas to take jamie to the airport for her grueling journey home.
previous travel blog entry
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