Following the Dream

Christian February 23rd, 2008

We kicked off our Patagonia adventure in El Calafate on Monday the 11^th of February on a beautiful day. The views from the plane coming in were amazing,

and we were not dissapointed when landing either, minus plane moving around in the heavy wind during the landing.

The airport is located right on the banks of Lake Argentina.

It is this vibrant blue shimmering glacial lake that is enormous. We stayed at America del Sur. It is a very nice hostel with four bed dorm rooms. It is very open and has spectacular views of the lake. The only downfall is that it is a bit of a walk from the center. On the first day we booked all of our “excursions” for the week we were spending in town. The First one that we did was the All Glaciers tour.

We woke up early, about 6:15 (Ouch!!). We are still fooled by Argentina time. We were supposed to be picked up at 7, which really meant 7:45. We got on a big tour bus that led us to the docks where our boats were waiting for us. The boats were very nice. They had windows all around so that you could get great views. The first views from the lake were amazing with the mountains in the background. Then they let us out on the decks that circled the boat. The first views were of iceburgs.

It was amazing to be passing through these fields of iceburgs in the lake. They would stop at the more spectacular looking ones, letting everyone take some photos of them (This by the way was insane, all 200 people would run to one side of the boat pushing to get the best photo, animals I tell you). Well when we stopped at one of these, the captain would actually spin the boat a full 360 degrees, so that everyone had an opporunity to take a photo. Instead of people staying on one side, they would rush to the other side as soon as the boat turned. I personally was hoping some of them would fall over into the frozen abyss so that there was less cramping of personal space. The first sight of a glacier was awesome. It was this huge mass of ice coming down the valley between two mountains. We then made our way through more iceburgs (all of different shapes and shades of blue …. amazing) to the highest glacier in the national park. It was insane how big this was. It went as far back as you could see and was so pretty. You have to see a glacier to understand the sheer mass and beauty of them. Hopefully our photos will do it some justice. The next glacier we went to was the Upsala Glacier.

This is the largest glacier in the park. Again just massive and spectacular. Then on the way to the lunch area, we spotted wild cattle on the mountain sides. The lunch area that they took us to was this island that we walked through a forrest to a lake with a beatiful view of three smaller glaciers. The lake was filled with iceburgs.

Casey and I enjoyed a gormet lunch of bread, apples and cookies. This was not by choice, but because our hostel forgot to make the lunches that we had ordered from them the night before the trip. It did not matter, the scenary was amazing and made the lunch. We then got back on the boat and headed back to the docks and then to the hostel.

The next day was spent doing the Big Ice excursion. Once again, Argentinan time killed us. We woke up at 6:30 for our 7 am departure and were not picked up until 7:45……..is anybody else seeing a trend here?? This excursion was going to be a little more intimate since there was a limit to 20 people a day. Our first stop was to the viewing platforms of the famous glacier Perito Moreno.

This glacier is famous due to how it is advancing and huge chunks of ice fall off the front and splash into the lake below. We only had a limit of 20 minutes at the viewing platforms, so we did not get to see that much activity. We will definitely make our way back there before we leave El Calafate. After the viewing platforms we loaded onto a boat to cross the lake and head to the refuge, where we would prep for our ice trekking. Once at the refuge the guides let us know that this would be the last bathroom we would see for six hours. After taking care of some business, we all started our trek through the woods. We made it to the first camp and got fitted from crampons. These are basically sharp spikes that you strap on the bottom of your shoes so you can walk on the ice okay. We then trekked for about an hour on the side of the glacier. It was such a tease, all of us wanted to start trekking on the glacier. However the trek was nice up to the glacier. We passed a waterfall that fell from the top of the one mountain and drained underneath the glacier. Soon enough we were taking our first steps on top of the glacier…

The first steps were not easy. All of us were still in shoes without the crampons on. It was like we were learning to ice skate for the first time, everyone was slipping and sliding. Then we all took a seat on a log where our guides put on our crampons. It was completely different. The ice was very easy to walk on once we had them on. All of us first had a mini lesson on how to walk with the crampons. One of the more importants was to walk with your feet apart so you don’t cut yourself with your own crampon. It was goofy walking at first, but all of us quickly got the hang of it. We began walking over the glacier, which looked like a never ending ice field. The first stop that we made was to a hole in the glacier that was filled with water. It was very deep and very blue. The one guide dropped a rock in so that we could watch it fall. It fell for a very long time before it went so deep that we could not see it anymore. We were watching this from the edge of the hole (which is ice), it did not feel as though it would have been legal in the states.

It was exciting though. We then had to step over a crack in the ice that was similar to the hole, in that it was filled with water and very deep. We trekked for a couple hours and saw some amazing things on top of the glacier. We saw streams and little lakes. We saw some amazing shades of blue. Crossing the one stream, a girl in our group ate it so bad. She cut her face on the ice and hit her thigh. I should say it was more of a scrape than a cut and a little more dramatic than it needed to be. We then stopped for lunch towards the middle of the glacier. It was pretty, minus the rain. There was a crevice with glacier water you could drink. It was nice. After lunch on the glacier, we stopped at this place where there was a cave that you could go into.

There was also pools of vibrant blue.

I filled up our water bottle with some glacier water. It tasted amazing. It was so cold and fresh (better than most overpriced fancy bottled water). We then trekked for a couple of more hours four a total of four hours on the ice. The views we had on top of the glacier were simply amazing. We then headed back to the camp, which now was in the pouring rain. We boarded the boat and were offered chocolates, which we gladly accepted. Then they came around with whisky with glacier ice.

It was cheap whisky, but the glacier ice seemed to make it a little more classy. We were exhausted…..only to have to wake up the next day early for our trip to El Chatlen.

• Argentina
• Comments(4)