El Calafate, Patagonia, Argentina - January 2008

Sam at Glaciar Perito Moreno.

Looking up Glaciar Perito Moreno to the Andes.

Sam's been telling me some of my writing has been a bit sloppy lately. I've had a bit of a think about that and come up with a bit of a theory on why some posts are readable and others are the written equivalent of Valium. My main theory is that a lot of the places I'm writing about in the blog I visited a long time ago, so (with my developing dementia ) I have a lot of trouble remembering the quirky little things that happened at the time. The colour is what I think makes some posts better than others. Having said that, the blog is a hobby for my own benefit, if it was a serious task I suppose I would spend a little more time on the writing (not to mention on some of the unflattering dodgy photo's that I post), but I treat it more like a personal diary. As I write this my mother in law has just emailed a mistake in the last post, I was hoping nobody would notice :)

El Calafate airport with Lago Argentino in the distance.

The main drag of El Calafate.

Anyway its my fiftieth post so I'd better make it somewhere interesting, how's Patagonia sound? This was my first visit to this region, we were on our way down to Ushuaia to catch a boat down to Antarctica, so we thought that seeing that we were on the right continent we may as well get a taste of Patagonia. We based ourselves in the large town of El Calafate for three days and did day trips out to Parque Nacional Los Glaciares from there.

That'd be my dinner cooking

Hope they left some for everybody else.

El Calafate is situated on the shore of the massive Lago Argentino and has the feel of a bit of a frontier town especially as you wander away from the tree lined centre of town. Our hotel was a couple of kilometres from the centre of town and we had more company from dogs than people on our walks into and out of town. It was a slightly surreal experience to be walking along the dusty road with blue icebergs floating down the lake and Pink Flamingos feeding in the shallows. El Cafate was where we experienced our first parrilla, basically an Argentine steak house, some people like chocolate, some beer, we'll my vice is meat. This was the first time since before I was a teenager that I couldn't finish the amount of meat piled onto my plate, I new I wasn't going to go home any thinner!

Pink Flamingo's feeding in the shallows of Lago Argentino, El Calafate.

The dry dusty out skirts of El Calafate remind my of outback Australia.

On our first full day in El Calafate we caught a bus out to Puerto Bandera and then jumped on a boat for a cruise up to Glaciar Upsala and Glacier Onelli. The North Arm of Lago Argentina was incredibly rough and there was a fair few people looking pretty pale by the time the boat reached the calmer waters near Glacier Upsala. It was our first experience being in a boat sailing around massive ice bergs, we were certainly in a different world than our usual Christmas destination, the deep north of Australia. After checking out Glacier Upsala we negotiated an ice berg choked arm to visit Glacier Spegazzini.

Our first ice berg.

Glaciar Upsala.

The bare rock shows how much the glaciers are in retreat.

Another retreating glacier coming down from the Andes.

Back tracking a little the boat docked at Bahia Onelli and we grabbed our small packed lunch and headed of on the short half a kilometre walk through the linga (beech?) trees over to Lago Onelli. The lake was fed by the giant Glacier Onelli and Glacier Agassiz, and was choked with large and small ice bergs. We were able to grab small ones from the shore, we were like a couple of excited kids as we walked along the edge of the lake checking out the ice. After a while we headed into the beech forest a little to get out biting Patogonian wind, and after finding a sheltered spot enjoyed our picnic lunch, with the sound of the calving glacier in the distance.

We're off to check out Lago Onelli now.

Rugged up to combat the Patagonian wind.

Don't normally see this in the deep north.

Lago Onelli, with Glaciar Onelli in the back ground.

The linga (beech?) forest at Lago Onelli were we had lunch.

Heading back to Puerto Bandera.

We could see ice bergs floating down Lago Argentino past out hotel.

El Calafate provide another meat feast that night, we ate at around 8 pm but were quickly realising that most of the locals ate a lot later than that. Things were starting to liven up around 10 pm when we left and walked, in broad daylight back to our accommodation. Apart from snow, ice, and glaciers, the other thing we were getting used to was the amount of daylight here at this time of the year, it didn't get dark until after 11 pm, it was good preparation for our up coming trip to Antarctica where it wouldn't really get totally dark for the whole time we were down there.

The 'carny' was in town.

Check out the pile of meat beside Sam, mines buried under the Pterodactyl egg.

Yeah, that's 10:43 at night, it took a while to get used to the daylight.

The next day we caught a bus out to Perito Moreno Glacier, wow, what a spectacular sight. The massive glacier spills down from the Andes and completely dams the Rico Arm of Lago Argentina. The glacier is continuously calving house size chunks into Canal de los Tempanos, we went out on a small boat that took us along the face of the glacier, the boat dwarfed by the slowly advancing wall of ice. Every now and again the force of the water damned up by the glacier will collapse the end of the glacier and a wall of ice and water will make its way into Lago Argentina. With the cruise over we headed to the extensive series of lookouts below the visitor centre to try and capture the majesty of the scene in front of us ( failing miserably :), the local parks people have spent a lot of money on infrastructure, board walks, steps, benches, etc to make the glacier accessible to most people. After a bite to eat at the restaurant it was onto the bus for our trip back to El Calafate, and another cow for diner.

Heading out RP 15 on our way to Perito Moreno.

Have I mentioned the wind? :)

Perito Mereno Glaciar from the Brazo Rico side, the glacier dams this section of Lago Argentino before the water pressure eventually collapses the end of the glacier and lets the water flow through to the rest of the lake.

It would certainly be cool to see this.

Glaciar Perito Moreno from the Canel de los Tempanos side.

Taken from the boat that cruises along the face of the glacier.

The Dirt.
There are numerous companies running tours out to the glaciers so you will have no trouble booking one from El Calafete. The blog wasn't even a twinkle in my eye when we did this trip so I didn't write any notes on accommodation and restaurants, needless to say they were all very adequate, El Calafate is a tourist town so expect to find something there to cater for most needs. The modern airport is a fair way out of town so try to get accommodation with transfers. Saying Patagonia is a bit windy is the same as saying Sam likes chocolate a bit, its bloody windy so go prepared.

The people in charge of the Parque Naacional Los Glaciares have certainly spent some money on infrastructure.

Glaciar Perito Mereno is massive.

The visitor centre and cafe at Perito Moreno.

Our digs in El Calafate, it was better than it looks!

Waiting for our connection to Ushuaia, Sam doesn't seem to impressed with the hot chocolate, I'm already planning my return trip!