Hosteria Kau Kaleshen El Calafate

... at any moment. Clearly none of us are using enough aerosols however, as despite the desire of catching one of them collapsing, no spectacular crashes were witnessed.

The final stop was a change in plan. The glacier we were to visit was in a channel deemed too dangerous to now navigate because of large icebergs that had fallen from the ice sheet. Instead we headed South East through the channel to see the daddy of them all: Perito Moreno. The 5km long glacier is so large ...

Calafate... what can i say? I know there are as many different tastes as people living in this world. But for me, a lover of mountains, snow and ice, the Calafate region, in the Parque Nacional de los Glaciares, is the most impressive place i've ever seen. El Calafate is a small town, sited in Patagonia region, south Argentina. It is 70 km far from the Glacier's National Park, where there are such ...

... bags on the bus (unlike crossing over to Singapore) and had to lift the border gate ourselves. In doing our shopping the day before, we completely forgot that we would be crossing a border and be subject to an agricultural inspection. Alas, our carefully planned provisions were stripped of all of our apples and delicious salami. Mary handed out a bag of apples to everyone in the customs line and I downed a bag of salami at ...

... good it would look on a perfect day. It has to be one of the most stunning sights I have seen and again the photos do not do it justice. I have a serious from which I can make a panoramic out of when I get home but for now you will have to make do with these... We took a boat tour for an hour up to the south face of the glacier and after that we walked a series of walkways trying to catch the falling ...

Nous revenons à notre hostel à El Calafate pour la nuit. Nous allons manger à "La tablita", un bon petit resto du coin où les grillades sont délicieuses. Ca fait du bien de manger autre chose que des conserves ou des aliments lyophilisés! Notre avion pour El Calafate décolle le lendemain à 11 heures.

... each, though the cramped kitchen area and the kindred intentions of the 30-odd other people staying in the hostel meant that it was not as straightforward as it might have been. Our stay in EC is a short one this time around, with the Perito Moreño glacier to be caught on the flipside after our Chilean adventures below. This afternoon we head south for Puerto Natales, gateway to the nearby Torres del Paine national park, and the first of our outdoor adventures...

... ca fait lourd... A coup sur, on a donc pris quelques kilos chacun... Mais il fallait bien ca pour affronter l'hostilite des fameux glaciers et icebergs du lac Argentin.... Enfin c'est l'excuse qe l'on se donnait, car finalement la temperature etait clemente et le soleil toujours au rdv... Pendant 2 jours donc, nous naviguons sur le fameux lac argentin entre les glaciers Upsala et Perito Moreno (le plus impressionant) et faisons quelques heures de ...

... sehen tatsaechlich auch ein paar Brocken hinabstu**zen, ab** d** ganz grosse Krach** passi**t g**ade dann, als wir ein Stueck weit** laufen und uns die Baeume die Sicht v**sp**ren. So ist das, da muss man viel Glueck haben. Was besond**s beeindruckend aussieht, ist die blaue Farbe des Gletsch**eises, die je nach Eisdicke und Sonneneinfall in allen Schatti**ungen leuchtet. Wir koennten stundenlang einfach nur auf das Eis starren. Nach 1 ½ Stunden auf den Aussichtsplatformen geht es ...

... for the next two hours!

It was really cool walking on the glacier ice and it was funny being a bit nervous about walking on some of the more 'watery' (melted) sections. You occasionally forget that there is about 100 metres of solid ice below you and you're able to see down deep crevaces and holes in the ice!

As I said earlier, the ice itself had a blue hue to it which is apparently because ice crystals can absorb every colour of the spectrum ...

... comfortable. I have much less to look forward to in Bolivia.

So, the whole reason for the stopover in El Calafate is to see one of the most spectacular glaciers on the planet. More ice? Yes, I obviously can not get enough of the stuff. Surprisingly, even to me, the fame of the Moreno Glacier did not diminish the experience. It was actually quite different seeing a massive glacier surrounded by forested mountains.

The ...