Scotch On The Rocks, Glaciers, Ice Trek
Trip Start
Sep 29, 2007
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85
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Trip End
Ongoing
El Calafate,
Argentina
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
The bus trip from Puerto Madryn to Rio Gallegos on the way to El Calafate was uneventful except for the presentation of a whacked out movie about a psychopath killer shown in the middle of the day.... the kids loved it. The bus attendants, all male are all quite snooty and took a disliking to us three foreigners (Kris, Nadine and I)
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. They played the movie with the English dubbed over in Spanish and with Spanish subtitles. There was also lengthy chats about Hungarian salami and bad habits with the great Hungarian girl we met named Kris. At one of the bus stops we bought a new puppet that is a bird that sticks his tongue out. There was also an incident where we got some coins stuck in one of those gum ball machines that dispense those swirly coloured, high bouncy balls. Of course every local Argentinian child in view of the machine came running to help and we ended up buying them all a ball, hours of fun. Dinner on the bus was a mystery. We were served what i would call sushi for carnivores, a flat roll made from jelly and meat and strange fillings. The rest of the dish was plain shredded carrot. Experiencing Southern Patagonia means crossing vast, flat, windswept deserts by bus to reach oases of isolated population centres. We had the occasional glimpse of the Atlantic Ocean or the odd sheep, horse, llama-like guanacos or ostrich. Nothing else just pampas grass bushes and desert. We were looking for Argentine cowboys but failed to see any. The landscape was not boring though and the colours were pleasing to the eye. I liked the simplicity of the land, a little like the way the Australian desert is appealing. The bus finally rolled in to El Calafate and we checked into The Marco Polo Inn which is located high on the hill overlooking the village, a little bit of a walk with your pack on but a modern, clean backpackers joint with super friendly staff
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. The Norwegion girls in our room gave us the hot tips for trekking, they took one look at my Gold Coast bought jacket, laughed and told me to buy more warm clothes. El Calafate is the base village to access Glaciers National Park which is the showcase for one of South Americas most spectacular sights, the impressive Perito Moreno glacier and surrounding area. The park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Patagonia is a bit of a poor mans Antarctica, an alternative to making the journey all the way south. The ice fields of Southern Patagonia are the third largest in the world to Antarctica and Greenland. Our aim was to see icebergs and to try ice trekking and we were not disappointed at all, this kind of terrain (lakes, ice, snow-capped mountains) is all new to us and we are really enjoying it. Our first impressions of the town El Calafate was that it is a whos-wearing-the-best-and-latest-outdoor-adventure-wear competition type of place. Designer trekking gear abounds and a moderately wealthy crowd holidays here although it is not out of our backpacker price range and hostels are everywhere. There are stores that sell Patagonian pixie paraphernalia, chocolate and parillas (traditional meat restaurants) plus shops that sell cow foot gourd mate drinking cups and the latest in gaucho (Argentinian cowboy) wear. The whole town is fairly new, too touristy and has a superficial feel.
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We are not big fans and we found out why. El Calafate is a boomtown. Between 2001 and 2005, the towns population exploded from 4000 to 15000 and there is still mass construction going on. It is peak season now. Because of its location on Lago Argentino, the town enjoys a microclimate much milder than the rest of Patagonia. Our just-been-on-the-beaches-of -Brazil selves are still bloody cold though and have had to stock up on gloves, neck muffs and extra socks and we are now on the hunt for more long johns.We shopped until 10pm (it was still daylight) then ate a delicious dinner at a restaurant that served fresh, organic local produce. The restaurant was called Pura Vida and we munched down on a rich beef stew that was cooked and served in a cute pumpkin and an eggplant pie whilst a guitarist played ambient chill music downstairs. We are yet to get back on the wine after the bedsheet incident.
An early pick up yesterday saw us join the peak season masses in a comfortable catamaran to sail right into the heart of the glaciers. All the champions from the whos-wearing-the-best-and-latest-outdoor-adventure-wear-comp competition turned up and it was most difficult for us to pick just one winner. There was a captains club on board where the men smoked cigars and the women formed a groupie circle around the aging captain
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. We started at Punta Bandera Port and sailed along the northern arm of the Argentino Lake to reach the Upsala and Spegazzini glaciers and then walked through Andean-Patagonian forest to view the Onelli, Bolado and Agassiz glaciers in Onelli Bay. We dodged chunks of ice floating past us as we navigated the lake. The crew pulled an iceberg up from the water using a rope so they bar could fill the captains clubs champagne buckets with fresh ice. I wasnt long before we came across some of the huge, crystalline ice masses, the giant icebergs. We were most impressed by these monsters that easily dwarfed the catamarans that were sailing as close to the sides as they dared. Some icebergs were as large as a small island and we thought them to be spectacular in beauty. They were shaped like elaborate sculptures chiseled by a higher power. We had two thoughts. The captain responsible for sinking the Titanic ship must have been very drunk to hit one of these puppies and more importantly, how will the effects of global warming impact on these precious icebergs? We were blessed it was a sunny day with clear skies so the icebergs could harness the sun to glisten in their full glory. A trip to Patagonia is like a trip back to the Ice Age. Today we went ice trekking on its centrepiece, Perito Moreno Glacier, located 80km from El Calafate. We had an early start with an annoying, camera mad tour group
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. One guy even stole my coffees! The road out to Argentinas pride and joy wound through hills and forests until suddenly the startling sight of the glacier came into view. This is one monster chunk of ice! Descending like a long white tongue through distant mountains, the glacier ends abruptly in a translucent blue wall of ice 3km wide and 60 metres high at the edge of the frosty green Lago Argentino. This is only the front of the glacier, the whole mass is 30km long and has a surface of 195km2. The whole glacier is moving all the time and you can hear it cracking and groaning as though it is in pain. This is one of the earths most active ice fields. We got lucky and witnessed a giant chunk of jagged ice peak sheer off and crash land with huge splashes and thunderous cracking, birthing small waves. Next, an iceberg would bob up from under the water next to the face and slowly move away from its mother glacier.... extraordinary. Us humans are so small. After this we were taken to Brazo Rico, did a short catamaran trip to a dock then set off to traverse an advancing glacier with crampons (spiky metal shoe platforms designed for walking on ice) over our shoes, in the shadow of the end of the Andes mountain range, literally watching a valley being formed before our eyes. This was a unique and fun experience with great guides who are of course like all ice trekkers, a little kamikaze mad
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. We walked across a stable section of the ice, scaling ridges of ice and trekking up and down hills as the guides used ice picks to cut stairs and tracks into the ice floor. We got the hang of the walking quite quickly and decided we would have liked more than this little taste of an ice trek (2 hours). The ice landscape changes all the time and we were lucky enough to come across a large overhanging ice sculpture that resembled a barrel wave out in the ocean. We were able to get in the barrel and do Jodie Cooper impressions for some photos. One of the clown guides took our pet monkey up to the top of a steep hill and pretended to throw him off before setting him up with an ice pick on the ridge so we could get a photo. Classic. The tour ended when we came across a little wooden table on the ice on which the guides had set up glasses and scotch that we drank on the rocks..... ice picked straight out of the glacier! These tours were not cheap but we could not pass these experiences up and the rewards were out of this world. Mother Earth never fails to shock us, we are amazed. Tomorrow we bus down to Puerto Natales, Chile so we can trek the ¨W¨ Trek in in Torres Del Paine National Park. We should have gone there first but took the wrong route. On the maps it appears that you can access the trek from El Calafate but in fact it is necessary to do a 5 hour trip all the way around ice and mountains and down into Chile.
