Stuck in stupid Calafate
Trip Start
Oct 19, 2007
1
104
126
Trip End
Ongoing
El Calafate,
Argentina
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
I cannot procure a ticket out of her till Thursday, gay. There is really no reason to stay here that long, but what can I do. I actually go to the Aerolinas Argentina office to see what is up with planes out of here but the office is closed since it's Sunday so instead of waiting another day and possibly getting stuck here longer I buy the bus ticket. Claudia shows up at my hostel and we get dinner and then go to a bar to celebrate this one Isreali's birthday. I drink entirely too much since I just had food poisoning but at least the night is a good time.
Feb 18
Feel like crap. Go figure. I'm an idiot
Walking on the glacier (way to tuck the pants in)
. I do notice Duke lost which is pretty pimp. Oh, and apparently the President of Argentina is in town and apparently squared I walked right past her and had no idea. She was giving a speech in the town square and I just figured she was like the mayor or something but no, she was the President (which I didn't find out until later on). There was some security but not nearly as much as you would have thought. I could have easily taken her out if I was so inclined. There are a lot of conifers in Calafate. The definition of a conifer is....a tree that bears cones. So I guess chicks are the conifers of the human world or said another way, if chicks were trees they would be conifers.
Feb 19
Wake up at 6:30am which is retarded early. Today is Big Ice day which means I get to walk around on the glacier and hopefully do cool stuff. I meet 2 American couples on the bus who are down here for a week or so for vacation. Both of the wives went to Princeton but they are much cooler than you'd expect. The husbands are out of shape and they walk like ducks on the ice. We get to wear crampons which are metal spikes you tie to your shoes to allow you to climb on the ice. These things are fun as hell as you can like run and jump on a steep hill of ice and just stick there and hang out for a bit. Walking on the glacier is pimp as all get out and it totally looks like the Hoth system from Empire Strikes Back. If we had some Tontons we'd be set. It's pretty crazy as there is nothing but ice for as far as the eye can see and steep hills and valleys appear haphazardly on the glacial surface. The glacier is 700m (2,200') in some places and it moves on average 25cm per day. The oldest ice towards the very front is only 400 years old although the glacier itself has been here for 10's of thousands of years. The color blue is present everywhere you look and it's like the deepest truest blue I have ever seen. The ice gets compressed to such a degree that the light gets refracted slower and therefore the ice takes on the color of blue within the light wave spectrum. We spot a sink hole which is about 70m deep and appears completely blue. The water is so clear that you can almost see to the bottom of it. I bascially just run around the entire time jumping over crevices and streams of running water and up on the side of hills. I figured the guides would eventually yell at me and tell me to stay in line and follow the makeshift path they have decided upon but they leave me to own devices and let me play. The entire experience was very cool.
Eat lunch back at the base camp and I find out that Princeton has eating societies. Yes, eating societies. It's like a sorority but instead of chicks getting wasted and pulling down their draws and allowing random guys to bang em, they get together everyday to eat and probably talk about foreign policy issues and politics. Sounds pretty gay to me. I'm actually glad I'm not all that smart and ended up at a place like Princeton. I would have had to beat up myself. As we are walking back to the boat we see a huge piece of ice violently rise to the top of the lake and make a huge wave. A piece of the glacier broke off from below and the result was nothing short of spectacular. On the boat everyone gets a glass of scotch served with 300 year old glacial ice which I thought was a nice touch.
Fin
