This post contains a lot of ice. To eat and not to eat. So be prepared, it's getting cold!
Today was the day of another highlight and favourite on my bucket list: The Perito Moreno Glacier on the south side of the Parque Nacional Los Glaciares. In the morning, we were picked up by our local guide Cecilia - a veeery funny woman that knew a lot of things about Patagonia. I was quite impressed!
We grabbed our lunch boxes (everything so well organized in Patagonia!!) and took a bus that brought us to the Glacier. On the way, we stopped for some great lookouts.
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| Our guide Cecilia - with Mate-tea off course. I should definitely google the amount-per-person of drinking Mate tea in Argentina! |
We didn't see anything of the Glacier until Cecilia put on some Starwars music with a countdown. She must have done this several times before, because just went it was 3...2...1... we drove around the corner and there it was: The impressive Perito Moreno Glacier!
The facts of this glacier are as impressive as the photos themselves: 30 km long, 5 kg wide (it has the size of Buenos Aires!!), 60 m high. Furthermore it's one of the most dynamic glaciers on eath: It's still growing 2m per day! You can almost feel that it's still alive - I was never too tired of listening the crackling of the ice and of waiting until some ice breaks, crashes down into the water, followed by some seconds of noise and massive waves. I have never seen anything similar to that!!
To get close to the glacier, we first took a boat. Seeing the glacier from that near is spectacular!
Afterwards, we changed perspective and strolled along the platform. The sight from above was great as well as you could see the actual size of the glacier. We were also quite lucky that the weather wasn't that good (first time I'm writing this!! :-) ) because the rain made the glacier look more blue-ish!
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| Yes, I felt a little bit like Olaf the snowman with all my layers and the glacier behind me! |
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| Some more Olafs of my group |
Ok, enought ice for now... The bus brought us back to Calafate. Along the way, we crossed beautiful landscapes again and saw some condors flying just above our heads. I'm normally not very interested in birds, but a bird with a wingspan of 3 m IS impressive, don't you think?
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| El Condor pasa |
After so much ice, we enjoyed a drink (with ice) in town. Calafate is quite a big city with a lot of restaurants, bars and shops. After dinner, some of our group decided to try the Calafate berry-icecream (never enough ice today). The yellow Calafate berry is famous because of a legend that says that if you eat this berry you'll come back to Patagonia. Well... I think eating the berry wasn't necessary, I'm quite sure I will come back anyway. But it hopefully speeds up the process! :-)
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| Good night, El Calafate! |
Once arrived in Puerto Natales and the obligatory ATM- and Wifi-Stop, we had a briefing with our 2 new guides Ana & Nicholas. They will join us for the 3-day-hike in the Torres del Paine-Nationalpark. They handed us sleeping bags and a yellow duffelbag for our belongings (the sleeping bag filled already 95 % of duffelbag, so no high heels for the next days). We prepared ourselves for 3 days of a lot of hiking and without any showers. As a preparation for the hard days that will come, we treated ourselves with a delicious dinner in town. The restaurant was called "El Bote" (Adress: Manuel Bulnes 380) and served delicious craft beer and yummy food. It was a very funny evening!