Glaciars and Glaswegians

There is only one real reason to come to El Calafate and that is to see the Perito Moreno glaciar. I had double the normal numbers of reasons to come to El Calafate, as I was also meeting my dad there; a glaciar and a Glaswegian were awaiting me. As soon as we got off the bus I missed El Chalten. El Calafate is large and tourist-driven, has cash points that work (but like all over Argentina, these are empty on Sundays and Mondays after the weekend rush), mobile phone reception, working internet, shops selling everything a tourist never knew he needed, and a casino to boot. It is everything that El Chalten is not (but could be one day, so get there fast). Saying that, El Calafate is positioned next to a beautiful lake on which flamingoes and horses wander, and also makes for a handy hub after time disconnected.

I arrived with Christian, Emily and Daniel, we searched for a hostel and at last found a six-person dorm that was big enough for two people. When we had just managed to squeeze ourselves and our luggage into the room, two Dutch guys turned up with what looked like their entire houses in bags. It was going to be an intimate few days in the dorm room. As soon as we arrived in El Calafate, we started hearing rumours that the nearby border with Chile was closed due to protests. The guy at our hostel confirmed the bad news; the government wanted to raise gas prices by 17% and the people in the South (who rely on natural gas as a household fuel) were protesting by blocking roads and ports, and bringing the tourist industry to a halt. No-one was allowed in, no-one was allowed out. Christian and I were planning on crossing to Chile in order to trek Torres Del Paine, before heading south to Ushuaia for our flight to Buenos Aires. Oh dear, time to rethink our plan…

That evening I trundled up the hill towards the castle at the top (figuratively speaking, it was actually far too luxurious to be a castle). My dad was staying in an amazing hotel with views over El Calafate and the lake. I had not seen dad in three months and it was great to see him. His bathroom was bigger than our dorm room for six.

The King of the Castle

We had a glass of Malbec in the hotel bar before heading into town and sharing a cow for dinner, washed down with a bottle of red. We finished with a glass of Limoncello, and I felt well and truly tipsy as I stumbled down the hill to the hostel. Back at the hostel, a group of Argentines were singing with wine and a guitar in the garden, Emily, Christian and I joined them, until it started raining. We crawled over the backpacks and paraphernalia that littered the narrow path to our bunk beds, and I slept the sleep of a drunk (i.e., not great).

Glacial expressions

The next day, with a slight headache, we headed to the Perito Moreno glaciar. You can spy the glaciar from quite a distance, and it doesn’t quite look real. More like some man-made marvel in Disney. When we got out of the taxi at the viewing platforms, we bumped into dad who had been left to his own devices for a few hours at the glaciar, and who was ready for a coffee. From the viewing platforms you can see the glaciar continuing into the distance, but it is difficult to get a sense of size, as there is little perspective in what you are seeing. From the lake in the foreground, whiteness just stretches into the distance and areas of bright blue break up the whiteness.

We had been told that pieces of glaciar bigger than buses regularly fall off the glaciar face, but by the time we had eaten our lunch nothing was happening, and so we turned to leave. Just then we heard a crash like thunder and turned to see a huge piece of ice crumble and fall into the water. A big boat that had sailed close to the glaciar face, bobbed up and down in the waves caused by the crash, and the ice bus bobbed up and down in the water. Everyone in the crowd “ooohed” and “aahed” as though at a fireworks display. We didn’t have to wait long until the next display. It was hypnotic to watch the crumbling face of the glaciar and once I had witnessed it, I felt I could have stayed all day in anticipation for more. However we didn’t want to miss the boat, literally.

Ice from the glaciar face crumbling into the sea with a sound of thunder!

The boat gives you a much better perspective of just how large the glaciar is. For those of you who like numbers, the glaciar is 250 square kilometres in size, and 30 km in length, for those of you who like your numbers imperial, the glaciar is almost 100 square miles in size, and 19 miles in length. The average height of the glaciar above the lake is 240 feet or 74 m. For those of you who prefer words to numbers, the glaciar is huge-ormous! A spectacle that cannot really be captured in photos, but I have tried.

Approaching the glaciar by boat

And closer still

Christian being overshadowed by a piece of ice

After the enormity of the glaciar we walked alongside the lake’s edge in El Calafate, and saw flamingoes, horses and a kitten. Knowing that we were not going to be crossing the border with Chile, for at least a few more days, we made alternative plans to travel back to El Chalten for more trekking. We had seen a great deal in the window of a travel agents for a day’s trek and ice-climbing in El Chalten, and we went in to book… easier said than done. Anyone trying to book/plan/enquire about anything in South America, should make sure they have a few hours to hand, as nothing is ever straight-forward and simple. We sat with the travel agent for over an hour, as a queue formed behind us (of no concern to the agent) and she typed on her computer. For those of you familiar with the TV show Little Britain, try and imagine the David Walliams character tapping on her keyboard but to no avail “El Computadora dice No!” After a very long and unproductive wait in the travel agents, we left with almost (never quite) what we were looking for, and a bus ticket back to El Chalten.

That evening Christian and I ate at dad’s hotel before saying a brief farewell to dad (we would be catching up again in Buenos Aires), and heading into town. It was our last evening with our Israeli friend Daniel and we wanted to say goodbye in style. We searched for a lively bar and found nothing, so we settled for a dodgy-looking sports bar playing dreadful music. We planned on just staying for a couple of drinks, but as if my magic at about midnight, the whole population of El Calafate turned up (they must have heard we were there) and the music took a turn for the better. We danced the night away and crawled over the backpacks and into our bunk beds in the early hours, as the sun was rising. After very shutting our eyes temporarily, we said goodbye to Daniel and headed for the bus back to El Chalten. We tried all the cash points in El Calafate until we found one with money and left for El Chalten with money in hand. I was glad to be heading back to El Chalten and the Fitz Roy range, I hoped that the fresh air would clear my sleepy head and that the ice-climbing would be fun. Little did I know that I had the most exhausting day of the trip ahead of me.