Patagonian Grand Adventure
Day Ten – 22 February 2014
Weather: I was in short sleeves looking at a glacier…need I say more?
Okay, now I’ve officially dubbed this the Rainbow Tour of Wow.
Kinda fits if you’ve seen Evita…Rainbow High.
I was up early. The music from last night went well after midnight.
No problem. Ear plugs.
I woke at 3:30 and took them out. All was quiet.
Breakfast was quite nice with a really nice tea and homemade white toast.
We were all on the bus by nine and on our way to Los Glaciares National Park to see Perito Moreno Glacier. Marcelo called this the highlight of the tour, and after Torres del Paine, I doubted anything could top that. But it could certainly come close.
On our way out of El Calafate, the bus driver slowed to give us a chance to catch some photos of flamingos.
It was about eighty kilometres to the glacier from El Calafate. The landscape went from barren scrub to lush forest almost on a dime.
Roseta said the ranches in the area were quite large because the grazing wasn’t that good and the sheep needed two to three hectares each.
Yes. Each.
The closer we got to the park, the land visibly improved and the livestock moved from sheep to cattle. All along the way, Argentina Lake was to our left.
It’s the largest lake in Argentina and is glacial fed. It’s quite deep and doesn’t freeze in winter. As well, there were boulders just sitting in the middle of nowhere. We have these at home as well. They’re called erratic boulders for obvious reasons.
We stopped at the park entrance and Roseta went in to pay our fee and get brochures for us. She also handed us a little white garbage bag. She said there were no garbage bins in the park and they wanted everyone to remove their own garbage. Even smokers were asked to take their butts with them.
As the saying goes, take only photos and leave only footprints.
I didn’t ask what we should do when we go to the ladies room.
She also warned that we were not permitted to take souvenirs. No ice, rocks or plants etc.
We made a quick stop into the only campground in the park for technical reasons (another way of saying ‘bathroom stop’). As I came out, everyone was looking up at a tree, and sure enough, there was a parrot just sitting there, looking cool.
Frankly, a parrot was the last bird I expected to see in Patagonia.
We carried on for another thirty minutes to the glacier. Roseta told us that the Moreno Glacier was famous for a few reasons. I caught two. One was that it was not the largest but is the most easily accessible, yet Moreno, the explorer it was named for, never set eyes on it. He was busy helping Argentina and Chile settle their differences, and for that, he was granted a lot of land around Bariloche.
He donated the land so that it could be made into a park, and for that reason, he is known as the father of the national parks in Argentina.
The other reason was that it is a glacier in equilibrium. Unlike more than 85% of the glaciers around the globe, this one is not receding, but it’s actually not advancing much either. It’s receiving enough snowfall to make up for what it loses into the lake. (Remember, a glacier is formed from snow which falls and is then compressed over years to form ice.) It is one of three that is not receding globally. Every other glacier is losing volume at an unnaturally accelerated rate.
As we drove around the last few curves before the glacier, we noticed a rainbow in the sky.
Would you believe it?
Yes! The rainbow was sitting on top of the glacier.
So, lets add up our luck today – it’s sunny, it’s warm enough for t-shirts, we’re going to see a massive glacier and there’s a rainbow sitting on it.
We pulled into the main park lot next to the visitor’s centre which had a snack bar and bathroom, but the bus would park a kilometer away where we’d meet it when we were done. Roseta told us to meet at the first balcony in two and a half hours so that we could all walk to the bus together on the boardwalk.
Roseta brought us to a map and suggested we take a photo so that we didn’t get lost. It wasn’t hard. We’d be walking the blue trail on the right to get to the bus, so we could stick to the two areas in the middle and to the left and then work our way to the right as the time expired.
The board walk was actually a metal mesh that you can see through as you walk.
I’m skittish about walking on a surface that I can see through, but the board walk wasn’t that far above the ground so it wasn’t so bad. I passed one woman whose knees were knocking, but after the first set of steps, the rest was almost at ground level.
We got to the first balcony and Roseta lets us loose. We could hear cracks and pops and even what sounded like gunshots. Some were followed by a splash.
Every time we heard a crack, it was like a bell was ringing. We were all like puppies belonging to a guy named Pavlov turning to face the glacier with our cameras raised.
I got a nice panorama of the glacier.
And then I headed off on the boardwalk to the left.
It was a long circuit route but I didn’t go to the bottom. The mind was willing, the knees were not.
But you don’t need to do the full circuit.
The view was fine from the upper section, and best of all, few others took that walk. I could lean on the railing and listen to the cracks and pops and hope to catch something calving. I caught at least three instances of ice crashing into the water on video.
Click here for the best of the three calving videos and watch it to the end for a little surprise. I happened to be surrounded by a bunch of teenagers when it happened.
I hung in the area for almost an hour and made my way to the centre area which was a series of overlooks which were quite crowded.
I took my time walking up to the first balcony, taking pics and video all along the way.
I caught another decent calving events.
What a magnificent sight. The glacier is about eighty metres high and we could see tour boats on the lake but they didn’t get that close to the glacier for obvious reasons.
I met up with the group and we started the walk to the bus along the coastal route to the right.
All along the way we could hear the cracks and splashes and all we wanted to do was run back.
We got to the parking lot and there was a Coke with my name on it. It took us an hour and a bit to get back to the hotel and we arrived at a respectful 3:30 pm.
Power shopping time!
My poor feet carried me up and down the main drag three times picking up odds and ends. I remembered to get water for a change.
I got back by six, and an hour later, we left the hotel for an included dinner at a local restaurant just around the corner. Lasagna was on the menu and I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking pasta, cheese and ground beef.
In Argentina, they don’t ground the beef. Your lasagna has chopped up beef inside with eggs, pasta and some cheese.
Delicious!
We were done by nine and got back to the hotel just as the music started up the street. I got out my earplugs but checked the weather for Ushuaia first. Now, for the last month or so, I’ve been watching the weather in Ushuaia and it was always cloud icons with wind or rain. I never once saw a sun icon.
Well, this was the Rainbow Tour, and for tomorrow and Monday, the forecast for Ushuaia was sunshine.
It was too good to be true. Something had to go wrong somewhere.
Then the fireworks started outside.
Go to Day Eleven
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