Perito Moreno Glacier

After heading out to the bar late last night, it was great to sleep in a touch today, leaving the hotel at 9:00. We all hopped into a mini-bus along with a guide and driver and headed back into the Los Glacieres National Park, this time along Lago Argentino around 200km south of El Chalten. Los Glacieres National Park was the 3rd national park in the world, behind Yellowstone in the US, and Banff in Canada. Down here in Patagonia, there is a real feeling of being back home. There is the same clash of mountain and flatland culture. Patagonia was explored in the late 1800s and settled by European immigrants shortly afterwards. There are strong familial ties to Croatia, Scandinavia, Germany, and Austria, all with a Latino flair. Lago Argentino is the largest lake in Argentina and was named that by Francisco Moreno (who’s nickname was Perito meaning “expert”) who was sent to map inner Patagonia and mark the border between Argentina and Chile.

Lago Argentino is home to over 200 species of birds. Many of them stay there from October to March and migrate north for the winter (it was weird to hear that, as well as type that) some as far north as Canada.

After a couple stops along the lake, we made our was into the park and to the first viewpoint of the glacier.

The Perito Moreno Glacier is very different as it is one of the few in the world that is in balance (not receding, as nearly all in the world are, or advancing, as two in Chile are). It is moving just over 2m per day with the snow in the icefields adding to the ice that flows to the lake over 500 years. The glacier is about 50° south of the equator (about the same distance as Calgary is north of the equator) yet is in far better shape than what we have at home. The Patagonian Icefield is the 3rd largest icefield on the planet (behind Antarctica and Greenland) and fairs better due to the amount of precipitation. While the Antarctic and Greenland icefields have much colder temperatures they are deserts, and the  Patagonian Icefield has 10-12m of snow per year. This snow presses down on the snow below, compacting, forming ice, and becoming a glacier. So even though there are massive losses as the glaciers calve into the lakes (Argentina) and ocean (Chile) they are replenished from all the precipitation on the Chilean side of the border.

On the bus out, our guide did a great job explaining why there is so much more precipitation here in Patagonia than Calgary or Brussels on an equivalent latitude. And the answer is geography. The majority of all landmass is in the northern hemisphere, and aside from the south island of New Zeland, there is nothing as far south as here. Thus all precipitation from the southern Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans is focused here when everything is forced up over the Andes.

The visitor centre to the park is done up very well with good quality catwalks delineating where visitors can walk and observe the glaciers. Where the glacier meets the lake ranges from 60 to 100m above lake level, with an additional 100m below the water’s surface. There were a few catwalks to go and explore, but we found the best was just staying at the lower viewpoint, waiting and watching for ice to calve.

The place where the glacier meets Lago Argentino is at a peninsula separating a bay from the main body of the lake. This allows 3 fronts of the glacier to be seen and was truly spectacular.

We were back to our great Patagonian weather luck with only a light breeze and the temperature in the low 20s. This was great for calving too. It was hard to gauge how big the pieces of ice were that fell as the sound was so enormous. A small chunk (which was probably the size of a couch) would overshadow any conversation, and a large 60m tall sheet was almost deafening. And the wall of ice echoed and amplified everything.

After watching the glacier calve for over an hour, we headed up to the visitor’s centre for lunch then down for a boat tour of the southern face. The views were really good and the lighting produced some fantastic colours of blue and white, but we didn’t see any large pieces fall.

Pretty much everyone slept on the bus ride back to El Calafate, but then it was out to the Glacier Museum. The group of us decided we had heard enough about ice and didn’t want to see the 3D movie, so headed straight to the Glacio Bar that was all made with glacial ice (including the bar and cups). It was a balmy –8C but our friend from Los Angeles found it very cold.

It was an open bar for the 25 minutes you were in there so we went through a few vodkas which made sense in the ice glasses. I decided to remove my parka and gloves to show off my Canadian pride for cold weather enjoyment.

I figured I had been to a few CFL games that were colder. After some indulgence, we headed off to a pizzeria for a quick and early dinner (with malbec of course)  before packing (with another malbec) for our travel day into Chile tomorrow.

Viedma Glacier

Waking up on Thursday we were greeted by more typical Patagonian weather. It was a little drizzly while we were having breakfast and the wind was very strong. Typical winds in the region are a constant 50km/hr wind with gusts to 140km/hr, but thankfully ours was less than that. We packed up in the hotel and walked over for the transfer to the Viedma Glacier walk. Viedma is the largest glacier in Argentina and is the main outfall from the Patagonian icefields into Lago Viedma. The bus ride was about 20 minutes down a gravel road to the dock, then we boarded our catamaran to cross the lake.

We crossed the lake, which is a powdery green from all the rock-flour scraped away by the glaciers. The skies were so different from the previous days.

There were a couple of glacial icebergs in the lake. You can immediately identify glacial ice due to its incredible blue colour.

We took a quick pass the glacier (which towers 40m above the waterline) in the boat, before landing on the ice-scraped rocks and scrambling our way across to the get on the ice. We put crampons on the bottom or our boots and bundled up for the winds coming off the glacier, then began our trek across the ice.

I know we have glaciers that we can walk on back in Canada, but this was a really neat experience, with great views.

The glacier flows at about 2m a day out of the icefields and towards the lake. As such everything is different each day they go out. We had a good group of 4 guides that were there to show us how to walk on the ice and how to not fall down into a crevasse or down a slope.

After about 2 hours on the ice we were back scrambling across the rock to where the boat would pick us up and we headed back to town. The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, we were in a mini-bus for 3 hours driving back to El Calafate. El Calafate is about 30,000 people and is pretty much devoted to tourism. It was 500 people in 1985 when El Chalten was formed as a town, 9,000 in 2000 when tourism here became mainstream, and has tripled from then until now. It had a feel of a blend of Banff and Jasper just without being right in the mountains (it’s about 80km away from the Andes).

For dinner we went out as a group, Mike had a steak with eggs and french fries, I had lake trout with cream sauce and vegetables (a specialty in the region), and we paired it with a Malbec (of course). Dinner was fairly good, but not quite like the food on Buenos Aires, or the artisan restaurants in El Chalten. After dinner we continued on with some of the group to a local bar for some more wine and selling Canada as a great travel destination to others in our group.

Los Glaciares National Park

Today was an absolutely epic day in Patagonia. It was a bluebird day of clear skies, there was no wind, and the temperature was about 22C. Talking to our guides these days happen about 10 times through the entire tourist season. We were hiking through Los Glaciares National Park to the viewpoints at Lago de los Tres. We started by boarding a mini-bus to take us into the national park to the boutique hotel where we could start hike and get different views compared to the way down. After going along a river that looks like (and does) have amazing fly-fishing we cut into the forest and worked our way up to the first viewpoint.

It was a spectacular view up onto the glaciers and to the Fitzroy Massif.

Our hike was decent coming up to the base camp for climbers in the area then was a steep slog uphill; 450m vertical over 1km.

The view of the peaks at the top was great….

And that of the lake even better.

We all made it down to the lake and had our boxed lunch before taking a whole bunch of pictures.

There was another lake Lago Glaciares Mojades down over the lip of the valley which made for another set of great pictures.

After just over an hour at the top, it was time to head back down into the valley.

By this point, most of us were getting pretty tired, but we still had a fair ways to make it back to town. We worked our way down checking the view over our shoulders as we descended.

We kept working our way down and came back to the valley of Rio de las Vueltas where El Chalten is.

We finally made it back down to the town and competed our first solid day of hiking. It was a total of 22.7km with 750m elevation gain (450m being in the 1km spur trail up to the lake). Everybody was getting a little sore and tired by the end, but were still amazed by the amazing scenery and even better weather we had. We quickly showered and got ready for dinner where we went to a micro-brewery. After a beer to start both Mike and I had the lamb ravioli in cream sauce and had a bottle of Torrontes (white) and they were both quite good.

Lastly it was off to have ice cream to try the calafate flavour (a berry that grows in the area). It was pretty good, but didn’t quite live up to its billing. Now it is time for bed to do a glacier trek tomorrow.

Heading to Patagonia

After meeting with our group on Monday night, Mike and I headed off to the black market to exchange money at a much better than the official listed rate. Then it was off to find our way to dinner. We went again for steak and malbec; however, they were out of sirloin so we had rib eye. Needless to say we weren’t expecting two full steaks each…

They were delicious and tender, just a lot for one sitting. From there it was back to the hotel and to bed as we were up early to leave for the airport for an early morning flight.

We loaded up with the entire group in a minibus and headed off to the domestic airport before flying another 3 hours (2000km) further south, across the Argentinian desert to the town of El Calafate.

From there we met our tour guide, Neil, a 27 year old short, blonde guy from Toronto… small world. Our tour consists of 13 people, us plus another from Canada, 4 from Germany, 4 from the US, and 2 from Australia, We put all of our luggage in a trailer behind a mini-bus, loaded in with Neil and our driver and started to head north towards El Chalten. Right off the bat we saw a bunch of guanacos near the highway.

Like the llamas, alpacas, and vincuñas that we had seen in Peru they are a grazing “American camel” but unlike the rest they don’t have good meat or wool so they just roam around the desert. Apparently they leap gracefully over the barbed wire fences… usually unless they land on the fence and get caught, becoming food for condors. And unlike other condor populations, these condors are increasing in numbers (thanks to the fences). We stopped at a viewpoint outside Lago Argentino and it was quite breathtaking.

We continued on through the desert and saw a few rheas (essentially 1m tall Andean emus) but none photographed well. We stopped outside Lago Viedma at another viewpoint where we could see the Fitzroy Massif and the trademark view of Patagonia.

We worked our way into the tiny town of El Chalten which houses about 1300 in the winter and 3500 in the summer hiking season. It was in around 25°C, a great improvement on the -21°C back home. We dropped our bags off in our rooms and got ready for a short hike to shake out the legs after sitting all day. It was about 4km and 300m elevation gain going to two lookouts which were both amazing.

It is hard to make out, but there are tiny icebergs that have calved from the glacier floating in the lake.

After our hike it was back down to town for dinner which again was steak and malbec.

The food and wine is of phenomenal quality with a great price with either the official or black market exchange rate. Tomorrow we have a 14km hike through Los Glaciares National Park to see the glaciers and massifs up close.

Buenos Aires Day 2

After waiting until evening we headed off for dinner. While we were walking down Av Florida (a pedestrian walk) to find a parrillas (steakhouse) we found a cafe with a saxophone player outside so decided to stop for a bottle of wine at a cafe and enjoy the music and watch people. After staying there for a bit we found a good parrillas for a steak with malbec for dinner.

The steaks were phenomenal!!!! They had so much flavour. They were only salted before grilled over hot coals and you could taste nothing more than the fresh, grass-fed beef. After dinner (which was $75 for steaks and a bottle of wine) we wandered and found a pub with a patio for a couple of drinks before heading into Club Raw. Being a Sunday night after midnight, there wasn’t too much happening, so after a beer we headed back to the hotel and called it a night.

This morning, we slept in for a bit before getting breakfast at the hotel and heading out for the day. We walked down to the passenger port where you can take ferries to Uruguay (something we are considering when we are back here after the Antarctic portion of the trip). We continued down  a concrete boardwalk past an ecological reserve where there were small food kiosks that were prepping prior to lunch and the smells of churrizo and steak were fantastic. We cut back into the Puerto Madero neighbourhood and got back to the old port district.

In Puerto Madero was the interesting blend of old and new. The old port cranes and warehouses beside the new Puente de la Mujer bridge.

The bridge is automated and pivots perpendicular to the shore to allow taller ships and barges to pass. Right beside it was the Museo Fragrata Sarmiento which is an 85m sailing vessel that was part of the Argentinian navy from 1899 to 1937. A 26-sail ship plus coal fired engines which held a great notion of the transition from old to new world.

After fully exploring the open portions of the ship we stopped for some empañadas and beer. The amazing thing here is beer comes in 1 litre bottles.

We worked our way back towards the hotel and stopped in a cafe for a bottle of malbec. After enjoying the wine in air conditioning we took a stop in the Museo de Armas an arms museum that had a better collection of swords, guns, and other weapons than I have ever seen.

It was great to see the history from the initial Spanish settlers through the war of independence to the Falkland War and how some military equipment has transitioned a lot while others remains very similar. We picked up a bottle of wine from a liquor store and headed back to the hotel to get packed and prepped for our early flight into Pategonia tomorrow.

Arrived in Buenos Aires

Our flight from Houston was fairly uneventful. The plane was a little late arriving to Houston, so we left about half an hour late. 10 hours in the air isn’t so bad when it’s through the night and you sleep most of it away. And it was quite refreshing to make it into a destination during daylight hours when there is still time to see things and explore. We cleared through customs quickly, got our bags, and grabbed a cab for the 35km journey into Buenos Aires proper to our hotel in the Retiro district. Retiro is a business area so most things are closed being Sunday but it meant that we had more space to ourselves, like the nearby Plaza San Martin.

We stopped for a pizza and beer for lunch and kept wandering around. We went through the Plaza Libertad where we noticed many Porteños (people from Buenos Aires) were sunbathing (apparently a common practice). In the plaza there was a statue with an epic pose, and sometimes these need to be recreated.

We came across the Plaza de la Republica where an obelisk stands at the centre of an intersection of grid and diagonal streets.

It is fairly cool to be 10-15 blocks away and look up a street and see this obelisk towering in the distance. We kept walking and made it to the Plaza de Mayo and walked into the Catedral Metropolitana. It is a Roman Catholic cathedral on the original site of the first colonial church, and inside we found an icon more familiar to our Ukrainian  Catholic roots.

There were a couple of icons with a recognizable style showing some of the influence that Ukrainian immigrants have had. Also within the cathedral was the tomb of General Jose de San Martin, Argentina’s most revered hero of independence. He had military guards in royal dress guarding his tomb.

In addition to the original Spanish settlers, there were many Italians that came to Buenos Aires shortly after its founding, bringing with them some of their language (double Ls sound more of a zh than a y) and food (namely gelato). Dulche de leche is Argentina’s version of caramel and can be placed in any kind of dessert. Thus while wandering around, we had to stop for gelato and got 3 flavours: chocolate with dulche de leche, vanilla, and banana with duche de leche. It was amazing and flavourful.

Argentinians typically eat twice per day, a lunch between 1:00 and 3:00 in the afternoon and supper late at night (9:00 is early). So we are planning to go for some delicious Argentinian steak, but have to wait a while longer. Tomorrow we will meet up with our group leader and the rest of the tour group members before heading off into Patagonia early Tuesday morning.