Tommy in South America: Perito Moreno Glacier

Woke up and feeling lazy in the morning. we still need to finalise our booking to El Calafate. We can either go today or tomorrow, depending on the weather, so no hurry. But then we decided perhaps we should set off today, to give ourselves 2 full days in El Calafate just in case weather is bad and we can change the mini-trekking day. Oh no, we are supposed to check-out at 1030am and it is already 10am now. Rush over to the tour agent to let her know we are still on the trip and will come back with cash to pay her. So off we go in a mad rush to gather our stuff and check-out with the grumpy looking counter staff who wasn’t sympathetic about extending the check out time. Weighing out the cost to book through the tour agent or go independent, the crunch is, to pay in pesos means drawing 7 times from the ATM which has a limit of $1000 and charges a convenient fee of 17+ peso each withdrawal. That does not seem money-wise. We explored other options like paying in USD, but exchange rate quoted by tour agent was bad. So we went looking for a money changer, and were pleasantly surprised to know that they can offer us a better rate if we come back at 4pm (the time when the bank closes). Black market? But we venture further along the street, and found a Western Union (thanks to this kind soul from the hotel) which gave us a bonus rate. In total we gain some USD200 by choosing Western Union! The leg-work paid off. Rush back to the tour agent to pay and print our vouchers and grab some lunch to bring along and hail a cab to the airport just in the nick of time.

Calafate is the coldest place that I flew into. Going out of the airport and before getting into the bus, I’m like already been frozen solid. I wish that I have more insulation, both inside and outside body. When we reached our hostel, I’m so glad that the room is heated, but the bathroom is not and going to shower is an agony.

Excitement of Day 1 of our visit to the glacier started even before we reach the glacier. On the road along the highway, we saw a raptor with a European rabbit in its talon…..fresh kill…nice! The leaves on the trees turned an impressive reddish tinge as autumn is upon us. The snow-capped mountains with the reddish trees make a very pretty sight.

On the 1^st lookout point the glacier did not seem so big until we saw the catamaran going beside it. The glacier is 60m high and 8km wide. Still not so impressive. We then boarded the catamaran and sail to within 300m of the glacier, then the immense size of the glacier is upon us. As the sunlight hits the glacier, it glows a beautiful bluish tinge. It is a magnificent sight, and we were totally awe by the view. Then came a loud cracking boom, and we saw huge column of ice crashing into the lake.

Coming back on land, we went to the balcony overlooking the glacier. There are walkways to various balconies overlooking the glacier and we took our lunch there and kept a lookout for ice calving. The cracking of the ice and the loud collapsing boom of the ice calving is just so exciting.

Next day, we went to the glacier again but this time we went trekking on the ice. We rode the catamaran to the side of the lake and put on crampons to go trekking on the ice. The view while walking on the glacier is totally different from viewing it from the catamaran. We took a 2-hour trek around the glacier and ended with the guide giving each of us a glass of whiskey with glacier ice that is older than the whiskey.