El Calafate

Well here we are in Argentina, the home of Eva Peron and Marge and Tina. Our itinerary is:

• 3 days in El Calafate in the deep south of Patagonia
• 2 weeks in Bariloche in Argentina's Lakes District which borders Chile and the Andes and is in northern Patagonia
• 2 days at the Iguazu Falls
• 9 days at the end in Buenos Aires.

For the first week we were joined by our friend Manuela and her friend Martin - both Swiss. We loved the time we spent with Manuela in 2009 and now we have added another Swiss friend in Martin - and not just because he speaks wonderful spanish. But let's get started with the first few days in El Calafate. The first day we hired a car and went for a drive to the Parque Nacional Los Glaciares with the aim of doing some hiking. As it turned out the park doesn't really have hiking trails but the drive to, and around, the Park was beautiful. A mix of striking mountains, lakes and steeps (like prairies). We had lunch at a magnificent view point, and as it was a clear day, we all enjoyed some time in the sun.


The following day we went back to another part of the Park on an organised tour to visit the Perito Moreno Glacier. It was stunning. The size of the thing is breathtaking. The edge of it that fronts the lake is 5km wide, and it runs back up the valley for 25 km (its 257 square km in total surface area').


They have an elaborate walkway system opposite the end of the glacier and we spent 2 hours there looking at the glacier from various view points. The weather was a cold and foul at that point, but we got to witness a large piece of the glacier "calving off", meaning it broke off and fell into the water. Dale caught it in a series of photos which he's very happy about. The photo below is one in the sequence.


After lunch we took a boat trip across the lake and after a short hike through the forest, we set out for 90 minutes walking on the glacier itself. It was fairly rudimentary, but to see the different colours of the ice as you looked into melting pools and crevices was something to see. Dale got to play with his relatively new macro lens for the shot below of a tiny leaf floating in a melting pool.


David particularly liked how the trek ended, with a glass of Famous Grousse and glacier ice. So this was another long day, with the tour returning us 10 hours after we'd set off. By the time we had dinner we were very tired. Here's a picture of David going back for his second whiskey.



On our final day in El Calafate we took a boat trip on Lago Argentino to look at some other glaciers, and also the Perito Moreno from a different angle. It was pretty cold but some of the sights were impressive. Yes Dale is listening to Evita on the ipod. For the afficianados he was listening to the original concept album.

High jinx from Martin and Manuela in the warmth inside the boat. Those Swiss people aren't silly.

About half way through the trip Dale and I realised that our flight to Bariloche that evening had been rescheduled an hour and a half ahead of the original time - it was going to be tight. Manuela and Martin stayed on in El Calafate for an extra day. There was no point panicking while on the boat but there was a run from the bus to the hotel and 'rapido rapido' in the taxi. We made it to the airport about 10 minutes before the new departure time and fortunately Aerolineas Argentinas lived up to their reputation of not being very punctual by running 45 minutes late. Punctuality is over estimated anyway.

More from Bariloche next time.