Patagonia - Part One - March 14 & 15

Friday...Mar 14

A dream come true for me - as long as I can remember, I've wanted to go to Patagonia. It's beautiful, foreboding, majestic, larger than life. The flight from Buenos Aires to El Calafate is 3.5 hours, and we arrive early afternoon on Friday. As we disembark, the snow-capped Andes are off to our right, and on our left is nothing but desert (visually, very much like New Mexico). The air is crisp, the sky is crystal clear, and the sun is strong.

From the airport, we drive the 15 minutes to El Calafate, check into our hotel:(http://www.kostenaike.com.ar/) .....

.... and immediately go out exploring. There are shops, restaurants, markets and a casino. Many of the buildings and houses are log-cabin style or colorfully painted. I am surprised to see so many rose and lavender gardens, and the latter are huge by Cape Cod standards.

The population of El Calafate is around 8,000. There are also a lot of very mellow dogs, curled up lounging in the sun, or visiting with each other (yes ..... just like a group of friends hanging out), or walking along the sidewalks with purpose (just like people) with some destination in mind. It's very funny to watch as most of the time there are no people accompanying the dogs.

Our initial observations are that the town has quite a few South Americans taking long weekend vacations and very fit backpackers and mountain trekkers from around the world. For the first time in three weeks we are hearing a bit of English spoken on the streets.

Even though we've lathered ourselves with sunscreen (SPF 30), after 2 hours we are sunburned, so we upgrade to SPF 70. After a quiet evening (it gets dark around 9:00 now, but during the height of summer, we hear it stays light till 1:00 a.m.) we go to bed, eager for our trip to Perito Moreno Glacier on Saturday.

Saturday... Mar 15

Up early, the temperature is mild (feels like high 50s), the sky is blue, and there is absolutely no wind. We take a bus to the first (Perito Moreno) of 6 glaciers we will see in Glacier National Park over the next 2 days. The Perito Moreno is spectacular - it covers an area of approx. 200 sq. kilometers and is 70 meters high at the point where it meets Lake Argentino ( and another 130 meters deep below the surface). Note: this glacier is actually sitting on the floor of the lake and not floating like many glaciers in other parts of the world.

The ice is white with areas that are incredibly blue, and we are standing on a series of walkways, "the balconies", directly opposite it. Occasional calving of the ice causes a loud booming sound similar to that of a large bore rifle shot. It's pretty outrageous - but the best is yet to come!

After a picnic lunch, we take a boat across the Lake...

where we are met by experienced guides ( www.hieloyaventura.com ) who will lead 10 of us as we trek up the glacier. They suggest we leave our backpacks and assorted belongings at "base camp" so as not to weigh us down. We don't even need to bring water as glacial water is very safe and a "suggested" treat to drink.

It's also mandatory to wear gloves as the ice is very abrasive and will cut your hands. We're given an "orientation" and then we hike for about 20 minutes, first through this ancient forest, and then across the beach, which feels somewhat like the moon,

before we put on crampons and spend the next 2 1/2 hours trekking up (and then down) the glacier.

we are taught how to walk on level ice (feet shoulder-width apart), how to ascend (walk like a duck...feet pointed slightly out) and descend (leaning backwards on slightly bent knees).

Single file, we slowly ascend...sometimes traversing paths as narrow as 14 inches, with ice sloping down on either side.

There are deep blue crevasses criss-crossing the ice and water-filled "sink holes" that we drank from.

The guides occasionally have to pick-axe "steps" in the ice if the slope is too steep and there is David, taking photos of the entire experience (between the 2 of us, we took about 500 photos over the course of 2 days).

And, just before we complete the trek, at the foot of the glacier, is a makeshift "bar" - and we toast our success with Famous Gross scotch chilled with glacial ice.

We both agree that, with the exception of flying our plane, this is definitely the coolest thing we've ever done!

That's it for now as it's been a long day....more tomorrow!