What an adventure! Every vacation should have an adventure. At
The fog and mist made this a beautiful ride, a little on the spooky side. We could not see the Torres de Paine towers (mountains), but did see llama-like animals, cormorants, sheep, green lakes, grass and a good gravel road that was quite winding and hilly. Unfortunately pictures didn't turn out.
Five or six of us spent two hours in Cerro Castillo watching the grass grow and sheep eat. We were all passengers and none of us knew what was going on. Our bus to el Calafate was late. The old tour bus rounded a corner, stopped and we all jumped quickly on for the ride of our lives.
Two hours driving on not much more than tractor tracks through a field. Then a paved two-lane road with narrow lanes, no shoulder with our bus usually straddling the center line. Things would get exciting when we’d meet another bus or car coming straight at us, also straddling the line. At the last second, a little do-si-do and we were all back on the center line. The last 40 miles had more holes, ruts and dirt than cement. We still spent a lot of time on the center line, except, of course, when we were in the left lane and left shoulder. We saw flocks of wild flamingos. Unfortunately, only two pictures turned out good enough to post. It's difficult to get good pictures on a bus when it's raining. We all agreed we’d just had a day to remember. It just happened to be Halloween.
Calafate is a frontier town. Backpackers, hikers, glacier climbers use this town as their base before and after their treks. There are some nice shops here. We stayed at the Hotel Sierra Nevada, a nice hotel right in town. We walked to it from the bus station. We went out for dinner, had Argentine beef which did not impress us. But, the price did. $2.50 for a complete full meal. What did impress us was the walk back to our hotel at 10:30pm. The stores were all open, restaurants full, and people walking everywhere.
Here we go again! Perito Moreno Glacier. 8:00am pickup for 1 ½ hour drive on another rutted, dirt road, then a 20 minute boat ride. Bathrooms at the glacier were nice but you had to put all used toilet paper in the waste basket. Interesting.
We hiked through the woods, put metal spiked things on the bottom of our feet, had a two-minute lesson, then started our glacier trekking. Here’s the lesson: Keep your feet apart or you’ll spike one ankle with the other foot; keep feet straight going downhill, your butt down and your shoulders back; step heavy to dig your spikes into the ice. ENJOY!!
And away we go! We fell, we stumbled, we spiked our own ankles, it was slow going for a while.
It’s glorious, difficult, impossible, heady stuff. Like Superman we leaped small streams of glacier water and laid on our stomachs to drink the glacier water, not an easy task while wearing spikes. Holes as deep as you could see filled with bright, blue water.
We were one hour and 40 minutes, nonstop, up down, and over the glacier. Only one of us made it to the top, but the rest of us almost made it. The reward at the end? Whiskey or glacier water over glacier ice. Then a long hike back through the woods. For the few who made it to the top the view was spectacular-360 degrees of breathtaking beauty.
We had lunch outside watching the toe of
the glacier, waiting for chunks to fall off
forming new icebergs. It was windy and
cold.
This is the only glacier in the world that is growing (2006).
Our return to
