It’s expensive. 45.000 pesos for a day in the national park, which is about 45 euro. I decided to buy a one year national park pass for 200 euro instead, hoping to visit many more of Argentina’s parks. On top of that I shared in rental costs for a car. It was an expensive half day out. And one question remained: would I even enjoy this glacier after seeing so many mighthy ones in Antarctica? And with this thought we drove off.
It was 6.30am and I felt rough. The mattress in the hostel felt like a rock and I thought I was in the Flintstones. I stumbled around the kitchen, carrying out my new reusable coffee cup, a gift from the Antarctica travel agent, filled with tea. I joined 3 other travelers, 2 of whom were on my ship in the Antarctic. The drive to Los Glaciares national park was long, but very pretty. We arrived 15 minutes before it opened and there were already some cars in line. Even after the park gate it was a bit of a drive to the start of the walkways, but we were the second car in our parking lot. Let’s go!
It was a bit cloudy and the morning air was fresh. Luckily the stairs of the blue coastal way warmed us up. A Chimango flew in front of us and sat on the wooden railing. It let us get quite close, sat quietly for its photo shoot and then took off. It did this twice. It’s a brown type of falcon with very beautiful light accents on its feathers. We continued along the boardwalk, bordering the azul coloured lake Argentino. Step by step we got a better view of Perito Moreno glacier, a vast body of ice with an impressive height of about 70m in places. When we reached the front I was sure: glaciers could still impress me.
It’s just so different here. In Antarctica you could look around you and see many glaciers coming down the white and rocky mountains. Here the mountains didn’t have snow. We were walking between the trees and there was a completely different colour palette. Here, a glacier stands out, almost looks out of place, forcing itself down the mountain. It was fierce and wild and we heard a lot of rumbling. Many of it was from movement we couldn’t see, but then a chunck of the glacier broke off and plunged in the water, creating a wave and ripples through the water. For a while little waves kept hitting the edge of the ice.
Perito Moreno is famous for frequently calving icebergs. We got the biggest show after our coffee break though. We had climbed up to the top of the walkway and were now on our way back to the car. But our way was slow. The sun had made its appearance and therefore we wanted to take photos again. Suddenly we heard a loud sound. A gigantic part of the ice had fallen into the waters of Brazo Rico. It stayed under water for a while and reappeared as if in slow motion. It created even bigger waves, like a gigantic ice cube in a bowl of iced coffee. Or maybe it was a monster rising from the ashes, a phoenix, a zombie. Either way, I was in awe. It was impressive.
The whole walk back we kept hearing rumbling and looked for the next ice to come down. At some point we were taking a photo on a bench when we heard the sound. We all got up excitedly, but couldn’t find the source. Of course the biggest bang sounded just as we’d left and the majority of the glacier was hidden behind the trees. We drove off satisfied and tried to find some flamingoes on the way. We had no such luck. The wildlife of the day consisted of crossing bunnies and a hare, another really cool bird that flew past the car and a dead armadillo on the road. I took another walk around El Calafate town and settled on the hostel couch. Enough adventure for today. Oh, and nobody checked my ticket!
