Perito Moreno Glacier Glaciers National Park

March 21, 2012

Note: today I had an undiscovered thumbprint on my camera lens, so some editing might be noticeable in some of the graphics.  Sorry.

Yesterday we abandoned the Torres del Paine Tour just so that we could have enough time to do something here today.  David has signed us up for an all-day excursion to what might be Argentina's most popular tourist attraction.

Our guide is taking the back way from El Calafate on a dirt road, so that we might see more.  Almost immediately he begins to identify several types of birds, one of which is a black-crested eagle trying to carry off a hare twice its size.

All of these early photographs must be shot from the moving bus, however; for no one else is interested in stopping.  In fact, no other camera is in evidence among the passengers.

Early morning on the pampas

What a pose

My only photograph of rhea

Condors — the Argentinian version of vultures

Finally, our bus does stop at a remote way-station — a little farm where the proprietor sits around munching salami and waiting, seemingly unconcernedly, for the next busload of captive-audience patrons.

Isn't he cute?

The resident cat is very friendly, purring madly.  At the same time, his buddy the baby guanaco is trying to find a way into the building.

That guy is up to something

The tiny goat also has made its appearance on the porch.  Something is afoot.  Presently, the farmer appears with a big pitcher of milk, which he places next to the cat, which promptly begins lapping it up.  Then the man produces a baby bottle and proceeds to feed the guanaco.

Snack time

The bottle is quickly emptied.  Refilling it, the man asks whether anyone else would like to try it; I jump at the chance.

What a treat, for both of us    ⇔⇔

Short people need love, too

Back on the road, we pass by a pond hosting a flock of birds, behind which is a single flamingo — the first one I have seen outside a zoo.

It's not pink, but it's a flamingo

Suddenly our destination comes into view, and it is breathtaking!

Perito Moreno Glacier

The bus stops at a seemingly arbitrary pullout, and we all disembark.  Apparently in order to satisfy some trekking requirement or other, we plunge down a hardly existing trail to the beach, then walk about half a mile over to a big pier where a tour boat awaits us.

Our exercise for the day
Inside the tour boat

It is nice and warm inside the boat; but within ten minutes, everyone is leaving the cabin to go outside, because we already are within a few hundred yards of the glacier itself.

Many days earlier, at a museum in El Calafate, we had watched a video of the collapse of a giant section of ice.  The two sections directly ahead are what remain of that event.

Now it's here, now it's not

Check out the blue center

Well, that was great; but the fun isn't over yet.  Our bus is waiting at the pier to whisk us a few more miles to the end of the road, where an amazingly elaborate network of boardwalks leads to more than a dozen viewpoints.  Of course, everyone hopes to see the glacier calving — that is, a piece breaking off at the snout.  Numerous benches have been installed to enable visitors to wait patiently for such an event; and it tends not to take long, because this glacier is advancing at a world-record rate of five feet per day!

In other words, act sensibly; this isn't Disneyland
A research tower for filming the glacial action

Unparalleled accessibility

Marvelous scenery

The area's rock formations are most interesting as well

The glacier flows into Lake Argentina, the country's biggest.  The wall of ice is three miles wide and has an average above-water height of 240 feet.

It's obscure, but the ice can be seen through the trees

It is difficult to appreciate the size of a phenomenon such as this just by looking at it.  The next photo should help to provide a sense of scale of this place.

Enlarge this image and check out the ice trekkers below the red arrow    ⇔

We return via a mundane paved road, on which it is just an hour and a quarter's drive back to town.  Despite that, this has been one fine day!

Inside our hostel