El Calafate (23-25 Jan 2020)

After dropping the hitchhiker i picked up earlier at the Ruta40 junction, I continued on to El Calafate. The sunny weather that had been with me since El Chalten, didn’t extend all the way to El Calafate. It was gloomy. But after awhile, even El Calafate turned sunny, but the temperature was still chilly. When I reach the Hielo & Aventura office, they told me that the big Ice Hike tomorrow at Perito Moreno glacier will likely encounter rainy weather still. Sigh. I went to an equipment shop to rent rain pants to prepare for tomorrow.

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I reached the American Del Sur Hostel up the hill, and to my surprise, my El Chalten roommate that I didn’t speak to, was checking into the hostel. She asked me jokingly what was I doing there. I was assigned the room Galapagos. Rule is: There is only one room key in each room, and the last person has to lock the room and hang the room key at the board near the reception. Also no soup and shampoo will be provided, same as the hostel in El Chalten. Later, I found out that the UK gentleman I met in the equipment rental shop in El Chalten also checked into the same hostel. We both were at Fitz Roy doing sunrise viewing on 22 Jan 2020, rented gear from the same store, and now ended up in the same hostel in El Calafate.

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The room that I was assigned. Hint hint?

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I got a lower bunk bed, one of my roommates was a German lady (J), and another two are gentlemen from UK (C). J is travelling for 7 weeks, while C is on his 2nd week of a 5-month vacation after resignation. It was sheer coincidence that J was also doing the Big Ice Hike tomorrow. I went to the town with J for grocery shopping and dinner. We managed to get a table at a restaurant called La Zaina which has pretty good reviews. Shortly after we got our table, another couple who tried to walk in without reservation was turned away. The decorations were good, food wise not really to my taste. I also tried their beer, but J prefer lighter beer than the dark local beer they have. The view outside the hostel was so nice. I took some pictures.

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The next morning, J and I woke up really early as we have 7am pick up for our Big Ice Hike. Another lady from Canada was also doing the trek today. J was complaining that the bed was so hard, she did’nt get a good night sleep.

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The free breakfasts served were not bad at all. The smaller buses will pick up passengers to feed the long bus that we will be taking to Perito Moreno Glacier. Leo was our guide on the bus that day. The drive to the national park was very scenic. Half way through, the bus stopped at an entrance to a 4-star hotel. The hotel couldn’t even be seen from the main road. I was shocked by the price of the hotel when I went to google it. If you want to splurge, this hotel that is not near to El Calafate can be your consideration. Just driving out from hotel to the main road is quite far.

Website of this luxurious hotel for your next booking :)

https://www.eolopatagonia.com/

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Chauffeur service from the hotel lobby to the main road to connect to our bus.

The Perito Moreno Glacier has 250 km2 of ice formation, 30 km in length. It was named after the explorer Francisco Moreno, a pioneer who studied the region in the 19th century and played a major role in defending the territory of Argentina in the conflict surrounding the international border dispute with Chile. Despite that most of the innumerable glaciers worldwide are retreating as a result of global warming and climate change, one of the few unusual glaciers that maintains a state of equilibrium is the Perito Moreno glacier because it continues to accumulate mass at a rate similar to that of its loss. The reason remains debated by glaciologists. There are times where the tongue of the glacier touches the dry land, and block the channel that links the two glacial lakes (Laguna Argentina and Laguna Roca). This blockage will cause the level of one lake to be higher than the other, and eventually the water pressure of the higher lake will collapse the blocking glacier tounge and cause spectacular rupture.

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The rainbow was hanging on the glacier due to the drizzle. Also thanks to the rain, the ice blocks at the Perito Moreno Glacier broke off frequently. We saw some spectacular loud breakoffs while we were at the viewing platform. The glacier was constantly rumbling and shredding its pieces from time to time.

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We boarded the bus again at 1030am to continue our journey to the pier. The ferry came shortly after. We finally arrived at the refugio where our trekking guides were waiting for us. Here we will put on helmets and harnesses before trekking for another 20 minutes to collect our crampons. The 40 of us are separated into 4 groups of tens. I was assigned Group 4 together with J and follow the 2 guides Walter and Juan. Walter was a very funny guy, he could even speak Korean, much to the delight of the few Korean trekkers. Juan knows cameras well and was impressed by my camera. After we wore our crampons, we set our feet on the ice field. Only those below 50 can do this trek, and only 40 places are available. Those who book last minute might face disappointment.

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Last section of the trek before we put on crampons was steep.

In our group, there were an Indian couple, somehow after awhile the guy didn’t continue due to his knees condition, and the lady was not sure of her steps in the hike, so normally I stayed at the end just to keep an eye on her. Later J told me that the guy went to join the mini-hike instead. Mini trekking is a shorter trek on the ice, whereas Big Ice hike has longer duration, has age restriction and will allow trekkers to venture further into the glacier. There were many mini-trekking trips in a day, but only 1 trip of 40 trekkers in Big Ice.

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First stop was a blue tunnel. We were able to walk through the tunnel of blue ice and emerge from the top of the hole. We also saw ice “window” during our lunch time. There were times where Walter or Juan will use rope tie to our harness so that we could see the water flow that carve the ice.

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After 3 hours on the ice, we were finally led back to the same place to return the gear. There was a condor resting at the cliff nearby, Juan decided to pursue the condor. He just hop from glacier across the ravine and went up the slope to go after the condor. The condor got startled when it saw Juan appearing out of nowhere and flew away.

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We were treated to chocolate and a glass of whiskey on board the ferry. Celebration time!

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By now the sun was shining bright on the glacier. Each of us were also given a key chain that has the word BIG ICE on it as momento. I went to the top deck to enjoy the breeze now that the rain was gone. The US couple were telling me their Galapagos adventure and asked me consider going there as it was amazing. The couple drove here on their own. Later I heard from them that they had a flat tire on the way back.

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We alighted at town to get some groceries before walking uphill back to the hostel.

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J was thinking of having dinner at the hostel itself. On offer was spinach ravioli and red wine at 700 pesos. J already met my previous roommate and she got to know here better. Apparently, this previous roommate (A) was from Belgium. There was another guy from Holland who were in our table. He managed to get last minute ticket at great price (USD5000) at Quark Expedition, and his other roommate paid 15k USD for it. He even got a free parka from Quark which he could use for his Aconcagua trekking later in the trip. Such a great deal he got. His expedition there was awesome.

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The sunset in El Calafate was amazing, I couldn’t help but bring out my camera. This is also the first time I saw the sunset, cos normally I sleep earlier than the sunset for the past few nights. The sun set around 10pm. There was a band playing at the dining area and donation envelope was put on the table.

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The two UK guys already left, we had two more ladies in our room. J was joking that yesterday was 3M1F, today was 3F1M.

Checked out in the morning to go Perito Moreno Glacier one more time on self-drive. First, I pumped the petrol as there was not much queue in the morning. I ever saw long queue of cars in the evening at the petrol station.

With the sun out, the glacier was beautiful, though the rupturing was not as frequent as yesterday. I managed to reach there around 930am, hand out for about 1 hour, before driving back to the airport.

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I picked up an Italian at the roundabout near the town, he was heading to Bariloche, but I could only drop him off at the junction to the airport. He was telling me Spanish and Italian have much similarity actually.

Turning left into the road leading to the airport was quite cute. One has to turn right and turn left and wait in front of the stop line, then cross the main road to the airport. Lucky this time there was no queue for returning car, so it was quite a breeze to return the car to Avis.

After I got my boarding pass from the counter, one lady called me but I could not remember who she was. She said we met at Fitz Roy. Gosh, I totally could not remember ever talked to her, so embarrassing.

Adios El Calafate!

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