I need to get these last few blogs finished. My trip ended over a month ago and I’m still catching up, life gets in the way as they say!
We drove out of El Chalten and back south the 214 km to the town of El Calafate. It’s a rather touristy town on the shores of lake Argentino, it still feels remote though. It transpired we had booked into a hotel with rather thin walls and floors. Jayne does not sleep well at the best of times but even I struggled here. We were both developing colds too so neither were on top form.
The next day we had booked a boat ride on the recommendation of one of my walking friends in the UK (Thanks Sarah M) a good suggestion. The trip took us onto the huge lake and along some of the deep inlets (I hesitate to say Fiord because I think that is exclusive to glacial valleys that reach the sea) and on to see the glaciers. It was rather nice pootling along looking out of the huge windows.
The glaciers here are shrinking but some do reach the waters of the lake. Jayne was up on deck much of the time. I wasn’t feeling 100 percent, but I did go onto the back decks away from the crowds and actually got some lovely views as the boat turned.
The boat trip offered gourmet boxed lunch but we opted out and took our own packed lunch to keep the costs down. Jayne did a sterling job keeping me fed! I did the driving and she sorted food for most of our trip.
We landed at an abandoned homestead and had a short walk. Until quite recently a family lived here in this very basic hut. And their job was to cull the mountain cows. Yes you heard me, mountain cows or more correctly Patagonian Criollo cattle. I know I mentioned before that we had seen cow hoof prints in the mountains. Well these cows are feral descendants of Spanish cattle and they have thrived in this hostile landscape since the 1600’s. There were efforts to control them because they strip the landscape but more recently there are also efforts to conserve them as they are now a species in their own right.
Once we were dropped back at the lonely little port we set off back to El Calafate. We had a couple of stops to bird watch in the marshy patches before finding a brilliant restaurant ‘Pura Vida’ for the best meal of the trip.
The next day after another night of poor sleep we went back to the Perito Moreno Glacier by car. We stopped along the way to watch birds. We even got ‘told off’ after we entered the National Park as you are not allowed to stop unless it’s a proper car park. Jayne was still keen to stop but as I was the driver, it wasn’t happening!
We reached the walkways that are opposite the Glacier.
The views were wonderful and occasionally you would hear a huge cracking sound and maybe glimpse bits calving off into the lake. The huge ice sheet moving and cutting out a valley, in action, albeit very slowly. And to think at one time Europe and England were also carved out in this fashion.
We had one more night in sleepless El Calafate and then we went native……sort of.
The Travelling Bee 