After a day recovery in Puerto Natales (including clothes washing! and 2 steaks) we headed to El Calafate bracing ourselves for one of Argentina´s most touristy towns. It gets 250,000 plus tourists a year and is only 20,000 locals. There are hostels, hospedajes, hotels, tours, gourmet food shops, artesans, restaurants and anything else a tourist would want everywhere BUT at least it has a little park and is more organised then El Chalten.
We found an ok place to stay (Chiloe) or it was til we discovered the owner and permanent residents there smoked continously in the kitchen, corridors, etc. Gross. Plus it had the worst supplied kitchen ever. 2 forks (seriously), 5 plates, 3 knives, 2 spoons altho ample pots and pans - one big enough to swim in! The best part was the tea towel - I have never seen anything as bad as it - it was a dark, brown, green, dont touch me colour - and I actually saw the owner drying things with it. Needless to say we washed anything we used very well before.
On sunday we splashed out and headed on an upmarket tourist tour to Upsala Glacier. With no other backpacker in sight but plenty richer type tourists aboard off we set on the bus to Puerto Bandera. There a company called Ferdanaz Campbell have a flotilla of catarmans to whisk tourists off on daytrips to all the glaciers. Its serious business and there must have been 1000 people at least headed off. Really good boats tho with good viewing areas altho got a bit frenetic as we neared each glacier despite the fact the captain always hung around for ages so everyone got good photo chances.
We set off down Lago Argentina where we saw our first icebergs. The scenery is very pretty to look at with big steep mountains which are dry at first and then become more forested as we got closer to the glaciers. First stop was at Onelli bay where we walked about 1km to a lovely little lake full (well maybe half) of icebergs. Stayed there for a very peaceful lunch gazing at Onelli glacier plus at least 2 more I cant remember the name of with big mountains and trees everywhere. From there we headed onto Glacier Upsala which is just HUGE (21 kms long 8 kms wide or something like that). It had about 4kms of icebergs in front of it ... and I mean some of these were massive towering over the catarman, all funky shapes and intense blue colours in the sunshine. Really amazing to sail along between them all. We went to within 800m of the glacier but no nearer cos if one of those big chunks peeled off ... well obviously thats a big wave and we wouldn´t want to sink in those cold waters! Its weird tho cos it felt much closer then this. Its really hard to get a perspective on this glacier and in a way it was the icebergs that made it cool rather then the fact that its the biggest, longest widest glacier in the park.
We then headed to Spegizinni glacier which has the highest front (ie the part that mets the lake - not sure if I have my technical terms right here tho) which stole the day. The back drop on the right is a really high craggy mountain (in English the guide said it was called the Devil´s Whore - hard work for him to get up there ;)) with hanging glaciers dripping off to feed into Spegizinni and then on the left is a reddish mountain with snow and glaciers on it as well. You can see all the glacier which is really steep and the front is massive - 80m-120m high. Thats the width-length of a football field. Hard to imagine that much ice really. Even looking back on the photos it doesn´t seem that big but it is. Really really fantastic place and once again the sun smiled on us all day long. Highly recommend this tour cos its worth every cent we paid just remember to bring your own lunch!
Took a break the day after as my tummy has thrown a hissy fit at the variety, (and lack of) quality food thats been dumped on it in the last few months - ah well nothing that a day or 2 of sleep didn´t fix (plus trying to eat normal food - not sure what we will do when we go hiking again).
Perito Mereno was the last glacier we had to see so of course we couldn´t miss the world´s most famous glacier. Spent 3 hours staring at it yesterday willing massive blocks to fall off and saw plenty spectacular and loud smaller chunks but no full top to bottom chunks. Of course one did just as we got on the bus (doh) but thats a glacier for ya!! Its a really great setting tho and you just can spend a morning or afternoon standing around on terraces waiting for action. Very beautiful surrounds and once the mad rush after everyone arrives ends then its also very peaceful. Most people seem to get bored and head back to the cafe and bus after an hour so hardly anyone around either (to the point we thought we´d missed the bus). Well worth the trip also altho I think Spegizzinni has won the accolade of best glacier in the Los Glaciers NP for me.
Took the bus back down to Puerto Natales today and heading on the 4 day ferry tomorrow to Puerto Montt so archipaelagos here we come!!
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