Feb. 28, 2006 El Calafate, Argentina
Luckily, misfortune has not affected Terri or myself on this trip. The couple from Switzerland has been unable to join us due to one of them having an obstructed esphagus. Not a good thing! They've spent the last 2 days 150 miles from us at the closest hospital. In addition, we met Stacy from Calgary prior to dinner last night. This AM we learned she had a family emergency and will not be joining. So our group of 10 is down to 7 for the time-being.Today we woke up early and packed our bags. We grabbed a couple of those tasty sweet croissants, and a private tour bus whisked us off to Los Glaciares Parques Nacionales (Glacier National Park). Our guide, Frederico, was filled with knowledge and provided great details on the 90 minute drive into the park. Unlike the rest of our group, I've seen some glaciers in Alaska, Canada, Montana, and throughout WA State. It would take something big to impress me. And Wow, does this glacier do it. It's absolutely massive. The front face of it is 3 miles long and 200 feet high. Frederico said it also goes back about 200 km, back into Chile, which then merges into another glacier. That's one big chunk of ice. We boarded a boat cruise to garner a closer view, which was FREEZING cold and fun. I snapped about 150 photos today, so I'll need to thin them out a bit later. The other amazing thing with glaciers of this magnitude, is calving, or the process of them breaking apart and falling into the water. It is unexpected and hard to predict, and due to the size, VERY difficult to photograph. I did manage to steal a few images, so we'll see how they turn out. Regardless, unless you've seen this in person, it's hard to explain how loud it truly is when you watch ¨car to house-sized¨ pieces of ice fall off a 200 foot vertical cliff of ice. The only thing I could say is to imagine 100 shotguns going off at once. On one occasion I actually felt the pressure against my chest when the sound hit me. Not kidding.After a quick snack, we headed to the north side of the glacier for some hiking. It was nice to escape the crowds, as this is THE destination for this area. The other interesting aspect of this glacier is that it repeats a very unique process over the years. This glacier actually advances forward about 10 feet per day, and it blocks off the HUGE and BLUE Lake Argentina. In doing so, it dams up one side of it, and the water can reportedly rise up to 60 feet on one side. At this point, it can take one to three years before the pressure of the water will create a tunnel in the ice. Once this occurs, there's no stopping it. The water will erode that part of the glacier until there is a total collapse. There has been about 10 recorded events of this in the last 100 years, and our guide had pictures of it from the last one in 2004. It looks like a bomb going off, and reportedly the sound of the ice breaking up could be heard 20 miles away. Amazing. Right now, the ice is dammed and a very small tunnel is starting to form. It's been like this for about a year now, so no luck with the ice explosion for us...We took the bus back to El Calafate (Terri and I slept the whole way). At 6:30 we boarded the public bus (not bad) toward El Chalten. The ride was 4.5 hours, mostly down dirt roads winding through the desert. It was pretty amazing how desolate and barren this area is, as we literally didn't even drive through ANY towns in the nearly 5 hour drive. We arrived at the hostel in time for a quick bite and then bedtime.The hostel here is, to put it bluntly, terrible. It is a 2 story building with a restaurant and common area on the bottom. Terri and I were suprised to learn that we have shared accomodations upstairs with the British couple (Paul and Mufte) and Ted, the Aussie. This is not a major deal, but it was about 90 degrees in our room, the windows are sealed shut, and there is literally no space for 5 people, 3 bunk beds, and all our backpacks. It's crazy. In addition, the whole place smells like an ashtray due to all the smoking allowed INSIDE the hostel. It's not helping that our room is upstairs. This is one major difference between the US and Argentina, as smoking is clearly allowed almost anywhere--restaurants, internet cafes, hostels, shopping malls... I've already witnessed a few classy pregnant ladies smoking, and the only place I've not encountered it is the airplane. I hung out with Eddie till about 1:30 AM while we charged up our camera batteries. Time to hit the sack.
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