Monday, February 27, 2023

Today was an exciting day! We visited Perito Moreno Glacier in Los Glaciares National Park.

First though, we fueled up at the buffet breakfast in our hotel. It was quite the spread! Aden was pretty excited to see an entire warming tray of bacon. That’s a food we haven’t seen a lot of in Argentina.

Tory’s favorite part of Argentinian breakfast is the chocolate caliente, or warm milk served with chocolate powder. The kids first learned about chocolate caliente in Ecuador when it was served every morning with breakfast. Tory and I were discussing how we never drink hot chocolate at home, but when traveling in Latin America she drinks it almost everyday. “If I asked for hot chocolate at breakfast, you’d be like ‘no way!’” Tory said. She thinks it’s a real treat having it here. Argentinian kids must also drink hot tea with breakfast because several of the lodges we’ve stayed at on this trip have asked Tory and Aden if they’d like tea with their meal.

I also noticed calafate jam on the breakfast buffet made with the Calafate berry. This berry only grows in Southern Patagonia.

After breakfast, Andi ran out to get a haircut at the barber shop next door to the hotel and pick up a few picnic items for this afternoon. Meanwhile, the kids and I did school in our hotel room. Around 11:00am, we hopped in our rental car and drove 1 1/2 hours to Los Glaciares National Park.

We can’t get over how striking the landscape looks here in Southern Patagonia. It reminds us of the western part of the United States with dry, flat fields dotted with sagebrush bushes. Except here, there’s striking snow-covered mountains in the distance and gigantic turquoise-blue lakes. El Calafate is situated on the shores of Lago Argentino — the biggest freshwater lake in Argentina and South America’s third largest lake. It truly is massive with color so vibrant against the dull brown foreground.

Andi stopped the car on the highway and attempted to fly the drone, but the wind was too intense. Instead, we snapped a picture of the kids and, not even joking, they nearly blew away in the strong wind gusts.

Oddly though, it was kind of warm outside. Today’s air temperature was 58 degrees and the sunshine helped it feel warmer. But whenever a big gust of wind would blow, we felt shivers down our spines. We couldn’t decide if we should wear coats, hats, and gloves to explore the glacier or if sweatshirts would suffice. Whenever Tory needs a little ventilation, she always raises up one pant leg. She’s done this since she was a toddler! She is our warm-blooded child, always complaining about being too hot.

At the entrance of Los Glaciares National Park, we paid $5,500 Argentinian Pesos / per person (or, about $14 USD using the Blue Dollar exchange), to get into the national park. Andi commented how nice Argentina’s national park system is with good infrastructure and signage. It’s the first place we’ve traveled outside the United States where this is the case.

We drove along a two-lane highway for about 20 minutes until we caught our first glimpse of the glacier. We also saw a small iceberg floating in the middle of the lake. Tory was the first to spot it: “Look! A real iceberg!”

We continued driving until we reached the first viewpoint called Mirador de Los Suspiros. Andi pulled the car into the parking lot and we all got out to see the glacier across the lake. It was so windy that we could barely stand in place at the viewpoint in order to see it. The glacier looked impressive from there. We kept driving closer.

Andi booked us on a half-day ice trekking adventure, but we weren’t due to check-in for that until 3:15pm. Therefore, we had about an hour of time to visit the boardwalk viewpoint in front of the visitor’s center. A series of walkways interconnected in front of the glacier to allow visitors to see the glacier up close. We thought the viewpoints from the top were better than the ones at eye-level so we could actually see the glacier over the tree tops. While walking along the metal walkway, we heard loud cracking sounds from the glacier. This is called “calving” and happens when pieces of ice fall crack and fall off the glacier as it moves forward. Perito Moreno Glacier is called a balanced glacier which means that it is growing as fast as it is melting. It takes about 10 years of snow accumulations to harden into ice and become part of the glacier ice field.

I also thought it was interesting to learn that Perito Moreno Glacier is the world’s 3rd largest freshwater supply. The glaciers on the Chilean side of the Andes Mountains fall off into the Pacific Ocean, but Perito Moreno melts into Lago Argentina. The brilliant shades of blue were just spectacular to see in person.

At 3:15pm, the four of us made our way to the port where we boarded a shuttle boat to Perito Moreno Glacier. Honestly, we were a bit underwhelmed by the experience at first. “I thought the boat would be a little bitter,” Tory murmured under her breath. We assumed part of the tour would be boating alongside the glacier, but in reality it was a means of getting from Point A to Point B.

The shuttle boat took us across the lake to the shore of Lago Argentino near the glacier. Our boat was split into two groups: English speakers and Spanish speakers. A woman named Florencia introduced herself as our English-speaking guide and invited us to follow her across the black sand beach to a make-shift shelter set up there. Flor passed out helmets and gloves to everyone in the group, and then gave us a brief explanation of what our excursion would entail. Once we reached the base of the glacier, a team of people there would help us strap ice crampons to our feet. Then, Florencia would then lead us on an adventure on top of the ice.

It was really windy outside, but at least the sun was shining and temperatures were warm. Flor said that the warm sunshine actually made it harder to walk on the ice because the melting made the surface more slippery. Coupled with the wind, she explained that it was really important to take short, forceful steps. Every few weeks, the ice trekking crew changes the path that tour groups walk on based on the melting and cracking of the ice. Perito Moreno is a moving sheet of ice, always changing.

Our ice trekking tour far exceeded my expectations. In total, we walked around on the ice for almost two hours. It was much more challenging than I expected to walk up and down the peaks and valleys of the ice. Poor Tory was quite literally blowing away at times when a big gust of wind would blow by us. I did my best to hang onto her while also steadying myself. Likewise, Andi watched after Aden but those boys seemed to handle the ice much better than Tory and I. Every time I looked over at Aden he was jumping or dancing around.

Walking on Perito Moreno Glacier reminded me a lot of our experience in the Galapagos last year. It was truly spectacular; a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The feeling of looking around at the massive size and shape of the ice while standing on top of it was incredible.

There were plenty of opportunities to take pictures along our ice trek, but Florencia was very strict about keeping our safety and always had an eye on the kids. I was really impressed by how smoothly this tour ran overall.

Toward the end of our ice trek, we approached a table set up with glasses, whiskey bottles, and chocolate bon buns. Florencia took her ice pick and chipped away at the glacier. She scooped up the ice chunks into a bowl and sprinkled them into the glassware on the table. Then, she passed out whiskey or water to anyone who wanted a drink. Now, that’s a fresh drink!

When the tour concluded, Flor instructed us to walk back along the beach to the shore area & wait for the boat shuttle to come get us. Andi, Tory, Aden and I were the first to walk back there. The sun was beginning to set and the colors of the glacier were completely lit up by the sky. The best part was that we had the entire view to ourselves! Two other couples joined us on top of a big rock to watch the scenery. We each took turns taking a photo for each other to capture the moment. Wow! Today was an amazing, amazing experience.

Soon, we boarded the shuttle boat and returned to the other side of Lago Argentino. Andi and I had planned to return to the boardwalk to watch the sunset over the glacier, but we all exhausted (mostly from being in the wind all day) and felt like we already had a really great experience with the glacier. We started the 90 minute drive back to El Calafate through Los Glaciares National Park. Because it was sunset, there were so many critters out and about. I think we saw 20 different Patagonian Hares dart across the road in front of our car.

We didn’t feel like messing with dinner in a restaurant tonight, so we all agreed to order room service from the hotel again. Everyone wanted the same thing we ate yesterday — spaghetti, pork egg rolls, warm quinoa salad, and chicken with rice.

Tomorrow, we’ll say good-bye to El Calafate and drive a few hours north to El Chalten.