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We had one day in El Calafate, and used it to visit the world famous Perito Moreno glacier. A shuttle bus picked us up at the B&B and took us down to a bigger bus. The glacier is 80 km west of El Calafate, so it takes more than an hour to drive out there. We had to pay an admission fee to enter Los Glaciares National Park. Los Glaciares was the third national park created in the world. Yellowstone was the first, and Banff (in Canada) was the second. The bus dropped us off at the boat dock, and we took a boat ride across the Brazo Rico arm of Lago Argentino. We had signed up for a "mini-trek", which meant a guided walk on the top of Perito Moreno ice for a couple of hours. We had two guides, and a party of about 20 other tourists. They fitted us all with crampons, which strapped on to the bottom of our boots, and soon we were tramping on the ice. This was completely non-technical walking - no ropes, no ice axes, only minor slopes. We did peer into a couple of small cervasses. They showed us pools of melting ice, and invited ice to take a drink. Since I was carrying my pack, and thus had my water bottles, I filled up a whole bottle with water that had been frozen as ice for the last several thousand years. There was no wind, so it was actually warm on the ice (we were bundled up with all of our layers). At the end of our walk, the guides served up some glasses of whiskey poured over glacial ice. They also had some bon-bons cooling on the ice. It was a nice walk. We met a woman from Washington D.C. that we ended up talking to a lot (I think her name was Namee.) She had traveled all over the globe, it is always fun to meet a world traveler and hear their stories. Namee was nice, and we wish her many more safe journeys. After the ice walk, we had about an hour to wait for the boat to return and pick us up. We ate our lunch on top of the rocks, admiring the view of the Perito Moreno glacier. Although we heard some cracks and booms, we didn't see any ice chunks fall off the glacier. The majority of the activity is at the front of the glacier, because the ice is flowing forward. From our lunch vantage point, we were looking at the south face of the ice. The catamaran took us back to the boat dock, and the bus picked us up and took us to the main viewing platforms of the Perito Moreno glacier. There was a monstrous traffic jam. It was a weekend, and there were many people visiting El Calafate to celebrate the Lake Festival, so there were hordes of vehicles on the road. Eventually we did get up to the walkways and viewing platforms, where we had about an hour to observe the front of the glacier. An hour was not enough time, I was glad we were planning to return on our last day in Argentina. Seeing this famous glacier is exciting. At the front of the glacier is where calving occurs, and though we saw some small pieces tumble off, I was hoping to see a spectacular splash. The bus took us all back to El Calafate. We got cleaned up at the B&B and then walked into town for dinner. We ended up back at the La Lechuza restaurant again, and ordered their "Owl burgers". These were enormous - a giant burger, plus ham, cheese, egg and bacon. And french fries. Quite a huge meal. Another successful day! Panorama Photos
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Click on any thumbnail to begin the slide show at that photograph Perito Moreno Photos
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