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This was our last day in Patagonia. Our flight left at 5 PM, and so we decided to be at the airport at 3 PM. That left us most of the day for one last adventure. We arranged for a driver to take us out to the Perito Moreno glacier in the morning, and then take us directly to the airport afterward. We had already seen the Perito Moreno from the viewing platforms at the end of our mini-trek, but we only had 45 minutes or so to watch the glacier then. I wanted to see more of the glacier because it is so impressive, and it is fun to look for the ice falls off of the front face. The driver picked up just after 8 AM and drove us to the glacier viewpoint. It takes more than an hour to get to the National Park from El Calafate. Fortunately, we did not encounter any of the horrendous traffic that we had experienced the previous week. At the Perito Moreno, we had about four hours to watch the ice. We walked most of the trails and viewed the glacier from most of the balconies. Mostly we stood there looking at the impressive blue wall of ice, hoping to see something break off. Often ice will fall, but you don't see the start of the fall because it takes a while for sound to travel from the ice to the viewer. We kept our cameras on, hoping to capture a fall of ice. We were rewarded with a seeing several large ice falls, one of which we were able to record on the camera. It was quite dramatic and exciting. The weather was again terrific. It was overcast, rather than bright sunshine, but clouds are supposed to bring out the bluest color of glacial ice. The Perito Moreno certainly looked a brilliant blue. The Perito Moreno glacier covers 250 square kilometers. It advances an average of 2 meters a day. It is one tongue of the large Southern Patagonia ice sheet, which is the third largest ice sheet in the world (after Antarctica and Greenland.) We ate lunch while watching the glacier, and got a few photographs of ourselves. It took about an hour and a half to drive all the way back to the El Calafate airport. The whole transfer went smoothly, just like everything else on this trip - everything went perfectly well. We flew into Bueno Aires, then caught our 10 1/2 hour flight to Houston. We made it back to Seattle by 12 noon on the following day. It was a truly terrific vacation, it couldn't have gone any better. Patagonia was great! Panorama Photos
MapsHere is a map showing El Calafate on the shores of Lago Argentino. The Perito Moreno glacier is about 80 km to the west of the city, in Los Glaciares National Park (admission required). The airport is 20 km to the east of El Calafate. 
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Click on any thumbnail to begin the slide show at that photograph Perito Moreno Photos
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