After a day of relaxation and several warm showers, I was ready to hit the road again. Next up on my list of things I wanted to see...the Perito Moreno Glacier. It's located near El Calafate, Southern Patagonia, Argentina. After seeing the glacier, I wanted to spend some time in Bariloche, then thought it would be best to head towards Buenos Aires. It seemed like an excellent plan and it would have worked wonderfully if I would have known a little bit about travel in Southern Argentina.
Generally I'm a fly by the seat of my pants type girl, not something I've decided to change about myself but like anything it has its pros and cons. On New Years Eve, I decided to buy a bus ticket for El Calafate and was trying to tell Ross that if he didn't want to stay in Puerto Natales any longer than he really should buy a ticket somewhere now as tomorrow everything would be closed. Carla was on the phone with the bus company when he said, "Make that two please."
So, that was how I came to have a traveling companion, which by the way, a month later, I still have. It's amazing how people can have the same itineraries and how yours can change based on what someone else has heard. We enjoyed the rest of our time in Puerto Natales, mainly relaxing, and getting our packs organized for our next adventure. I really was wanting to do a glacier hike but there was no way my feet were going to be able to handle boots with crampons. Like I said earlier, I like my feet; I try to take really good care of them. Plus, now knowing what I missed out on in Argentina, there are plenty of opportunities on my next trip to do some glacier hiking/climbing. On the 2nd of January, a man in a small pickup truck came to pick us up at our hotel. It was supposed to be a bus. And so began our adventure...
If it hadn't been for the other guy in the truck already I would have been more and at the same time less confused. He introduced himself and was strangely acting like this "was" our bus. At the same time, I thought, there's no way the driver can get rid of all three of us at the same time so surely this will work out. And it did. We ended up on a microbus which I sharply stated that I thought would be our transportation across the border, then on we'd go on the big comfy bus we'd paid for. Ross agreed that that was a good assumption. I thought I was brilliant for that idea.
At the border crossing, the driver asked if we had Argentinian pesos. I said, "No. Well, yes, but we're just going to El Calafate." That's when he informed us that we were going to Perito Moreno. "What? We just bought a ticket to El Calafate, we wanted to see the glacier but we have a ticket to El Calafate." Because we had given our ticket to the man driving the little blue truck we didn't know what we had bought exactly and he obviously had no clue. Our next question was, "Will we have time to change our shoes?" As Ross and I both had flip flops on, which weren't going to do much on a glacier tour. "Sure, no problem. So you want to go?" I looked at Ross, he looked at me, and we said "Why not?!?" as we started to giggle and both wondered how this all had happened.
We made it to the glacier, which was absolutely enormous and breathtaking. It was incredible to hear the ice cracking but when it actually broke off and fell into the lake below, that was more than both of us could stand. I decided that it looked like something out of the original Superman movie, the part where you see where he was born. It was that spectacular. The white, mixed with the light blue, then in some places you could see the deep blue color inside the crevices. It was mesmerizing.
We also opted for the boat ride while we were there which took you up to within 75 feet of the glacier wall. This is one of the very few glaciers in the world which isn't receding, which means that for all the ice that falls into the lake during a day, that amount becomes glacier ice the same day at the very back of the glacier. They also said that because it warms here, the glacier ice forms even more quickly than it does in Antarctica. I learned lots of impressive facts, which unfortunately I'm not able to give to you right now. I can remember that the glacier is almost 100 feet tall in the front (which is basically all you see) and this is one of the very few glaciers where you can witness ice breaking off. It's hard to describe the sound, it's more like a combination of the loudest thunder you've ever heard and a bomb going off.
The cracking noise it makes all throughout the day is about as impressive though. There are several pathways that lead you down to within a stone's throw of the glacier and when you close your eyes and just listen...well, it will give you goosebumps all over. Another interesting tidbit...the Argentinian Navy tried to blow up the glacier at one point because it had grown so big it was blocking up the lake and flooding all the farmlands. So, what did they do? They dropped a bomb on it. Seriously. It didn't work though. After some of the other Argentinian Navy stories I've heard I'm beginning to wonder if they need more training. They also tried to kill Orcas off the coast of Puerto Madryn because people said they were eating too many sealions and they would loose one of their main sources of income, tourism. They didn't even succeed at that.
After the tour, we headed back to El Calafate, where the microbus driver dropped us off. (The rest of our group was heading back to Puerto Natales.) After we found some accommodations for the night we high-fived on our "bus ticket" to El Calafate. In all, we had paid a little under $30 American for a five hour bus ride to El Calafate and a four hour tour at the Perito Moreno Glacier. Talk about an entertainment value! We were absolutely giddy about it still the next morning, until we went to the bus station and heard that there were no buses to Bariloche until the 7th.
Well, that's not so bad...no buses. Don't get discouraged. Let's check for planes. There was one from El Calafate but it wasn't cheap. Okay, what about flying to Buenos Aires. There was one but again, it wasn't cheap but it was less expensive. If I'd been paying in Euros it would have been tolerable. We decided to go get some lunch and think about it. Bad move on our part. While we were eating and making a decision to go ahead and head to Buenos Aires, the office was closing, for the day. Ouch. So, okay, what about renting a car? It would only take two days, driving almost all night to get there. We could do it though. Bad idea...it's way more than a plane, plus you have to pay for mileage. Who has to pay for mileage anymore in this day and age? Ugh.
We wandered around again and found another travel place open. No, no more flights to anywhere, until the 5th. What? Well, there is one to Buenos Aires but it was Executive instead of Coach which meant it was three times as expensive. Forget it. Lets go back to the bus station. So we did, with this question on the tip of our tongue, "Where can we get a bus to tomorrow?" The answer? You can go to Rio Gallegos, (which was four hours south of where we were) then from there you can go to Puerto Madryn. We had no clue what was there. We liked El Calafate and it's a wonderful place to be, except when you want to leave. Another thing about the place? They weren't lying when they said that you have to wait in line for the ATM. I've never in my life seen more than two or three people waiting outside an ATM. Here, if you were 10th or 15th in line, then you were extremely fortunate. And more often than not, the ATM would be out of cash. Although you can find a bank on almost every corner, they definitely need to do something about the ATMs there.
So, it was settled, we were heading to Puerto Madryn and would be there after almost 24 hours in a bus. We started looking in the guidebooks to see what there was to do there, got our stuff packed up and ready to go. I was thankful that Ross had an iPod as he had connected mine to his computer in Puerto Natales and wiped off all my music. I was okay with listening to Irish music for the next day and would have, if he hadn't left his iPod in a restaurant in Rio Gallegos. We called later and I talked to the guy. They had his iPod, and they would send it to the hostel in Buenos Aires. After almost two weeks, they still haven't sent it. Apparently they like Irish music, too.
So, up next. The Puerto Madryn tour guide. Lesson learned: There are some times when it's really best to plan ahead. I really did want to go to Bariloche. And someday I will, it just won't be on this trip. I hear it's a really cool place though. Maybe I'll visit in the wintertime, then I can do some snowboarding.
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