Patagonia - El Calafate (Perito Moreno Glacier)

A bɔra kɛnɛ kan: 17.05.2017

We moved on to El Calafate and two days later we were already scheduled for the next expensive tour to the Perito Moreno Glacier - we need to keep an eye on our finances so we can survive the next three months :P
El Calafate is a place that relies on tourism and somehow reminded us of a winter sports resort and the Erzgebirge. Even the Frau vom Weihnachtsmann, whom we know from Seiffen, is here! So overall a nice little town.

El Calafate - Tourishops
El Calafate - Tourishops
El Calafate - delicious crepes
El Calafate - delicious crepes

The glacier (which is still 90km away from the town in the Los Glaciares National Park) is really huge! You can't tell from the pictures.

El Calafate - Perito Moreno Glacier
El Calafate - Perito Moreno Glacier
El Calafate - Perito Moreno Glacier
El Calafate - Perito Moreno Glacier
We had 5h on site (way too long in our opinion). We walked almost all the paths, most of which are just stairs. My guess is that it was cheaper to build stairs than to use a few longer columns to keep everything at a similar height. Now I have sore muscles and have to deal with the next hike in El Chalten :(

Right when we were closer to the glacier for the first time, we saw a big piece of glacier breaking off and sinking into the lake. At that time, we thought we would see that happen more often during the 5h - but that wasn't the case. Only a few smaller pieces that still made a lot of noise when they hit the water surface.

El Calafate - Perito Moreno Glacier
El Calafate - Perito Moreno Glacier

There were many different levels (thanks to the stairs), so you could see the glacier from every possible perspective.

El Calafate - Perito Moreno Glacier
El Calafate - Perito Moreno Glacier

The water also had an interesting color, very light blue, but somehow cloudy or milky..?! Yes, otherwise you can say about the glacier that it is probably the third largest in Patagonia (if I remember correctly), it "flows" daily by 2m (but a lot breaks off and even more will probably just turn into water), it loses 13m in height annually (so somewhere in the middle or at the end), and is up to 700m deep/thick.

Since we arrived in El Calafate one day later than planned, we couldn't do much besides the glacier. We ate something once and otherwise just rested more or less. When we had to catch the bus early at 8 o'clock, we had called a taxi, half an hour earlier. But Argentine punctuality is not like German punctuality. The taxi finally arrived at 7:45, after the woman who prepared breakfast had called the taxi company twice. That's where Uber clearly has advantages, you can see exactly where the car is and how long it will take. But we still made it on time.


Next stop: El Chalten.

Jaabi

Arzantine jamana na
Taama rapɔɔriw Arzantine jamana na