Los Glaciares National Park

Here comes the post about Los Glaciares National Park, a bit delayed, but we spent the last 24 hours on the bus to Puerto Madryn.

After our arrival in El Calafate, we were welcomed with fresh snow (actually the first snow of the year in this region) and icy roads. The 'El Calafate Hostel' turned out to be a lucky find, with underfloor heating in the rooms.

In winter, it is relatively difficult to reach the national park, so we decided to take a guided tour to Perito Moreno Glacier. First, we took a 1-hour boat ride to the south side of the glacier. Half frozen due to the low temperatures and extreme winds, we were able to admire these incredible ice masses up close from the ship. Occasionally, we could hear a deafening crackling of the ice, but unfortunately, we were not fortunate enough to witness a major calving event.

Then we continued by bus to the 'Terraces', which stretch 2 km around the glacier and allow for easy exploration on foot. If you haven't seen it with your own eyes, it's hard to believe how blue the ice can look. The color difference is particularly noticeable in photos of the broken icebergs. The denser the ice, the bluer it appears.

The Perito Moreno Glacier is one of the few glaciers that is maintaining its size. At the same time, it is one of the most active glaciers, with 2 meters of advance per day and frequent calving. It was a bit strange when the tour guide mentioned that neither humans nor climate change have an impact on the glacier in this environment, and that only nature decides its growth or retreat. For anyone interested, we highly recommend watching the Netflix documentary 'Chasing Ice'.

In the evening, we spontaneously decided to travel further to El Chaltén for 2 days. This is the access point to the northern part of the national park and a paradise for hikers.

As soon as we got off the bus, we started our first hike with all our luggage. After 3 hours, we reached the mountain lake and it started raining... By the time we arrived at the hostel, we were completely soaked, but that's part of mountain hiking!

New day, new luck, or so we thought. Overnight, there was a 5cm snowfall, so we started our second hike with crunching steps. The first 4 km were surprisingly relaxed despite the weather, but that changed when we encountered a huge flooded area. We tried everything to go around it but had to give up with ice-cold water in our shoes. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see the glacier, thanks to the weather, and we made our way back to El Calafate.

We have now arrived in Puerto Madryn, our -unfortunately- penultimate stop in Argentina.

Best regards

Bekki & Micha