El Calafate & Perito Moreno Glaciar (Arg) - Week 21

2nd to 6th February

Up early after our lovely breakfast of toast and marmite (brought from England by Ally - a couple of English lads across the table very jealous...!), we left Casa Teresa's early for the 5 hour bus to El Calafate.

We had heard that the place was absolutely packed and it would be difficult to find anywhere to stay so we braced ourselves for a tour around every hostel in town, but the third one had space. Hostal Lago Azul is the spotless house of a 92 year old Calafatian Pioneer with two rooms that he rents out to tourists. On our second day, he knocked on the door to give us a jar of homemade preserve (no idea what type of fruit)- he is very cute!

The next thing to do was to book onward travel as we keep being caught out with it being the high season and all buses being booked up (our 4 months in Central America were so easy - no forward planning required at all!). And sure enough, the bus that we wanted to take didn't leave on the 4th when we wanted to go and was booked up on the 5th so we got tickets for the bus on the 7th!

So that means we have 5 nights in El Calafate which is quite a nice little place but expensive and nothing really to do except expensive tours to Los Glaciares National Park...

The absolute food highlight (perhaps of the trip so far!) is an all you can eat restaurant that was recommended to us. We have been there every day!!! It is 4 quid to eat as much as you can and you are positively encouraged to have bigger and better cuts of meat every time you go up! There is a huge 'parilla' at the back of the room which is an Argentinian barbeque, with whole lambs and chickens slowly roasting, also sausages, black pudding and enormous sides of beef:

The grillman, our new best friend, in a blur of grilling action!!

The extras are also absolutely to die for: noodles, mash, chips, pies, roast veg, every type of salad... And the puddings! Ice cream, jelly, typical Argentinian pudding which Katie is addicted to and fresh fruit. We will be enormous by the time we leave El Calafate but it really is rude not to go to this place at least once a day ;o)

What else have we done to occupy ourselves? Met some nice Argies running one of the bars here one night and went out with them typically Argentinian-style starting at 11pm and walking home at 5.30am (party was still going but we were tooooo drunk!). So that incurred practically the whole next day in bed...

Also some exploring around the town and nearby Lago Argentino to see the birds that it is famous for. Pink flamingos from half a mile away don't make for great photos though.

And, of course, Perito Moreno Glaciar, which was the whole point of stopping here!

The glaciar is absoluetly massive and the best thing about this particular glaciar is that it pushes up against a headland of rock so you can get really close. The glaciar is 4km wide, 14km long, 50m high at the front face and moves about 2m forward a day. As it pushes up against the rock headland the ice builds higher and higher blocking of the flow of water from Lago Brazo into Lago Argentina. The water can increase another 20m one side until the water pressure forces the lake water under the build up of ice. After 2 to 18 years it creates an archway of ice that collapses spectacularly. Unfortunately the last one was in May 2006, but the ice continually breaks of in huge lumps falling into the lake with lots of noise and waves. The pictures don't really do it justice...

James's favourite ice cream shop

Books we read: Ann Frank's Diary, Ann Frank