Perito Moreno Glacier

When I was dumped as a child at my Grandma's for the summer holidays the only entertainment was the garden and an atlas. Even before I could read, I started to marvel at those maps and from that time that tail-like, weird extension of the South American continent called Patagonia grabbed my imagination. Growing up behind the Iron Curtain, it remained a distant, mysterious land that only great explorers like Magellan could see, walk on the "Land of Fire" and name glaciers and mountains after themselves, or indeed, their Queen.

When I got fortunate enough to have half a year of free-time, budget to spend, a pretty companion to share experiences with, and the ability to point anywhere on the world map to go to together, I was certain this place would be on top of the list. Luckily, after showing a quick google search result to Dani, she was in.


The gateway to Patagonia is a small town where the steppe like plains meet the Andes mountains. El Calafate is about 2700 kms (30hrs drive excluding stops) from Buenos Aires, and there's pretty much nothing in between, only the Pampas, a grassland as far as the eyes can see. So we picked a flight.

We expected to land, buy bus tickets and head down to Chilean Patagonia the next morning, and on the way back have a quick look at the most popular (and pretty much the only) attraction near El Calafate, a glacier. Problem is, you can't buy those bus tickets online, only at the terminal, in person, and in cash. And due to January being high season, you couldn't buy them at all as all seats were sold out for 3 days ahead. Damn. We were stuck. Okay, no worries, we spend the extra two days with one of those amazing glacier hiking tours, walking on ice, or something. No. Sold out for 4 days ahead. WTF. That's it, trying to be spontaneous and cool as a backpacker in Patagonia. Did I mention it's bloody expensive as well? 35 USD for a 80 km bus ride, 20 USD entry fee to the National Park and 21 USD for a dorm bed?!


We chose transport to the glacier via an alternative route, taking a dirt road and stopping by a couple of estancias (as the huge private farms are being called there).


One of those ranches is Estancia Anita, with land over 74000 hectares, one of the biggest in the province, that became infamous for what happened not so long ago. There were general, armed strikes of rural workers all around Patagonia between 1920 and 1922, by mostly Spanish and Chileans, that was brutally suppressed by the Argentinian army, killing around 1500, both armed and already surrendered, which out of 500 are believed to be buried at Estancia Anita. Many of the landowners and their family members were killed during, and in response as well. Not a happy place.

Another, more welcoming estancia was offering a short break and good coffee along the way.

Also offered a random encounter with this weird and wonderfully scary piercing-blue-eyed horse.


The glacier, named after Francisco "Perito" Moreno, a great explorer and academic in 19th century Argentina, is indeed a very special place. Not just one of the world's rare exceptions of glaciers that is not receding rapidly, but actually growing, is part of the
Southern Patagonian Ice Field that is the world's third greatest fresh water reserve, after the Antarctic and Greenland.




It became very popular as a tourist attraction and is so well developed as a site that you can walk around for 3 hours on a wooden boardwalk with amazing views over the north and south face of the glacier.


Walking around you can hear regular creaking sounds as the glacier is moving slowly and it is only a question of time till a piece (might be a size of a council estate) breaks apart like this, with a roar:


Staring at this glacier for four hours seemed like a very short amount of time when unfortunately we eventually had to get back to the bus. Perito Moreno glacier is just amazing.

The next day we just rested, as there is not much to do apart from going for a run and watching wild flamingos in the bay:


and using the 'facilities' in the sunset.


All in all we couldn't care less about the sold out bus tickets as our 3 days in El Calafate became a great and memorable entrée to our journey around Patagonia which only became even more amazing by hiking in the Chilean part, Torres del Paine. But that can wait till the next blog post!