Day 309
El Calafate, Patagonia, Argentina
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Heard on CNN about the bushfires in Perth..5 houses lost? and the floods in the NT - not good!
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Solo Patagonia took us on our ship cruise today. It cost 240 pesos to go on the ship..and 28 pesos to go on the bus. And 30 pesos to enter the parque.
They picked us up at our hostel at 7.30am, as they do here in El Calafate, and we headed off for the 1 hour bus ride to the Punta Bandera port where we were sailing from.
We had our ice gear on..and we knew we´d need it after being on the ice two days ago. We were really looking forward to seeing the Upsala Glaciar, knowing it was even bigger than the Perito Moreno Glaciar that we´d already seen, and been on.
The Upsala glaciar is 60km long..and is almost 7km wide. It sounded like something pretty exciting!
As we were bussing it to the port we got the spectacular view of the mountains again...the sky is so amazingly blue! A real sky blue! And the clouds are really fluffy looking...like powder..pulled apart cotton balls...so fluffy and soft and like no other clouds i´ve seen. I wonder why they are like that?
One mountain i was watching at one point had the shadow of a cloud just surging over the white snow curtain of the mountain...it looked so strange the way it was moving.
The bus arrived at the port..along with a heap of other busses and we got a bit lost in translation as the language did not include english...but we hoped for the best. On thing we did find out..is..today..the Nacional Parque entry fee was 40 pesos, not 30! It´s like they just charge whatever they fancy. Nothing is constant. It´s been like that throughout Argentina..they charge their own price according to the day. YOu have to watch your change everywhere...they slip an extra 10 or 20 pesos night off your hand of change if you´re not careful!
By the way, we found out, after checking our booking sheets in email, we were overcharged in Buenos Aires, for our accomodation..the hotel room should have been 70pesos not 95 we paid..and the apartment should have been 100 not the 120 we paid! So..we´ve cancelled that place for when we get back..and we´re just going to stay at the hotel we were at for New Year...which cost 65 pesos for the night!!!!
Sorry bout that....the overcharging just reminded me of that!!!
Once in the Nacional Parque, we found our ship, and there were a few leaving (popular tours here at this time of year!) and jumped on..along with about 150 others. It was called the ALM. And it was big ship...all equipped for polar weather.
Firstly we headed out to Bocadel Diablo on the Brazo Norte (river)and we cruised through some spectacular scenery...the water was so milky....and green. The greenish colour of the water is called, ¨glacial milk´. This comes from the mineral particles that float on the water apparently. THey´re the particles that the glaciar has carried along when eroding the layer beneath.
The icebergs were in abundance..and floating like massive mountains themselves. We saw even bigger ones that the other day. SO HUGE. They break off in large chunks from the glaciars. These glaciars today are receding tho..and are not stable like the Perito Moreno. And you only see the top 15% of the iceberg. The other 85% of the iceberg is beneath the surface. Imagine running into one!!!
We also saw icebergs that looked dirty and they´re called ´moraine´s´. These are the broken rocks and soil debris that the glaciar carries along while they´re advancing. They look like dark lines on the ice. We thought they looked like stracciatella icecream..you know the one..the italian icecream with the chocolate streaks.
And everything is blue..the icebergs...the water is green but against the blue and white icebergs even that looked blue in places. So fresh and polar looking. We honestly felt we were in the south pole. And this is the closest thing to being there..without actually being in the Antarctic.
Condors flew overhead in the sky. We watched more fluffy clouds..and took photos of this white fluffy cloud phenomenon that had us mesmerised. The glaciars looked like big pieces of honeycombed mountains here. Or like white marshmellow and chocolate truffles or honeycomb icebergs with milky glacial water dripping around it´s edges.
We sailed down the Brazo Spegazzini on the Brazo Spegazzini river then on the Brazo Upsala to Glaciar Upsala. This glaciar is spectacular!! IT´s receding so the bit where it has receded is dark...and the face is not peeling off like the Perito MOreno but it´s beautiful.
We couldnt hear the icebergs cracking like the other day on the viewing plank because the motor of the ship masked it. If the boat noise wasn´t there it´d be silent. I know. The people were in awe so they were not speaking..and you could listeln to the surrounding and only hear the boat noise..so i know it would be. I wished they could turn it off!!!!
We cruised back on the Brazo Upsala to Lake Ondelli where we landed on Bahia Onelli at the Puerto las Vacas to see the three glaciars together...the Glaciar Agassiz and Glaziar Seco and the Glaciar Onelli.
It was 3.30pm.
Here we landed at the Puerto las Vacas (port) and walked through the patagonian forest to reach the area we were to see the three glaciars surrounding us. We only had an hour but i wished it were more.
This was such a beautiful place. There was glacial ice everywhere that you could touch. And we did..we ate the ice! And threw the ice and just played with it. Even though it was cold! It felt like sitting in the antarctica here that´s for sure. And it was quiet. No boat noise. THis was so special..being surrounded by glaciars...three of them..and icebergs all around us.
The icebergs looked like huge polar bears here! Laying on their sides. There were so many changing shape of icebergs...all large..and all blue and aqua ice.
What an amazing place this was...
We scrambled back onto our ship at 4.30pm after such a peaceful experience on the ice..and sailed 2 and a half hours back again...before we caught our bus back to El Calafate.
It was a long day..and we were hungry by the time we arrived ´home´ at 8.30pm but it was an amazing day. Yet another truly awe inspiring experience!
It just keeps getting better here in South America!!!!
But do i have the energy to contine being overawed?
I am feeling the small annoyances of traveling for so long...
I dont want to detract from the experience of today but...i felt nitty picky and impatient at times again today. Especially with tourists!!!!
After 10 months traveling i think i´m almost óver it´! Even got annoyed at a french couple today who tried to hijack my piece of glaciar that i had hauled up from the lake to take pictures with!!! While Greg and i were taking pictures...the woman came over and decided SHE was going to use MY piece of ice to take pictures with...
I told her there were more pieces of ice in the lake!!!!!!!!!
Geepers..i must be losing it. El Calafate is so overrun by tourist that i think it´s ampifying my impatience with it all. I´ve even been dreaming of my house in Cotts...oh...to just have my own bathroom..my own backyard...my own wardrobe...i miss my weekend papers..especially the Sat´s west and the Sunday Times! I miss my vegemite...´
A friend said to me the other day...see as much as you can...and i know that´s true. But when you´re ín it, it´s different. And...this place is so big. I was talking about wanting to go to Mexico and she mentioned going now cos we may not be able to later....but Mexico is no hop, step and a jump! It´s 9000km´s from here!!! AMERICA....is such a BIG place!!!!!
