While I was in Ushuaia I spent a day with Beth another American and she told me about a company that lets you go glacier trecking on top of Perito Moreno. My first day in El Calafate I spent getting to know the town (which has two main streets and only exists as a place to stay if you are going to Los Glaciers national park). I found the company that lets you glacier treck and booked my tour for the next day. I also met a French Woman in my hostel and we went to dinner in the town, we spent all night talking about art and museums and music. I even found some Argentina Poutine.
Glacier trecking is the most amazing thing ever. I met a Chilean and an Argentinan on my tour and we had the best time together all day exploring the national park and then on the glacier itself, however they split the tour into a guide who only speaks Spanish and a tour that is done in English for everyone else. Obviously for safety reasons and the fact that glacier trekking can be very dangerous I should have chosen the English group but Coni and Clara were in the Spanish so I went that way. Luckily I actually understood everything and was fine in the Spanish group. It was freezing. I wore my nikes which immediately absorbed water and then froze, it was even snowing on us on the glacier. You have to wear gloves because if you fall the ice will slice open your hands and because even with gloves my hands almost went numb, but the views are so worth it. When you look down in between the crevices on the Galciars and see how far deep they go it is mind blowing, and how small you are in comparison to the Glaciars, the fact that these were created thousands of years ago as well is almost impossible to wrap your head around. We made dinner the three of us that night and spent all night laughing and joking about chile vs Argentina, obviously I was on the Chilean side of the arguments.
Perito Moreno
The three of us with our guide and Whiskey
Coni, Clara and I
Hiking around the park itself before trekking on the Glacier
Perito Moreno is also one of the only glaciers in the world that every year it is the same size/growing larger because every year it gains more ice and snow in winter then it looses into the water during the rest of the year.
Post hike
On my first day in el Calafate I had visited the hospital to find out about getting a yellow fever vaccine which I needed to get to get a Brazilian visa which I now needed to go to the airport because I had to change my flights when I booked the cruise and they were no longer continuous. The hospital told me I needed to come back on Monday. I was flying out on Monday to Buenos Aires so I moved my flight to later and spent all day sitting in the El Calafate hospital, where after wasting 4 hours I did not get the vaccine because they then told me I would have to come in on a Friday. Classic. However even all my wasted time in El Calafate was worth it to see the glaciers they were absolutely amazing.
While waiting in the El Calafate airport (which only has two gates) I ran into Juan and Mariana from Ushuaia and we were on the same flight from El Calafate back to Buenos Aires!!
