Day 22
It rained all night again in El Chalten. And it continued to rain heavy all morning as we packed up our tent and belongings trying to keep everything as dry as possible. Happy to leave on a day like this, we headed to the bus shelter to catch a 3 hour bus to El Calafate.
We arrived in El Calafate mid afternoon and the sun was out but still very cold and windy. I love the feeling arriving at a new place and not knowing where the hell we are. A new bus station has just been built further out of El Calafate as the old one in town was too small. We didn’t know this at the time. When we walked out of the new bus terminal it seemed like we were in a ghost town. There were big wide open roads with no buildings and a lot of stray dogs. We were a bit taken aback by this, as we were walking with a sea of people with huge backpacks into town which was about 1.5km away. El Calafate really only has one attraction – the Perito Mereno glacier which is about an hour drive. The Main Street is maybe 500m long and is filled with junky tourist trap shops, outdoor gear and cafes/pubs. Apart from that, there is a lot of hostels & hostels off the side streets.
We checked into our hostel, which was just someones home but they have transformed the top level into a few smaller rooms. Good to make a quick buck! Then we quickly zipped off to run a few errands before shops closed:
- Drop of clothes for washing (yes we are too lazy to wash them ourselves) – tick
- Print off bus tickets & campsite accomodation for Torres Del Paine – tick
- Organise transport to and from the Perito Merino glacier for the next day – tick
- Look for peanut butter in supermarket – No tick (no peanut butter in Argentina 😦 )
We had all (almost) our jobs done in an hour! On fire.
For dinner we found a nice pub which was reasonably priced. Had a couple of beers and burgers again. The burgers are so good everything else on the menu doesn’t get a look in. Quinoa salad? lol good joke.
Home early, it was a nice feeling being able to spread out all our stuff and have a nice warm bed instead of the wet & cold we endured the last 4 days. Solid night sleep ahead.
Day 23
It was an early morning wake up to go and see the glacier! We only have 1 full day here so we wasted no time and got the earliest bus, which was around a 1.5 hour trip from El Calafate. It was so funny on the bus on the way into the national park, especially once we could get a few glimpses of the glacier. It was like one of those cartoons, where everyone has massive cameras around their necks and people are running from one side of the bus to the other trying to get a good shot. And every time people move from one side of the bus to the other the bus tips a little bit. Gosh just relax guys! We will be there in 10 minutes – plus the glacier looks like a bloody cloud from here.
Once we got off the bus & lagged behind some oh so keen big cameras, we headed along the boardwalk before turning to get a really up close view of the glacier. It is so big and unreal. It is around 70m high and over 300m wide at the face we could see. Bits of ice were breaking off every 5-10 minutes in front of us and it would sound like gunshots or bombs. It is really hard to get a perception of how big it really was until we saw a boat next to it which really shows it size.
This is different to other glaciers we have seen as they usually thin out at the tongue. But this one is so high! The glacier has a maximum depth of 700m around 8km from where this photo is taken from.
We spent the next couple of hours completing the walk of the glacier boardwalk watching the ice crack and fall. We could have done a boat tour for an extra $40 each but we were happy with what we could see and thought we got close enough.
We sat at a lookout for another couple of hours, and had a picnic complete with $3 AUD red wine. We were watching the ice crack & fall and also watching boyfriends take photos. Very entertaining! My favourite were these #crazyrichasian tourists. They were a couple – the guy had a gold chain, Adidas jacket, with a down jacket over the top, with Adidas pants (only 1 stripe), snakeskin boots, shades (it wasn’t sunny) & a handbag. The girl had fancy clothes with pom poms hanging off her everywhere. #fashion
We also saw an Andean condor. It has a 3m wingspan and can fly 200km without landing once! They are amazing. I want to be a condor.
We caught the bus home, sleeping the whole way due to our belly’s full of wine! We went to dinner at another pub for the night. I got the chicken this time – almost got the vegetables!
At dinner a random aussie couple came and asked me if I flew out a few weeks ago. Turns out they were on the same flight and have seen us at Valpariaiso, Barlioche & also El Chalten. They were finding it ridiculous they were seeing us everywhere so came and said hi which was nice. They are from Newcastle and have also quit their jobs and are travelling south America for a year. Must be the thing to do these days!
Early night tonight. We have a 7am bus to catch to Puerto Natales tomorrow. It has been a quick but good stay at El Calafate.
More photos located here.
Justin & Ellen's travels 