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18 November 2003
Could not sleep last night - bloody snorer in the next room. Later found out
from other people that, this guy is sort of living there for quite a while -
many people know about it, and, and that’s why there were no other people in
my room - it was my fault, I was looking for a single room - as none was
available, staff gave me that room, knowing about the snorer - although,
they would not admit.
Later that day I got a single room, at last. Due to the hassle for the room,
I deferred visiting the glacier to the next day - my flight to Buenos Aires
is at 8:00 PM next day, enough time to make a whole day trip to the
glacier.
There is nothing else around Calafate other than the Glacier -- so I had a
rest day, went around the small town, bought two books on the region at a book
shop. And there, at the bookshop I again bumped into Rosalin and Jack (the
Australian couple I met in the voyage to Puerto Natales) - we briefly met couple of times in Ushuaia also - it was such a
pleasant surprise. They have also arrived from Ushuaia last night, and
taking it easy like me and planned to visit the Glacier next day.
We went for a long lunch in a small restaurant, exchanging our travel
stories. Their's were particularly interesting, they are already more than
six months on the road - both have left their jobs to travel. They are also waiting for work permits to go to USA
for few months to work in the ski fields there, before resuming their world
tour.
One interesting story was how Rosalin mugged back her handbag
from a mugger in Brazil. She was walking along a street with Jack, when she
felt that a guy has just passed by her very close and her handbag is no more
on her shoulder, and when she looked at the guy she saw a plastic bag in his hand,
in which what appeared to be her hand bag - he was walking away very
normally. On impulse, Rosalin ran to him and just snatched the bag from the
unsuspecting mugger and took out her handbag, it was really her handbag!
(Inside she was mortified thinking that if it was not her bag after all!) -
The stunned, and now scared mugger quickly disappeared in the crowed with a
disbelieving look on his face. What a quick reflex? She is a small slip of a
girl - but such a sport, unbelievable. Jack was walking beside her, but it
took him quite a while to understand what had happened.
After the long lunch and lot of good laugh, we parted - hoping to meet next
day near the glacier, we would be taking the same tour but with different
companies.
19 November 2003
The tour bus picked us from the hostel around 8:00 AM. The city of
Calafate and its population is entirely dependent on the
tourists/backpackers, and that made it very commercially oriented, which so
far I have not seen anywhere else. Tour buses are the only way to go to the
Glacier, about 60 km away from the town - alternative is expensive rental
cars.
It is a whole day tour - going through an alternative gravelled road,
promising to show us the unique landscape and wildlife around Calafate - then a hike
through the hills facing the Glacier front, leading to the extensive Glacier
viewing platforms - few hours there, including lunch - then a forty five
minute boat ride in the lake, along the glacier face.
Calafate is located beside a beautiful blue glacial lake " Lake Argentino" - it’s a nice little
town. But its surrounding is arid - grassland and bushland with bald hills,
no trees in sight. Again Andes treated Argentina like a stepmother -
sucking out all the moisture from the westerly wind coming from pacific. First part of the trip, through that bleak landscape was really a
commercial
trick to extract some extra dollar from the tourists. Only interesting thing
was the rye humour of the guide; the bus stopped at a place, everybody was
looking around to see something, but there was nothing to see except the
wire fence separating the sheep pasture from the road- so everyone was looking at the fence -
after a long and intentional silence, the guide said - we did not stop here to
see the fence, everyone broke into an embarrassed laughter - then he showed
a small bird sitting on the fence wire, supposedly a unique inhabitant of this part - he added if you have travelled thousands of kilometres to see
it, there it is - he broke into his characteristic rye smile.
Just before approaching the glacier we stopped near a half dry lake, with
visible marks that not in that distant past the lake level was much higher.
The guide explained - Approximately every three years, in its advance, the Moreno Glacier crosses the Canal de
los Témpanos (Channel of the Floes), obstructs it and elevates the level of their waters up to 19m
above the normal height. Eventually the water exercise the necessary pressure to break the
60 m high wall of ice to spill out in the lake Argentino. Currently the glacier has advanced to block the lakes exit to the
main lake and its water level is rising - it will keep on rising, till there
is enough water pressure to break through the wall of the glacier at the
lower corner.
Soon we reached a point where we could watch the huge 60m high glacier wall
blocking Canal de los Témpanos (Channel of the Floes), obstructs the
drainage of the Rico arm - it was so huge even from 5 km away, what a
majestic creation of nature! Once upon a time whole Andes and most of
southern Argentina and Chile were covered with glaciers. Moreno Glacier is
of the few surviving glaciers; it is fed by the huge mountain chains with
biggest snowfalls in this part of the world. The glacier goes back 40km into the mountain ranges.
At the glacier face near the lake it is about
50-60m high, further back it is much thicker. The glacier would have
advanced further into the lake, if the land underneath it near the face had not
dropped so sharply - due to that drop, at that point the glacier breaks down under its
weight and melt into the lake.
Soon we arrived at the point near the glacier along the shore of the main
lake to begin the hike. It was a very pleasant hike along the rocks opposite
to the glacier's western face, where it was blocking the Canal de los
Témpanos like a dam. The side rocks on these hills has an amazing grinding polish, as if a
massive grinder has polished them - these were ground by the glacier, when at
some earlier times the glacier extended up to these areas - these grinding
marks are all over the rocks along the both bank of the lake - the marks
shows how immense grinding pressures were exerted by the glaciers on these
hard rocks.
The colour of the water of lake Argentino is milky white, the water has lot
of fine glacier grounded suspended minerals, which reflects light to give
water its milky white colour. Due to this reason every glacial lake has its
unique watercolour.
The glacier's own majesty is hard to describe - a huge bluish white wall 5 km
wide, packed at the bottom, with spiky top - spike edges has a blue tinge as
they melt in the sun. We went to the viewing platforms - these are very
extensive, starting from the top, giving a close top view - and then going
down to many levels, the lower one goes, one comes closer to the glacier,
particularly at the corner where the glacier is blocking the side lake.
All along the hike we saw many huge
chunks of the glacier face breaking down and toppling into the lake with
thunderous noises.
Later we took the boat ride along the length of the glacier face - the boat
cruised about three hundred meter away from the glacier face - both to be
safe from the falling icebergs and also not to disturb the glacier with its
wake.
This was another perspective of the glacier from the bottom - its immense
height really sinks in from the boat.
From any angle, the glaciers majesty is almost unreal - an awesome display
of natures immense creative power and beauty of its creation!
We returned around 6 PM and I took the 8 PM flight to Buenos Aires. I had a
booking at Hostel Inn Tango, in san Talemo area of Buenos Aires - I arrived
there past midnight, I got good air conditioned room for USD12 - up here
even nights are quite warm.
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