Day 32 - More Glaciers

Up early for our 7:00 bus. It's chilly in El Calafate. In spite of it being mid summer, the daytime highs are only in the 50s with overnight lows in the low 40s. (Nothing campared to the Polar Vortex descending on the US, I realize.) People are bundled up in down coats and stocking caps. I recall that it was chilly in Punta Arenas and Ushuaia, too, when we were there.
Today the tops of the mountains were dusted with fresh snow from the last two nights.

A half hour ride took us to Punta Bandera where we boarded a two-deck catamaran for our trip to see more glaciers. It had been sunny in Calafate but was misty and rainy off and on as we left the dock. We headed north up the North Arm of Lake Argentino on the 180-person boat, which was almost full. We headed into the wind and it was quite cold outside. We passed mountains rising on either side and squeezed through one narrow gap (1,500 feet wide) and continued towards the glaciers. The clouds were just about level with the tops of the surrounding mountains. Into the Upsala Arm, we pulled up along a large iceberg from the Upsala Glacier still some five miles from the face. The boat stopped so people could take pics. The Upsala glacier has been retreating for more than half a century, some six miles since 1945. I asked later why we didn't get closer to the face of Upsala and the guide said there is a high glacial mountain lake hanging above the arm that dumped a large volume of water and rock just six years ago. That slide created a tsunami that wiped out a dock and restaurant several miles down the arm. After that, the Park management closed access to the glacier face.

We headed south to go to Spegazini Glacier. Along the way to Spegazini, we passed several classic examples of hanging glacier valleys. We got very close to the face of Spegazini where the deep blue among the white ice was very much in evidence. After half an hour of sightseeing we headed back to port - about an hour and a half away. The total trip was around five hours. Gail struck up a conversation with our seat mate, a chemical engineering Ph.D. candidate from Mendoza. He told us some places to go there. Back at the dock our bus waited to take us into El Calafate.

We relaxed a bit in the room then walked the mile down to the municipal ecological reserve. A steady, strong north wind pestered us the whole way. We sat on the wall looking at the flamingos, swans, ibis, ducks, and gulls in the reserve before returning to the hotel.

For dinner, we went out in the light rain looking for a parillada. Parillada is the traditional Argentine meal of just grilled meat. We found a place downtown and ordered it with a bottle of Malbec. A parillada is a plate piled high with many types of beef: several types of steak, ribs, blood sausage, liver sausage, red sausage, tripe and a few other cuts. Only meat, but lots of it. It was great and we got our week's worth of protein in one sitting.

Tomorrow we travel back to BA.Read more