To Perito Moreno

Everything in the town of El Calafate was built around the tourist industry. All catering to the hordes of tourists coming to see the Perito Moreno glacier. As we figured a day earlier, nothing was cheap or even reasonable here. Even a short drop off and pick up to the glacier region about 80 kms away costed between 2000 - 2500 ARS. Our taxi driver from the bus station to the hostel, had offered us a drop off and pick up for 1800 ARS for the 4 of us, so eventually, we had called him in the the evening to hire him for the day.
He was there on time at 9 am. We all were ready having had our breakfast at the hostel. The drive was pretty insignificant, typical of the Patagonian steppe. Very flat and no outstanding feature with hardly any flora. We drove along the Southern shore of Lago Argentino.

Lago Argentino, the largest lake in the country. It is the largest lake entirely Argentine with an area of ​​1,415 km 2 . It is 187 m high and its maximum depth is 500 m, the average is 150 m and its coasts are 640 km long. It is fed by the Southern Ice Field through several glaciers (Upsala, Mayo, Ameghino, Onelli, Spegazzini and the famous Perito Moreno among others).
Its waters have a particular milky celestial color due to the very thin slime glacier in suspension. It is also common to see ice floes from the glaciers, wandering by their surface, driven by the winds of the west. Ice contributes to its waters having a surface temperature below 4°C throughout the year.
On the way, we had more or less clear skies with some high clouds but we could see rain in some of the far off valleys. Our driver told that due to the glaciers in this region, there are a lot of microclimates in the different parts. This area also forms the transition plane between the steppe and the Andes topology.Leia mais