The small town of El Calafate is located pretty much as far south in Patagonia as you can get. Further south and you’re into the area ominously called Tierra del Fuego (The Land of Fire). While the town has a catering for tourists, it still
retains a small town feel. The tourists flock here for one amazing reason –
it’s the launching point to visit the incredible Perito Moreno glacier.

The walk to the hostal was a trip in its self. Not that it was far from the bus station, El Calafate is quite small, but this is a land of snow and ice, and ice encrusted roads are insanely slippery. While the Dutch guy was used to this kind of weather and tread with no problem making it look easy, and I on the other hand was freaking out trying to get some traction on the glistering surface almost
slipping over far too many times. I became resolved to avoid the ice at all
cost, including walking on the road or in mud.

The hostal we stayed in was huge and it would have been a fairly happening place if it were summer. The bar was unfortunately closed, so we headed out to a nearby convenience store to pick up some beers. When I asked for a bag to put the beers in the girl shook her head and pointed to a sign. In both Spanish and English it read that plastic bags had been outlawed in the town. It’s certainly an interesting, if not smart, approach to the problem of tourists leaving their rubbish everywhere. They even take this one step further at the national park where the glacier is located, by having no bins and the rule all rubbish must return with you to El Calafate; you even get a small bag to put your rubbish in to take back with you – the bags were oddly enough plastic.

The Perito Moreno glacier is jaw dropping. The mini van picked me up at 8am and we made our way into the park. The tour guide spoke in Spanish to everyone, but then switched to English for my benefit. There was only myself and an Italian guy that were foreigners, everyone else was Argentine. The first stop was a lookout a few kilometres away from the glacier, and from this distance it doesn’t have a wow factor, however it does allow you to appreciate the sheer scale of this thing.

The glacier is 35kms long and for the past 11,000 years it has slowly – at 2m a day – made its way through the valley. In fact that’s not quite correct, as the glacier
itself created the valley as it carved its way through the mountainsides. 
You can literally hear this thing move as cracking echoes throughout the
valley. And occasionally a slab of ice will break off and plunge into the lake with a huge booming noise sounding more like a house collapsing. It’s mind bogglingly surreal.

The balcony area is where we stopped for 3 hours to view the glacier closer. As you approach the top tier of platforms the glacier comes into view and for the next 3 hours your eyes don’t leave it. To say the glacier is awe inspiring would be
an understatement, I would define it more as life changing. The enormity of it,
the sound of it, the stunning blue ice, and the knowledge that this thing has
been travelling for 11,000 years, is the kind of stuff that you feel dwarfed and
insignificant in its presence.

After returning to the hostal I wandered by the only bar in town, a place called
Librobar due to it having a rather extensive book collection. Here they had
Jameson whiskey at a reasonable price, so I sat sipping Irish whiskey and
reflected on the days events and the wonderment of the glacier.

The next day was fairly miserable, raining that turned the ice to sludge and that night some light snow fall. I ended up spending the day catching up on TV shows and discovering what would become my go-to food in Argentina – the good ol’ steak sandwich.

In Argentina they call it a lomito, and more often than not it includes ham, cheese, tomato and an egg. As though a perfect steak wasn’t enough, but I am enjoying the inclusion of egg on so many things in South America. And the steak is fantastic, nice tender steak without any fat or gristle; just a fillet of meat. If there is a disease you can get from eating too much beef, I will surely have it by the end of this trip!

I was pretty determined my next stop would be south to the town of Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego. It not only looked like a great town but it also holds the title of the most southern city in the world. After some internet detective work I found there was only one bus company that went to Ushuaia, and it left El Calafate at 3am. As much as I wanted to visit this town, 3am is not a time I care for, especially in this climate. I ditched this plan and made the choice to make my way back north, first stop at Comodoro Rivadavia.

Bidding my farewells to the Dutch guy, whose name I still can’t remember, and the nice hostal staff, I caught the afternoon bus and started the 15 hour ride back into northern Patagonia.