We were tourists today. And now it's late so I am going to let my photos tell the story. I'm sorry that they are not great but my camera struggled to cope with the sharp light contrasts.
We were woken up at 6am and breakfast arrived at 6.30. We made a cut lunch with ham and cheese and added some fruit and hard boiled eggs and met the bus at 7.30. We then drove all over town picking up other people.
Our tour guide and driver got stuck into the mate.
We drove around the lake past some fabulous mountain ranges for about 50kms
before our first glimpse of the glacier.
The bus offloaded us for a 90 minute viewing time on a set of platforms.
The glacier itself was this amazing combination of blues with dirt streaks.
I hadn't realised before how noisy glaciers were. Every now and then a piece would break off with a loud crack and lumps of ice would cascade down into the lake below. Often by the time the sound got to you, the lump of ice had already hit the water.
Kiwi thought it was ok.
I tried some panorama shots.
We were then taken down to the wharf and on board the boat.
Along the bay
And up to the face of the glacier itself.
We were then offloaded to prepare for our walk on the ice. Mark and Dick.
The views were great.
Then it was time for the crampons. Kiwi supervised. They seemed to be doing it right.
And then we headed off up the ice.
Down this slope.
And down this hole. It was plurry deep fullas.
The blue cracks in the ice were fantastic.
Then at the end of the walk we had whisky with three million year old ice. Go Kiwi.
I got so excited I spilled half of mine in the ice. Bother!
We then walked off the glacier and through a bush track back to the main hut. Kiwi found these Ladies Slippers.
And then back on the boat. Again the boat took us across the gave of the glacier.
Goodby glacier.
We climbed back on the bus and it was so nice and warm and comfortable and warm and whisky and comfortable and warm that I woke up with only 10kms to go back to town.
That was our day. For a change we had meat for dinner. Lamb this time.,we saw roasted vegetables on the menu so we ordered them. And got: roasted potato, roast kumara, roast pumpkin and roast onion. It would appear that green vegetables have not yet been heard of in Argentina. But the grilled lamb was delicious! It arrived grilled and on a charcoal griller at out table. Delicioso!
Back into Chile tomorrow and camping in a national park so may be out of touch for a while.
Now I'm tired. I have to walk into town to a cafe that has wifi strong enough to post this. Good night. :-)
Today's run: 0kms
Cumulative: 37,340
Tipovers: 5
Location:Calafate, Argentina
My jaw is agape at all you've done, in the last 3 days. So glad everyone is OK. Can't imagine the frustration of riding on crap along side perfectly good tarmac. You are true adventurers, and heroes.
ReplyDeleteThanks Scotty
DeleteIt doesn't feel like that. We're just four quite ordinary people. But thanks anyway. It certainly is an adventure.