El Calafate and the Perito Moreno

We arrived in El Calafate by plane after our escape from Ushuaia. We were in town purely to see the Perito Moreno glacier, one of the last advancing glaciers in the world.



We set up camp in a site just on the edge of town, although we prayed that there wouldn´t be a storm, since the tent pegs went into the rocky ground no more than an inch. Not much to say about El Calafate, a bit touristy, but a nice place to wander around for half a day.

We took a bus to the glacier, which was about an hour away and the weather began to close in as we did so, so that by the time we unloaded from the bus, the rain was coming down quite strongly. Still, we made our way down the walkways across the peninsula that looked out across the glacier, and stood waiting for some action.





Every few minutes the glacier creaks and groans and a huge chunk falls of and crashed into the water. It´s quite a show, but although we had read that people are mesmerised by it, and can stand and watch for hours, we were soaked so we went to the visitor centre for a cup of tea.











Once the rain left off, we went out for an hour and since the crowds had also dried up it was much quieter and we witnessed the birth of some huge icebergs.





We went back by bus that evening, and the next day set off by bus to Rio Gallegos and then by plane to Buenos Aires to catch up on some time.