Tag Archives: Scenery

The (Glacier) Cherry on the Cake

21st March 2018

The main purpose of visiting El Calafate was as a staging post to see one of Argentina’s most striking sights – the Perito Moreno Glacier. The glacier is named after Francisco Moreno (“perito”means specialist, or expert), a prominent explorer and academic.

The trip is a day’s outing from El Calafate, some 50km to the Perito Moreno national park, and then taking up on various options: a boat trip on the lake to see the glacier from close at hand; a walk along prepared pathways to see the glacier from higher up but further away (but also, importantly, to be able to listen to the sounds it makes); and/or, if you’re young enough, a hike on to the glacier itself. We weren’t booked in to do the last of these options, and the age limit means that we will never now get the chance, which is a shame; a friend tells that it’s a fantastic experience. But that didn’t stop us from enjoying an entirely arresting sight – a glacier 70 metres deep debouching on to Lake Argentina.

Our guide, Jenny, made sure that we took up on all the available options to see the glacier, which is dramatically revealed as you round a corner; at first it’s difficult to understand what you’re seeing, but then the scale of the glacier dramatically becomes clear

and the crowds gathered at the first available viewpoint underline its appeal as a tourist attraction.

The next stage on our day’s outing was to board a catamaran to go to view the glacier from close at hand, which gives you the first impression of its scale and, importantly, the colours in it. The second video in this Instagram set gives you the general idea:

A post shared by Steve Walker (@spwalker2016) on Mar 21, 2018 at 1:24pm PDT

After the boat trip, the next stop is at the official visitors’ centre, whence prepared footpaths run in various directions to give you different viewpoints of the glacier – the first video was taken from the topmost of these. The footpaths are very well-made, with metal grid surfaces and lots of steps, taking you to several different places from which to view the glacier.

As well as the lovely colours in the glacier (the blue is an illusion caused by refraction through the ice and the air bubbles trapped in it)

there is a striking outlier on the shore opposite one of the faces of the glacier.

This is caused by a regular occurrence, the last one being in 2016. This glacier is based on bedrock (i.e. none of it is floating on the water) and advances at an indecently hasty speed of 1-2 metres per year. As you can see from the picture above, this makes it inevitable that at some stage it will block the channel, thus preventing water from flowing through. So the lake level builds up and up (on the near side as we look at it), until eventually the tempertature and pressure of the water wins, first creating tunnel through the ice and then blasting its way through the blockage.

I don’t believe that there’s anything in Europe which can match the sight and the impression this glacier makes. It’s a superb day out and something of which the Argentinians are justly proud.

Tierra del Fuego – 3: All hail Cape Horn. And sun. And rain. And WIND!

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19th March 2018

Every excursion from Australis ships is carefully explained to its potential participants, to make sure that safety instructions are well understood and that, if there’s a choice of arduousness of hike, you can choose correctly. The briefing about Cape Horn left me feeling really excited about the prospect of visiting a unique and historic site – all we needed was decent enough weather to be able to make landfall. And it was clear from the briefing that this is by no means a given…

We were lucky. Mostly.

In a relative way, the weather was kind. So, it was only raining at 45°, rather than horizontally, and the temperature was above freezing – a positively balmy 5°C. Getting into the landing craft was a bit more scary than usual, but getting out of them on to Cape Horn island gave us a real insight into the hard work that the expedition leaders on the ship do to ensure that we tourists – sorry, travellers – get the selfies we so desperately need. There were five people, including a couple waist deep in the freezing ocean (who, by the way, had day jobs as the two chief barmen on board), to catch an incoming rib, hold it steady and assist people to disembark on to a ramp. Absolutely sterling work, and these guys deserve all the applause (and tips) that they get. I took a little movie footage of our subsequent departure, to give some idea of what they go through for us:

Ah, did I mention the hail? As we approached land, the rain turned solid, and we were lashed with hailstones. Small ones, to be sure, but they didn’t half sting.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, we got ashore and started the journey to see the sights. There aren’t many of these, but they’re certainly worth climbing 438 steps to see, and that’s before breakfast. On the island, there’s a monument and a lighthouse. In the lighthouse live the lighthouse keeper, a Chilean Navy officer, and his family. They run a small souvenir shop, with painted rocks being the staple, and live there for a tour of duty during which their only other human contact consists of one supply ship every three months and the odd bunch of tourists, sorry, travellers. There is, we’re told, a waiting list for the job.

The rest of the expedition is spent trudging up and down steps, which are definitely wet and sometimes slippery.

Everyone has to keep their life jackets on, which makes for a striking sight as people ascend and descend the steps.

And the monument is a thing of joy, with two pieces giving shape to an albatross in negative space.

The only other things of note on the island, apart from a weather station and radio masts, are the lighthouse

and a small chapel.

But at least the weather improved and we had some sunshine. And every so often the wind dropped a couple of notches to make it possible to take some photos.

The rain returned as we embarked to go back to the ship, but it couldn’t dampen our enjoyment of what was a very special part of our South American odyssey.

Tierra del Fuego – 1: Ventus Australis, Ainsworth Bay and the Tucker Islets

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16th – 17th March 2018

A three-hour coach journey from Puerto Natales brought us to Punta Arenas and the first slight hiccup in what had been an otherwise flawless logistical flow. Our itinerary instructions said that we would be put on the coach (Buses Fernandez) to Punta Arenas and met there to be taken to the port to board Ventus Australis, a brand-new (started service in January 2018) 200-passenger ship which would take us around Tierra del Fuego, Cape Horn, the Magellan Straits and other evocative destinations (though the Beagle Channel sounds a bit more like a TV service that hunt followers or Snoopy fans might tune into).

What became apparent as we approached Punta Arenas was that there were multiple stops in the city, starting at the airport and working inwards. When we got to the Buses Fernandez terminal and everyone looked to be getting off, we followed suit. But there was no friendly face above a card with our names on it, so we spent a few angst-ridden moments wondering if we should have stayed with the coach. Jane got on the phone (thank God for mobiles) to our tour organiser’s local contact, who also professed to be puzzled as to the absence of reception committee. To cut a long story short, some moments later a driver showed up, full of profuse apologies and muttered Spanish among which Jane thought she heard the words “pneumaticos”, so we charitably assumed that he’d had trouble wth a flat tyre. Anyway, the practical upshot was that we got to the port, checked in – and found that we had three hours to kill before they’d let us join the boat.

So it was that we headed off into the bustling metropolis of Punta Arenas, in search of coffee. Although it has a much larger population than Puerto Natales, there isn’t frankly, a lot to see in the town; but we did stumble across the buildings that were the “palaces” (very grand residences) of some of the pioneers of the vast sheep-processing business whose buildings now form part of the Singular hotel in Puerto Natales, including Sara Braun and Jose Norgueira. Fortunately their palace had found modern use as a hotel with a bar, so we had lunch there, in the Shackleton Bar, whilst (inter alia) watching a DVD of Shackleton’s ludicrous folly of exploring Antarctica and reckless gamble taken to rescue the men he nearly killed doing it. I had a local Pale Ale, which the barman charmingly called a “Pally Ally”.

Well, we had three hours to kill before they let us board Ventus Australia. What’s a chap to do. Time for the bar, eh @mikeeeboreham? This beer was charmingly pronounced “Pally Alley” by our waiter #Chile #Patagonia

A post shared by Steve Walker (@spwalker2016) on Mar 16, 2018 at 1:42pm PDT

There was WiFi available at the boarding terminal, and so the pre-boarding hall was awash with people taking their last sip of internet before four days off the grid. I was one of those people.

We were eventually allowed to board, and discovered that the Ventus is indeed a very fine ship, with great facilities, good food and obliging service. There was also hot water available at the coffee points. See, I knew it was going to be worth bringing those tea bags with us.

For those with cruising experience, the next hours would follow a familiar pattern – welcome drinks, introduction to the crew and tour officials, safety briefing (including how to cha-cha-cha into a Zodiac rib), then the trepidatious journey to dinner to find out whether you’re going to get on with whomever it is you’ll be eating with. We struck lucky, with a nice Australian couple d’un age not dissimilar to ours – Lynette and Ken.

The next day saw the first excursion, to Ainsworth Bay, where our guide, Rodrigo, led us along an easy ramble through bogs and forest, explaining at various points what we were seeing – plants, lichens, moss, trees. Oh, and glaciers. Our starting point offered us a great view of the Marinelli glacier:

You can see it either side of the central hill in the photo above. Rodrigo gave us, as evidence that this, like most glaciers in the world, is receding, the nugget that 100 years before the glacier reached to the point from where I took this photo. Evidence from original photos by Alberto de Agostini.

The ramble took us through a very photogenic environment.

And then we were offered hot chocolate and whisky before being whisked back to the ship

On the way back, in a lovely piece of serendipity, the Zodiacs were accompanied by a pod of playful dolphins, which spent a couple of hours frolicking around as the ribs went back and forth to pick up groups from the shore. What is it about dolphins that makes seeing them such an engaging experience?

The other expedition that day was to the Tucker Islets, where the advertised attractions were Magellanic penguins

and the common cormorant, or shag.

and, while it was nice enough to see them and learn a little about them, what was more interesting to me was some of the other action going on. For example, there was a turkey vulture glowering at proceedings, presumably hoping for a spot of lunch

and several skuas squabbling and fighting over whatever opportunities they found

These two expeditions, and a couple of G&Ts at the bar, closed off what was a very good day one, and left us with the mouth-watering prospect of an expedition to a glacier on day two. Stay tuned for the next thrilling (and probably chilling) instalment!