Tag Archives: South America

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 cacn 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!

1 Reply

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 – 2: Cowardice (or common sense?) strikes

Leave a Reply

18th March 2018

The next day saw us beside the Pia Glacier. Well, we had to take the captain’s word for it, as you couldn’t really see anything through the mists and rain, which was followed by sleet and then snow. So we spent the morning, apart from watching an interesting presentation about the five tribes of the Patagonian region (now almost entirely wiped out by a combination of thoughtlessness, disease and genocide), debating whether it was going to be worth taking the proposed expedition to see this alleged glacier. Perhaps the rain would ease, and we’d have a clear run?

It didn’t.

So we decided that discretion was the better part of valour and that the lure of a G&T outweighed that of a close-up of a glacier we’d be lucky to even see, let alone appreciate (besides which, we have other glaciers on our Patagonian itinerary, so making avoiding great discomfort to see this one a defensible choice). We got things about 50% right, in that it continued to rain and snow and be misty for almost all of the time. But it did actually clear for about 30 minutes, and the beauty of the scene became apparent. We took the opportunity to get some photos and video:

Above is the overall scene from the ship, and this is a closer view of the glacier itself.

and here you can see some of the hardy folks from the ship on the shore by the glacier. For a few brief moments, the scene was a thing of beauty, before the weather closed in again.

A post shared by Steve Walker (@spwalker2016) on Mar 20, 2018 at 2:04pm PDT

Were we right to elect to stay in the warmth and comfort of the ship? There’s no knowing, but I hope that we will have better weather for when we see the Perito Morena Glacier in a few days’ time. As ever, stay tuned for that, and to see whether we actually make it to land at Cape Horn itself.