Woke up this morning, and -- no lights or hot water! The power company shut off the whole town and didn't warn anyone in advance. The eggs for breakfast had already been prepared, coffee was lukewarm, but we ate pretty well anyway and left on the bus for Perito Moreno Glacier in Las Glaciares National Park. Blue skies and sunshine yet another day, little wind even at the glacier! It was about an hour and a half drive there from Calafate (it's EL Calafate, but no one says that.) following a tour of the town/small city/whatever. There's really nothing scenic about it except that the presidente of Argentina has a house here because this is where she's from. We are kind of tired of information and wished we could just go to the glacier!
And we did finally make it there, right when they said we would--imagine that! It has always been so on this tour, no one is late and we often depart a few minutes early. The glacier was--as they always are--magnificent and huge! There is simply no scale to measure their height against--massive! They (whoever 'they' is) have always said that an overcast day is best for viewing a glacier, but in spite of our clear blue sky (some lenticular clouds high above telling of strong wind at that elevation), the cracks and fissures in the facade and on the top were brilliant turquoise, varying in value from bright to deep dark turquoise-y blue!) I could have stood in one place and clicked the camera over and over, it was so beautiful!
The route our guide had chosen was uphill, very long, and with easily a thousand steps over a couple miles. The advantage to this route was that you are always facing the glacier, so if it calves, you have a good chance of seeing it. We saw two relatively small calvings--'small' because they were probably only the height of a ten-story building instead of twenty-five! They were preceded by loud cracks (though the glaciers are never completely quiet, and not every crack is a portent), almost a ripping sound and followed by a great sustained crash! I heard a bigger one but was walking behind some trees at that moment--drat! Still it was amazing. We were there for three hours and walking for easily two+. I could've stopped for a photo every few steps, the sight was so magnificent!
I think I will make a glacier quilt; I've wanted to since Iceland, think I told you yesterday that I found a good subject at Gray Glacier in Torres del Paine National Park, but these photos will become excellent fore/back-ground. And anyway, if I never make anything at all, I've seen these glaciers and felt their presence and taken in as much as my mind and soul can absorb.
We returned to the hotel--lights clicked on the moment we left--and repacked our bags. Then cabbed to el centro of town and shopped, using up much of our Argentinean money and buying fun things as well as pizza, beer and gelato for dinner! Hope to get to sleep early tonight, flying away at 9:15 in the morning to Buenos Aires where the temp has been 110 degrees, not looking forward to that at all! Then we head for home late Monday. It will be good to be in my own home again, seeing my family and my little dog, but what a wonderful adventure this has been. I don't think it could have been better in any way.
Good night for now.
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