El Calafate

Nestled on the southern side of the chilly Lago Argentino, the small city (just over 6000 occupants) of El Calafate exists almost entirely as a Patagonian tourist hub.  Its small airport connects it to both Buenos Aires and Ushuaia, such that well-to-do travelers interesting in making the rounds between Perito Moreno Glacier, Mt. FitzRoy, the badlands and even Puerto Natales in Chile, can do so without braving any international 20+ hour bus rides.

The city of El Calafate, as seen from Lago Argentino

For about six blocks of the equivalent of a Main Street, the city caters to a higher class of tourist than I’m used to, with fine restaurants, hand-crafted souvenirs and the expensive prices to match.  Despite the climate never getting toasty here, even in the midst of its summer season, at least one gourmet Heladeria (ice cream store) can be found on every block.  This seems to be the status quo for Argentina, whose citizens apparently love ice cream above all else, regardless of the weather.  The city of Bariloche in Chile is unofficially the chocolate capital of Patagonia, but that doesn’t stop El Calafate from having a slew of home-made chocolatiers serving the traveler community.

In similar quantities are the “adventure”-themed travel agents, offering hands-on activities with glaciers, 4×4 off-roading and paragliding, as well as traditional sightseeing activities for those that want all the splendor with none of the exhilarating rush.  One such activity is the Perito Moreno “Big Ice” trek which offers to drag crampon-wearing hikers in peak physical condition deep into the glacier over the course of a four-hour trip, exploring sunken wells, caves and other strange, slippery, natural formations before painstakingly heading back.

After a recommendation in Ushuaia this was my initial plan, but still sore from Torres del Paine and with no shortage of ice looming in Antarctica, I opt to save sixty dollars and go with the “Mini-trekking” expedition instead.  It was a better choice, though backing down and going with “Small Ice” did challenge my masculinity somewhat.

With an extra day to spare, I capitalize on the excess of petrified forests in the nearby badlands, thus satisfying a childhood dream of seeing a “petrified forest.”  In reality, there are only occasional logs of the petrified wood but combined with the dry, lifeless alien landscape of the badlands, it’s a solid way to spend an afternoon.

Small Ice

Epic ice.

Buses representing different tour companies cycle through the circuit of hostels and hotels, picking up tourists headed out for a day at Perito Moreno — easily the biggest day excursion here.  The slow, steady onslaught of rain immediately makes me grateful for selecting the shorter of the ice treks.  My hoodie is thick and warm and has been an invaluable piece of clothing on this trip, but there’s only so much it can do once saturated with water in cold, inhospitable environments (…like glaciers).

Cheap, thin gloves are provided to all ice trekkers, “big” or “small,” as the aged ice is sharp and jagged, and even small tumbles have been known to slice up hands pretty bad.  Jackets and/or rain gear are in much shorter supply, and until a guide comes running up to me at the last moment with an extra poncho, it was looking to be a memorably miserable trip.  As it stands, the poncho is strangely designed without sleeves, leaving me hovering over the ice like a wet, plastic ghost and providing me with even more reason not to ever lose my footing.

The wall of ice establishing the beginning of the tremendous Perito Moreno glacier.

The wall of ice seems too even and uniform to be a natural structure, paralleling the coastline with a height rarely differing at any point by more than a few meters beyond its average of  200 feet above the surface of the water.  From here, the glacier continues nineteen miles into the horizon, consituting the world’s third largest reserve of freshwater.  While the glacier advances forward at about seven feet a day, it shrinks by an almost identical amount, immediately quelling any fears there might be about a new Perito Moreno inspired ice age.

A thin segment of Lago Argentino separates the tremendous body of ice from a lush forest that contrasts sharply against the endless white of the glacier.  At ice’s edge, a cluster of guides sit huddled around a massive pile of crampons — sharp, metal teeth latched onto the bottoms of our shoes for added ice traction — and one by one, we are guided forward and instructed in their use.

The tourguide is telling us something that is likely related in some way to "ice"

The soles of our shoes now hard and unbending, trekkers unaccustomed to using crampons (much like myself) begin to take on a more robot/Frankenstein-like way of lumbering forward over the ice.  A bi-lingual guide leads us forward, pointing out sinkholes, caves, subterranian streams and anything else that might fill out a tourist brochure for glacial trekking.  From behind, a second guide makes sure no one is lost, either to a poor sense  of direction or a cave-in, though both are extremely rare here.

We use the crampons like weapons, stabbing down into the ice exhaustively with every step.  Leg muscles not traditionally used with this frequency tighten and cramp; I can see from the expressions of other hikers that I’m not alone in this sensation.  Somewhat out of place, a table awaits us on the ice at the dead end off a naturally formed frozen valley, covered in several rows of small cocktail glasses.

Freshly chilled glasses of whiskey

“Some of you are cold,” says the guide.  I jerk my head back and forth in silent agreement.  The poncho has protected me from further rain saturation, but does little to block the wind or cold.  “Well, here is something to warm you up!”  She pulls a bottle of whisky out while her assistant begins chipping away at ice with an a specialized ice axe in the background.  Only a few people seem enthusiastic about this surprise, though they end up being the ones to get more than one serving.

I take three, for instance.

Into the glacier

Me, in my stylish, sleeveless poncho

Something to not fall into

The ice wall

Back to dry land

Badlands

The badlands

Scanning a landscape devoid of life other than small, olive-colored patches of brush, the alien rock structures remind me of going to the beach as a child.  Mixing sand with sea water, I would hold a wet glob of the mix aloft and let it drip down slowly, creating clusters of rounded stalagmites to complement whatever castle I’d been working on.  From where the van has dropped us off, it’s like looking out on a massive beach of tremendous globs of sand and rock, bulging out from the dry ground with little explanation for their existence.

Bosque Petrificado (”petrified forest”) is one of the lesser attractions from El Calafate, and the large van that’s carried us off into this arid wasteland contains exactly one English-speaking gringo (me, for those incapable of gathering this on their own).  For the hour or more it took to get here, our guide spoke in detail in Spanish, only to present what had to be the shortened form to me in English.  After a time, I take out the novel I’ve been working on and silently free her from her bilingual responsibility.

There is at least one thing alive in this picture.

Our hike through the badlands (apparently called such as a nod to the similar Dakota environment of the same name) lasts approximately two hours with a brief stop for a ham-and-cheese sandwich, cup of juice and an alfajore — a local orea-like sandwich cookie with caramelly dulce de leche filling between two large, fudge-covered cookies — which is about as close to a classic Argentinian lunch as is possible.

Trudging through the Martian landscape, we climb through small caves and strange rock formations,  stopping at times to take note of regular piles of fossils and petrified wood (Argentina has strict laws on pocketing either of these, which we’re reminded of many times.  I likely took nothing with me…).  Most of the trees are broken down into mere logs less than a meter or so in length, though there are a few toppled trees as much as twenty feet in length, which if nothing else make for good picture backdrops.

This region of Argentina gets very little annual rainfall.

Petrified wood

Back to  Ushuaia

I’ve been told that flights from El Calafate to Ushuaia are surprisingly affordable, and while it’s still close to twice the cost of a bus ticket, I waste no time in securing my spot on the plane.  This bus ride in particular is close to 24 hours long and loops back into Chile before returning to Argentina, thus involving four separate customs stops.  If avoiding that doesn’t warrant the extra cash for a flight, nothing does.

I still refrain from taking any apples with me onto the plane.