Perito Moreno Glacier
El Calafate is a rich little tourist town based entirely on its proximity to the Perito Moreno Glaciers. The main street is a row of decent enough restaurants blighted by an abundance of tourist souvenir shops and a very out of place looking pyramid-shaped casino. Most of the hotels are scattered in the wasteland between the town centre and a beautifully blue lake. The hotels and particularly hostels are quite overpriced here so we started in a hostel, but realised that for $5 more a night we could move up to a far better hotel along the road, still equidistant from town.
As would appear customary on this trip I got ill again and in a feverish state spent two days dreaming I needed to pile more wood on a non-existent fire. By the 3rd night I felt like I was floating along on a river, and then dreamt that I was washing my face in a sink. When I put my face under water and brought it up again the entire bathroom and room had flooded right to the top and I only woke as the last of the air left my lungs. This is when the decision was made to move to a warmer hotel…
Full of potions following a quick trip to the hospital in an effort to get my heart rate below 160 for the first time in three days I finally got a decent night of sleep, so the next day visited the glacier. After a couple of viewpoints on the drive there including the bright blue lake of glacier milk (finely grated minerals in suspension after being pushed ahead of the glacier) we took a boat trip to the north face of the glacier.
Later we took a long walk round the southern face and as the sun came out and warmed the ice we just sat and listened to the loud creaking as the ice moved forward up to 2m a day, occasionally seeing huge chunks falling into the lake.
