The day we planned to visit the Perito Moreno glacier happened to be Valentine’s Day. We’re not big Valentine’s people, usually only using the day as an excuse to eat and drink too much (just like we use any other holiday, weekend, Monday because Mondays are hard, Wednesday hump days, etc… ok we’re just terrible gluttonous people). However, I guess this was a pretty epic way to spend the day. The guy that runs our hostel was nice enough to organise us some bus tickets to the glacier over the phone instead of us trying to mime bus-taking actions at the guy at the bus station, and we opted to do the afternoon trip as it was slightly cheaper and also the slightly less crowded time of day. I spent the morning squealing over flamingoes again while Jeremy waited exasperatedly, and then stuffing my face with delicious calafate berry helado (ice cream) while Jeremy again waited exasperatedly. After cracking way too many lame jokes about the frostiness of our relationship, we were off on the road to the giant famous chunk of ice. The journey was spectacularly uneventful, as there truly is just huge plains of nothingness in Patagonia, until you get closer to mountains and then you realise there is SO MUCH MOUNTAIN. Excitement rippled through the bus as we rounded a corner and caught our first glimpse of the glacier in the distance.
Look at the glacier so far away!
The bus driver dropped us off at the entrance to the glacier park complex thingy, promising to leave the park for El Calafate again in 3 hours time. We were slightly concerned that we’d get very bored staring at what is essentially just a huge block of ice for 3 whole hours. Fortunately, it turned out that watching ice melt is one of the most enthralling activities ever, if the chunk of ice is big enough.
The park was very well-maintained (rightly so, after charging extortionist prices for entry), with a series of boardwalks all around the shore opposite the glacier itself. At times, we were so close to the glacier that there were signs stating that if we climbed over the barriers, there was a chance of death by icy shrapnel from glacial calving (chunks of ice falling off the glacier). We actually did end up spending 3 hours staring at this gargantuan piece of ice, listening to the eerie moaning/cracking noises as the ice shifted imperceptibly slowly and trying to catch pictures of calving (harder than one would think, as the sound reaches you long after the event). Such romance.
Yeah, that's us, not that you can really tell...
Lighting ok for us but not for the glacier. You just can't have both, I guess.
Back in town later that evening, there happened to be a free festival on, so we went to check it out with the French girl with a sweet haircut we were sharing a dorm with. The music was kind of terrible, and the heavy police presence somewhat unsettling, so we opted to go to a nearby pub for beer and pizza instead. We thought this would be simple, considering our new buddy was pretty decent at Spanish. Turns out minor mistakes can have terrible consequences:
- Firstly, turns out “cerveza de El Calafate” and “cerveza de calafate” may not be mutually exclusive, but are by no means the same thing. While we thought we were ordering the local specialty beer described by the former, turned out the sign was actually for the latter, meaning a beer made from calafate berries. This was a weird sickly sweet concoction that tasted like someone had managed to brew a cider with no acidity.
- Second mistake - somehow forgetting that “rubia” means “blonde” instead of “ruby” in Spanish and being resigned to drinking a jug of blonde ale. Oh well, beer is beer, and at least it was a nice somewhat flavoursome craft beer instead of the regular pisswater Quilmes lager served in most places (sorry most popular beer in the nation, you taste like yeasty water, much like the most popular beer in most nations)
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