Perito Moreno

Our visit to El Calafate was more if a flyby than a real visit. Although our entire stay was just over 24 hours, we made the most of it. The purpose of the visit was to see the Perito Moreno glacier. 

We booked a tour to take us to the glacier and were a little dismayed to get picked up by a fifty person bus. Fortunately, the group was split into two groups for the tour and we were in the much smaller English speaking group. 

The glacier itself looked almost unreal. Fifty meter high sheer cliffs of ice rose out of the water. As we approached the glacier by boat it didn't look possible that we would be walking on it, but shortly after disembarking the boat we were standing on crampons and walking on the ice. From a distance, the ice looked smooth and slick, but as we got closer, much of it looked more like a large pile of hale. 

Walking up the glacier was not too difficult but when walking downhill we couldn't help but be surprised that they didn't require us to sign a waiver promising not to sue. For me, the highlight of walking downhill was watching Holly walk downhill. If it was less treacherous I would have filmed it so that I could watch it every time I needed some cheering up. Our guide Luis recognized Holly's discomfort and took it on himself to personally guide her back down the glacier for which she was extremely grateful. 

We celebrated our sage return to solid ground with a bit of whisky chilled by a chunk of glacier.

After the hike, we made one more stop before heading back to town. Because of the high winds we checked out several viewing platforms before hiding out in the cafe.