The downside of traveling by plane is that when you find out in your travels that in some places there isn´t going to be much to do, and you are already stationed in a place where you haven´t yet run out of things to do, sometimes there is just nothing you can do about it. Such was the case when I left Ushuaia for El Calafate on Tuesday, March 18.
The only lucky thing about those travels was that on a full flight, I happened to have a row to myself, and I didn´t even notice the plane had taken off until I woke up and there were only 20 minutes left to go. While waiting in line for a taxi, it turned out that the three Slovakians in front of me were going to the same hostel, so we ended up going together. When they talked amongst themselves, I tried to eavesdrop. I bet they don´t know that I picked up on what ´´Patagonski´´ means. (That´s as far as it went, though.) It turned out that I arrived to town too late to book any excursions for the following day, which meant that in a town where I would probably be left with nothing to do, I was to start with a day exploring the city. It seemed okay, though, since I usually like to do that at the beginning of my stay someplace anyway.
I got to learn a little bit of the town pretty quickly on Wednesday morning, when I decided to move out of my hostel for various reasons. I hadn´t yet paid for my stay, and the woman at the reception desk was under the impression that I was going to go to the bank and then come back. (She had said that this week the bank would be closed for four days, so if I needed money, I had to go get it ASAP. A real delight, that woman.) Since I was already set to pay the bill, though, I went and sought out a new place to live, and much to my happiness, I found one; thus, within two hours of having left my first hostel, my reservation was set and my bags were dropped off at my new one. So, I guess it turned out to be lucky for me that I didn´t have an excursion that first day. Some hostels aren´t called ´´hostel´´ places for nothin´. The main street in town is made up of the following: shops (that sell tchatchkes, tourist stuff, etc.), internet cafés, a few restaurants, a few hostels, and stray dogs. Needless to say (but clearly, I´ll say it anyway), I walked the length of my map in under 45 minutes (and I was strolling). One of the stray dogs accompanied me, though, so at least I met one nice local. I also ran into the Basques and their cousin (the Argentine) who had been on my 4x4 trip a few days earlier in Ushuaia, so that was random. I knew they would be in El Calafate, and obviously it isn´t that big of a place, so perhaps it wasn´t random at all. (Perhaps the stranger thing was that when I went to Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego the day before with my Spanish friends, we ran into the two Argentines from the same 4x4 trip. Now *that* is especially weird, considering that out of 630 square kilometers of the national park, I happened to run into two people I know. It turned out that after I told them about Joaquin´s luck at Bingo during our tour, they went to the casino that night and ended up coming out ahead (not 3,000 pesos ahead, but still a few hundred or so). It´s like I was Robin Hood, taking from ´´the system´´ (the rich) and giving to the travelers (the poor) without any of it ever passing through my hands. I´m ready for it to be my turn! (One thing I will say about Bingo, though, is that they read those numbers *fast*, and never in my life have I had to pay such close attention to numbers being read aloud in Spanish, with a clear goal in mind! But alas, having one number left when someone else says Bingo isn´t enough to claim Bingo as your own.))
Thursday, I got an early start, since I had an excursion to catch. It was an all-day tour to the Perito Moreno Glacier, located in Parque Nacional Los Glaciares . Since the glacier isn´t located in El Calafate itself (not much is), the bus ride out there took a little while and we made a couple of stops along the way. The unplanned stops were more like ´´slows´´ really, since we saw some animals along the side of the ´´highway´´ (gravel road). We saw an ostrich-like animal, eagles, condors, sheep, rabbits, etc. The first stop was to take a picture of the Lago Argentino, which looked like it belonged on the front of a 500-piece puzzle box. The second stop we made was to take a little hike and learn about trees, lakes, nature in Patagonia and whatnot. After that, we went to the glacier. As we approached the glacier, our tourguide, Cecilia (is everyone´s name in South America Cecilia?), put some music on the loudspeaker in the bus that counted down from 6 (6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1) and at 1 we had our first view of the Perito Moreno Glacier, and then it segued into Star Wars music..it was pretty funny; everyone started clapping. After a few minutes of picture-taking there, we got back on the bus and went to our next stop, where we could actually walk around. At that stop, we had two hours of free time, where we could walk a couple of routes to get closer to the glacier to take (yep, you guessed it) more pictures, as well as eat lunch. In those two hours, I managed to do the two routes that were available, eat lunch, watch the glacier for awhile (and hear some thuds as some pieces broke off), and drink a hot chocolate before it was time to get back on the bus. The final part of our tour was a one-hour boat ride that got us a few hundred meters away from the glacier and gave us another vantage point from which to take photos. After this boat ride, it was back on the bus and back to El Calafate. (Essentially, it was a day of a whole lot of pictures of a glacier that only moves one meter or so per day.)
Friday´s excursion was called ´´Todo Glaciares´´ (´´All Glaciers´´) and it was another early start. I rode in a van with a bunch of other people from the hostel to Puerta Bandera (the port) (during which time sunrise occurred), where we caught the boat that we and a lot of other people would be sailing on the rest of the day (including, oddly enough, the Basques). The boat´s first stop was Bahía Onelli (Onelli Bay), where we walked an 800m trail to be able to see the North Heim Glacier, the Onelli Glacier, and the Agassiz Glacier. There were also mini-icebergs floating around in the water. We spent a couple of hours there, which gave us enough time to walk around a bit, eat lunch in front of the glaciers, and take photos. (I think some people thought that it was necessary to take a picture of every single ice cube from every imaginable angle.) From there, we went to see the Upsala Glacier, which was named in honor of a university in Sweden. Personally, I was more impressed by the big blue icebergs in front of the glacier than by the glacier itself. After this glacier, we went to see the Spegazzini Glacier, which is the highest glacier in Parque Nacional Los Glaciares (it´s front measures 80-125m in its highest part). The glacier is 25km long, with a width of 1.5km and a surface of 66km-squared. In other words, it´s big. I think I liked it more than Perito Moreno. We also saw the south side of the North Heim Glacier (conveniently named South Heim Glacier). After seeing all of these glaciers, we sailed back to the port, where we got picked up in the van and then got driven back to El Calafate.
Today, Saturday, is my last day in El Calafate and I spent part of the morning at the Laguna Nimez bird reserve. You know I´m reaching for things to do when I pay 2 pesos (less than a dollar, but that´s besides the point) to go on a 2,500m hike around a lagoon to go look at birds, especially considering I don´t even like birds to begin with (only in Duck Hunt). I at least like hiking, so that´s a start. The woman who gave me the map of the reserve said that most of the path was blocked by water so there were ´´alternate routes´´ to take (and even those routes somehow put water in my shoes). I asked her if there was anything to see, and she said there was lots of stuff. She also said the whole thing would take about an hour. Since I had way more time than that to kill before going to the airport, I thought I might as well give it a go, seeing as though I ran out of other things to do. I ended up seeing some Chilean flamingoes, and even they didn´t look thrilled to be there (but where else where they going to go?).
So, it seems that while El Calafate isn´t really ´´the town´´ of any one thing in particular, since all of its attractions aren´t even in the town itself, it is where you need to go in order to see the glaciers and icebergs and such. I thus depart Calafate ready to move on to Bariloche, and with that darn ´´Titanic´´ song stuck in my head.
´´Near, far, where-evvvver you are....´´
missy
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