Glacier Perito Moreno in El Calafate

November 24, 2011

Well, consulting my trip notes, I realize I’m even further behind than I had thought. (I dated the last entry that I wrote the 26^t,h but I’d really only caught up through the 20^th—oops.) After driving away from beautiful Fitz Roy, we continued south to Glacier El Perito Moreno in El Calafate. Considering the many recent full days riding in Gus, the 220 kilometers to get there felt like nothing, and we arrived before noon.

The view from Gus. Clare at the wheel.

Regardless of its natural beauty, I’ve decided that I like a place much more if it’s sunny when I visit. And I absolutely love it if it’s sunny and they have tasty ice cream, which El Calafate did. (A calafate is a type of berry found in Patagonia about which there is a romantic legend concerning two youngsters in love who run away to be together. In the end, they are cursed by a shaman, and the woman is turned into a calafate bush. The red berries are her way of trying to communicate with her love, and the legend says that whoever eats one of these berries will return to Patagonia at another point in their life. I had my calafates through the ice cream.) We explored the town a little that first afternoon.  It’s a nice place, but definitely geared toward tourists and quite expensive.

That's where I was!

The following morning was a tour to Perito Moreno glacier. “Perito” is a word used for a person who is an expert at something, and Moreno is the name of the guy who explored the area. The glacier was absolutely amazing. You could see three different faces of it, and the rumble of it calving could be heard throughout the day. Sometimes we were in the correct position to actually see parts of the glacier break off. Evidently four meters of ice are added to the glacier each day, but due to the calving, it doesn’t really get any bigger.

  

 

That evening my replacement credit card also made it to me (Thanks, Dad!)—miracle! I’m still waiting for my ATM card replacement, but step-by-step we’re getting there.  

Helen and I decided to make use of the hostel kitchen that night and make ourselves dinner. We decided on fajitas which were quite delicious. For dessert, I had decided to make an apple crumble. Regrettably, I didn’t check to see that the kitchen had an oven before purchasing the ingredients for it. The hostel didn’t. I also took Helen’s advice in the grocery store as to how many apples we’d need to make crumble for eight people. She’s a bit like me in the overestimating food quantity category. So, basically, I ended up with about 14 apples that couldn’t be made into crumble and had to be disposed of before crossing the border back into Chile the next day—no fresh fruit or vegetables allowed.  Helen caramelized some of the apples that night in an obscene (but delicious) amount of butter, and I tried to make some crumble-like topping in a pan on the stove using an idea I’d seen online. It didn’t turn out looking too appealing (the brown sugar they sell here is closer to black in color), but it tasted quite good. If we’d only had the foresight to buy ice cream to top it off…

The next morning as we headed toward the border I distributed all the apples, oranges, and bananas I’d accumulated over the past few days. (Remember the tendency we have to stock up on food items when they’re available?) It was like I had Mary Poppin’s bottomless carpet bag—more and more fruit just kept appearing.  Everyone was a bit amused. I was just happy the food got eaten.

We crossed the border without incident, and headed toward Torres del Paine for five days in camp. 

Working the night shift. There's just not enough time in the day!