This morning we opened the shutters to brilliant sunshine! Our bus to the glacier is not until 9am so plenty of time for breakfast in the eclectic ranch-style dining room - so different from yesterday’s sophisticated city grandeur, and yet full of character with its creaky floors and rattling windows. Breakfast was pretty much as expected with addition of water melon and pink grapefruit and seeds and grains of all shapes and sizes, accompanied by plates full of sticky cakes and biscuits that are so popular here.
Coffee was served from an urn bubbling on the bar. The thick black liquid that issued from the spout looked evil - but tasted great - intense but delicious!
We were picked up for our tour of the Perito Merino glacier in a minibus, with our cheerful Glacier National Park guide Caesar (who was fluent in Spanish, English and Italian). He imparted lots of relevant information about the glacier en-route along the 90 km journey.
The glacier is 30km long and covers 254sq km- larger than the city of Buenos Aires! It is the only glacier known not to be receding in these times of global warming. No one seems to know why. It moves forward between 1-2 metres a day. Occasionally it will block the exit to the glacial lake resulting in a build up of pressure until the ice-wall gives way with spectacular consequences!
It flows into Lago Argentino a vast lake that has an area of 1400 square km and is up to 500 m deep.
As we drive, the habitat around us changed. Initially there was steppe - rather bleak undulating ground covered with tussocks of hard sparse grey green grass called Coiron, and low scrubby vegetation that was silver grey or bright green with yellow flowers. As we drove, this changed until we were driving though forested areas, populated by a form of beech tree - Nothofagus - and beset with mistletoe-like parasites and covered in trailing tufts of lichen. The lichen is a testament to the purity of the air.
There were also numerous shrubs called Notro, bearing spectacular red honeysuckle shaped flowers that seemed to glow in the sunshine. The Calafate bush was everywhere - a form of Berberis with fragrant yellow flowers in spring followed by edible blue berries.
Although bleak and very windy, this area has a very high rainfall which keeps those lakes and rivers full.
We rounded a bend in the road, known as 'WOW' corner, revealing the glacier 7km away. The milky, dove-grey water took on its familiar blue tint as the sun came out, and the wall of ice at the front of the glacier was a spectacular site.
We started with a catamaran tour to the south face of the glacier, which is 40 metres tall, dodging sculpted icebergs on the way! We sailed to within 100 metres of the front of the glacier - it was really spectacular, with seracs 'calving' off the face into the lake. The walls and pinnacles of the glacier contained patches of amazing blue ice catching the light in the crevasses.
Back on land, we had a quick coffee in the visitor centre with its panoramic views and then set off along the long walking route. The walkway consisted of several kilometers of sturdy galvanised grids with rails. There were stunning views every step of the way and regular ‘balconies’ where we could stop / sit / take photographs. Despite the large number of buses in the car park, we were on our own most of the time. It was incredibly windy. I took my jacket out of my bag to put on and it was very nearly snatched away by a gust of wind!
The walking route started along the northern side of the headland, heading west towards the approaching glacier. The sun shone across the Lago Argentino turning it bright blue from the reflected glacial meltwater and illuminating the huge icebergs floating there like giant swans or intricate ice carvings. We passed through beautiful green beech forest enjoying distant views of snow capped mountains, and watched Andean Condors wheeling overhead. These black and white soaring birds have a three metre wingspan and fingered wing tips, and make an impressive sight.
It just got better and better until we reached the glacier face -70m high on this northern face.
We had seen the glacier from the boat, but it was even better from this vantage point, the seracs and crevasses being clearly visible, with patches of bright blue in the strata and between the ice pinnacles.
Despite the wind we could still hear the continuous creaking, cracking, banging and rumbling of the glacier as it inched slowly forwards. From time to time an ice tower, or the face of an ice wall, would crack and crash down into the lake making a roaring sound and producing shock waves spreading out across the lake. For us, this spectacle was one of our top ‘wonders of the worlds’ (the others being the Grand Canyon and Machu Picchu).
We ate our excellent picnic to the sounds and sight of huge blocks of ice calving into the lake below, while condors displayed overhead before swooping photogenically across the front of the glacier and landing in the tree above us!
We completed the long route before meeting up with Caesar again and returning to El Calafate. We enjoyed swift tea /beer lounging in the sofas downstairs and then we headed off to the bird sanctuary again. Unfortunately Kathy decided to take the short route downhill over a patchy of wet ground, performed a perfect ‘banana skin’ manoeuvre on some ibis guano and left buttock prints in the mud! After a quick change we met up again in town having purchased maps, posted cards and persuaded the 3rd ATM to give us some Pesos!
The bird sanctuary was wild and windy. No new sightings but the Caracaras put on a good show for us and having the binoculars and cameras (and warm coats) with us tonight made the whole excursion even more lovely.
The evening light gave spectacular views over the lake shore and beach, making the flamingoes glow an even more exotic shade of pink than usual!
We took a gamble on the local Chopen Cerveceria - or craft brewery. We enjoyed some Calafate beer flavoured with Calafate berries. The smoked meat platter was not such a success & looked as if the chef had just done a supermarket sweep at Lidl!

We were glad to get home to bed after mint tea relaxing in the comfy chairs in the hotel lounge.