After a whole day waiting for the bus in El Chalten for the bus that goes once a day we made it back to the luxury hostel we'd spent one night in on the way down to El Chalten. We've spent two awesome days here seeing the most amazing sights. Definately my favourite place in South America so far.
On the first day we took a trip to the Perito Moreno glacier. It is 5km across and 40km wide and one of the only glaciers that is still expanding. After stopping to see the glacier from a distance we went on a boat trip right up infront of it. The glacier was spectacular there were massive 60m peaks high, and 150m below stretching for as far as you can see. The edge was fasinating as where pieces had broken off there were arches and holes. Although I saw a splash of one small bit fall off and a mini iceberg floating away it was nothing compared to what we were lucky enough to see on the observation deck in the afternoon. The deck is constructed about 100m in front of one of the glacier walls and small pebble bits fall off every now and then sounding like gun shots as they echo off the ice wall and water. As we arrived on the platform the glacier was making alot of noise and we saw a massive bit crumble and fall which dislodged an either bigger bit which came crashing down shortly afterwards. It made an awesome splash and then a bit about twice the size rose out of the water which had broken off from beneath the surface. The ice berg left was made up of 2 bits and 3 different colours. Although we waited another hour adn a half we saw nothing else big fall off - we were so lucky to see the one we did. It was unbelievable.
Thinking nothing could live up to the day before we headed off on a boat trip on our second day in El Calafate we were wrong. The Catamaran sailed up Lake Argentina along the ice berg channel. There were areas with hundreds of little ones and some big ones, with arches and slides and all sorts of other cool shapes. We could only see 15% of each iceberg as the rest is underwater . As we sailed to three different glaciers the weather was icy - we were wrapped up with scarve things pulled over our noses and hats right down with just eyes poking out - looked very cool!! We sailed in front of the Upsala which is the largest second to the Antartic and also Spegazzini which is the highest and also to Lake Onelli where there were three small glaciers cascading down towards a lake which was covered in thousands of little chunks of ice. One which looked like a head! It was the most amazing day ever!
Next stop is down to Ushuaia, the end of the inhabitable world!