From the remote islands of Galapagos on the equator where temperatures were a toasty 30 C, we flew all the way down south to the Argentinian town of El Calafate located in the Patagonia area, not too far (relatively speaking) from the point where Antartica starts. No, we're not testing the limits of our body's ability to withstand extreme swings in temperatures although it did take some adjusting (and plenty of layers) to get acclimatised to the sub-zero temperatures again. There is one thing near this town that was worth all the trouble however - something so gargantuan that there's really no way to appreciate it in its totality. Not unless you're hovering somewhere in the stratosphere at least.

But before that, let me first talk about Patagonia. It is a region in the south of South America, straddling the countries of Argentina and Chile, and larger in size than Chile itself (about a million square kilometres). Like most national parks (more accurately, it is a collection of national parks), it offers many hiking trails of varying lengths and difficulties - most can be done in a few hours while others will take 3-4 days, like the famed W trek on the Chilean side. But it does offer one thing that other national parks don't - the views of the many magnificent glaciers floating on its lakes. In fact, you could even hike on some of these humongous chunks of ice. It's really one of those things that will literally stop you in your tracks when you first see it.

Because of the proximity of both countries in the region, it is not uncommon for visitors to make day trips across the border. Which is what we did on our second day in El Calafate. The journey took about 5 hours each way though, which doesn't leave us much time to see the Torres del Paine National Park over in the Chilean Patagonia. What we did see was the devastation caused by a forrest fire last year. Over 15,000 acres of forrest and thousands of trees were burnt down in that fire, and all because of the poor judgement of one guy. As the story goes, this guy had to take a dump halfway through a multi-day hike and because the park rules specifically state that you are not to leave toilet paper behind, he had to carry it with him. After awhile, the stench became unbearable so he decided to burn it. Terrible idea given the dry and windy nature of the area. Moral of the story: clear your bowels before a long hike.

Anyway, back to the glaciers. So what exactly is one? According to Wikipedia, it's a large body of ice formed by the accumulation of snow over many years, often centuries. Fundamentally, not very different from an ice cube except multiply the size and volume of an ice cube by like a billion times. Our first encounter of a sizeable glacier was in the nearby town of El Chalten (we had seen "smaller" glaciers floating on Lake Argentina when we rented bicycles to explore El Calafate the day we arrived). We had taken the 3-hour bus from El Calafate to spend a night in this little town, famous for its trails and spectacular views of the nearby mountains. When the weather is good, that is. Which was not the case when we arrived. We had started on a hike but were forced to turn around one and a half hour after we started (we had one hour to go) by snow and winds so strong, we were finding it difficult to keep our balance. Besides the wind chill, we did not want to risk being literally blown off a cliff.

The next day was still cold (I don't think it's ever not cold in Patagonia) and wet but at least it didn't feel like we were fighting a blizzard. We tried a different trail and this time, we successfully completed it. And were rewarded with a view of Glacier Grande. Now, as impressive it is and despite it's name, it's dwarfed by the one that we were going to see the next day. Nevertheless, we spent some time marvelling at its blue hue (an optic illusion caused by the high density of the ice absorbing all other colours from the sun) and its reflection in the semi-frozen lake beneath it. Not for too long though as we had the 3-hour hike back into town and a bus to catch back to El Calafate, followed by a good night's rest before the "big event" the next day.

Perito Moreno
Which brings me back to the reason we were here in the first place - the Perito Moreno glacier. See if you can fathom this: 5000 meters across, 60 meters high and 30,000 meters long. It's larger than the city of Buenos Aires, capital of Argentina. And that's just the 10%25 we are able to see - the remaining 90%25 is below the surface of the water (hence, the term "tip of the iceberg"). And get this - it is still increasing in size! One of the very few advancing glaciers in the world. No words or photos taken of this thing will ever do it justice. And to further dramatise the moment, the tour bus that took us to see it actually stopped, turned on some classical music and then slowly rounded the corner on the road which would then gave us our first view of the glacier. Not sure if it was necessary (it was pretty damn impressive on its own) but top marks for effort.

Our visit to the glacier consisted of two parts - viewing one face (obviously, we can't see the whole thing) from a raised platform and actually going ON the glacier. While it was quite awesome just to look at it, it was a whole different awesome to be hiking on it. Complete with crampons (metal soles with spikes affixed to our shoes) and all. Yes, there was a real chance of us slipping and falling into the many crevices where, according to our guide, if we don't die immediately we would suffocate and possibly die a slow painful death from our chest being wedged and crushed between the narrow opening. But that's exactly what the crampons and the guide's briefing was supposed to avoid. In fact, the guide could not emphasise enough the possibility of us falling and dying, no matter how funny or light-hearted he tried to make it.

Fortunately, no one slipped and fall to their deaths. Once we got over our initial phobia of stepping on to the ice surface and half-expecting it to crack under our weight, we realised that the surface was actually pretty solid. We were safe as long as we stuck to the paths dictated by the marshals. Hiking on the glacier with the crampons made me feel like I was scaling some high mountain somewhere...except that we were pretty much at sea level and that the entire hike took just over an hour. Also, there were maybe 15 other people in our group, some of whom looked like they were in their 60s. To end the experience on a high, we were met at the end of our hike with some Irish whiskey and alfajors (little chocolate-coated cakes filled with caramel). Nice!

What can I say - it was a pretty cool experience! No pun intended.