Caution! BIG ICE Up Ahead!

El Calafate, Argentina (Feb 2-4)

My bus journey from Ushaiia to El Calafate (503 pesos=$117) was an exercise in excruciating endurance. Starting at the ungodly hour of 5 AM, there were numerous obstacles which stood between me and my destination, such as 4 tedious border crossings, a temporary vehicular breakdown in the middle of Bumblefuck, Egypt Argentina, and a ferry crossing delayed by 2 hours due to fierce Patagonian winds. Thankfully, I was supposed to have a 3.5 hour layover in Rio Gallegos so being 2 hours late to arrive there only meant having to wait a further 90 minutes before my bus left for El Calafate. We arrived at nearly 12:30 AM, but I had fortunately booked a dorm bed in a hostel only 2 blocks from the bus terminal so I managed to hit the sack by 1. I was so plum tuckered out that I didn't even notice whether or not any of my bunkmates were snoring the Hallelujah chorus.

The next morning I was rudely awakened at 6:30 by the loud, grating voice of an elderly woman ironically complaining at the reception about someone "noisily" entering her dorm room in the wee hours of the morning. Hmmm....me thinks the lady doth not belong in a dorm and should slither off to a private room -STAT! Once I'd downed my requisite two cups of black coffee, I went into town to take care of business -namely, paying for my "Big Ice" excursion to the Perito Moreno Glacier booked for the following day, Feb 3. Ice hiking on the glacier is done exclusively through the Hielo y Adventura travel agency and costs 770 pesos($180). The price includes bus/boat transport, use of crampons & harness, and multiple studly Argentinian bilingual guides during the roughly 4 hours of hiking across the ice. Not included, sniff sniff, is the hefty admission price to Los Glacieres Nationale Parque (100 pesos for foreigners as of Dec 1, 2011) and lunch. Adding it all up, I spent roughly $210 for what turned out to be one of the highlights of my time thus far in South America. Every single.last.peso was money well spent!

I'd been hankering to see this almighty glacier ever since I first laid eyes on a photograph of it when I went to Patagonia nine years ago. I had vowed to get there "one day, some way" and I had braced myself for the cost of it to the point that I was actually pleasantly surprised that it didn't break my backpacking piggy bank; it merely chipped the piggy bank's snout.

The ride there was mostly uneventful except for when we caught a brief glimpse of a red fox crossing the road just ahead of our bus which caused the bus to sway slightly to the left as those tourists sitting on the right all stood up in tandem with their digital cameras in hand eager to document the sighting. Hee hee. Tourists can be so predictable, yes? And before you even dare to ask, NO! I was not one of those trying to get a blurry shot of the animal.

One thing I found particularly hilarious was that just before we rounded the final bend in the road and feasted our eyes upon the glacier for the first time, the bus driver began playing some incredibly dramatic choral music. It was absolutely cheesy and yet rather appropriate, I begrudgingly have to admit.

My first, middle, and last impression of this massive glacier is that pictures canNOT do it justice. It is beyond impressive in the flesh and requires the words of a deft poet laureate to describe. And it wasn't just the sight of the glacier which frankly blew me away but also the sounds it produced- from the precipitary cracking of the ice, followed by the splashing sound made when the falling ice hit the water, finally to the reverberating sound much like distant thunder at the end which I could literally feel in the soles of my feet from the observatory platform upon which I was standing. I tried to record a video of a huge chunk of ice breaking off but only managed to capture that lingering loud echo at the end. C'est la vie.

Hiking on the ice with crampons attached to my boots, I found, was not terribly difficult for anyone with a reasonably good level of fitness, but it did put a lot of stress on my joints, particularly the ankles and knees. During the last hour, I was acutely aware of my right ankle struggling, as we walked for a significant distance at a slight angle. Furthermore, my butt muscles also felt a burn which would have made 80's workout Queens Richard Simmons and Jane Fonda proud.

I did not explore any ice caves per say, but we did walk up to the edge of a couple of sink holes and crossed some minor crevices. We had lunch in an idyllic spot alongside an electric blue glacial pond. I removed my Goretex jacket and placed it on the ice, so that I could keep my butt reasonably dry while chowing down on the few nibbles I'd brought along for lunch. A wise move when picnicking on ICE, don't cha think!?

I must mention that one of the ice hikers in my group (btw-there were only 10 of us in our group) happened to be a biologist and when one of the guides pointed out some insects which live inside the glacier and are even able to sexually reproduce with one another while encased in the ice, this biologist became somewhat fixated on the thought of these creatures and their mating patterns. So I just couldn't help myself and cracked a few jokes at his expense about these "so hot they're cold" fornicating bugs. I mean, wouldn't you? The dude was practically begging to be teased!!

Every beautiful day must come to an end, alas, but what better way to finish a glacial excursion than with a shot of Jameson whiskey on the rocks, with the "rock" being a piece of ice taken from the one-and-only Perito Moreno!?!? Yep, the classy Hielo y Adventura get a hearty TWO THUMBS UP from yours truly!