El Calafate and a gigantic piece of ice

So it was goodbye Chile on Tuesday the 15th as we caught a bus to El Calafate in Argentina, 3 hours away. The bus trip was through more beautiful, lonely Patagonia scenery. El Calafate is a lovely town, and its country feel, mountains and lake invite you to stay longer.

We did a tour to the glacier there to the Perito Moreno glacier, awesomely huge and blue. Although tour´s are more expensive than getting there on your own, its really worth it to do one every now and then because you find out such interesting info. This town has really seen the effects of ´global climate change´ because every year their lake freezes over and they hold huge ice-skating shows on it. For the past 3 years the lake has not frozen over, and the town has also had record high temperatures in summer. The glacier is one of the world´s last advancing glaciers, advancing at 2 metres a day. However, 2 metres break off the front end of it every day, falling into the lake (which is one of the things people come to see because it makes impressively loud cracking and splooshing noises), so it doesn´t actually move forward really...apart from a every few years when it grows enough to meet the nearby point of land, then blocking the flow of water in the lake. The water level then builds up, and a few weeks later the water erodes a tunnel under the glacier, which then soon after collapses right open again...this is called the rapture. Because of climate change, a few years ago the frequency of the glacier closure increased to once a year, with the rapture also happening much easier, with less water build up required, because the ice is melting more rapidly, spreading forwards faster, and the glacier is ´thinner´.

Anyway, it was pretty impressive seeing the thing, we took a boat trip right up to it (unfortunately didn´t see any huge pieces of ice falling), its so huge, and it feels like you´re looking at a raw piece of the natural earth, very impressive.

Spent the day after relaxing and exploring the very cool town.