El Calafate: its up and downs, Heaths and lows, and oh yeah, a bloomin' great glacier!!

Fired up by the highly caffeinated maté which I shared with Patricia, I'm now heading into blog post 3 for today! Those of you who subscribe to the blog and receive the emails every time I've posted may want to scroll down if you want to read them in order!

So, on Friday, I got up bright and early again (well early again...) to take a bus from Puerto Natales up to El Calafate. I was once again crossing the border from Chile into Argentina and so I have yet another two stamps in my passport! I'd planned to meet up with Heath in El Calafate but he was visiting Perito Moreno Glacier during the day so I went for a trip into town to pick up a few bits and bobs I needed before we met up and went for dinner with friends he'd made in the hostel the previous evening and then gone to the glacier with that day. They had needed to get cash out of the bank and so Heath and I went straight to restaurant we'd planned to go to. As we sat talking, who should walk past the window but Kerry! I dashed out and went and called her over. It was so wonderful to see her! She had already eaten but joined us for a drink whilst the rest of us ate. It was really lovely to catch up, it may only have been a couple of days but there was so much to talk about!!

The next day, as Heath had already done the glacier and the Glaciarium (a museum about ice and glaciers) we decided to check out El Calafate itself and started with a walk around the lake

After getting to the end of the walkable bit we sat chatting before deciding food was in order! We went back a different way to see another part of the town and who should we bump into again, but Kerry! How lucky! She was off to some safari that evening and debating over whether or not to go to El Chalten on a day trip the next day. We left her as she decided to do it and go off and book it and Heath and I went for lunch and the obligatory beer (not pisco sour - don't forget, I'm back in Argentina!). To make the day even better, who should we also meet but Sarah! She was heading back to Puerto Natales that day to get ready for the trek and had a 3 hour wait between buses at El Calafate so she'd headed into town for a bite to eat. Such a shame we hadn't realised sooner and only saw her for a couple of minutes on her way back to the bus station, but it was still really lovely to see her if only for such as brief time!

That evening, Heath and I decided to go for a nice meal and ended up at Buenos Cruces which had been recommended by both Trip Adviser and Moritz, one of the friends from dinner the previous evening. It was delicious! I had braised Patagonian lamb, with mashed potato inside a tomato! 

Heath had a guanaco (Patagonian Camel!) risotto and I followed mine with Calafate ice cream. 

Calafate is a berry, as well as the name of the town! Heath had a chocolate fondant. It was such a lovely evening! Great food, great wine and really great company. What more can you ask for in life?

Next morning, I said goodbye again to Heath as he was heading back to Puerto Natales to get ready to start his trek the following day. Sometimes when you're travelling you just click with people, as I had with Kira in Mendoza and now Heath, and goodbyes are hard, and something I'm failing to get used to... So it was with a heavy heart I checked the weather and realised that of the two days I was going to be in El Calfate, that was the day to visit the glacier and headed off to the bus station to buy my ticket. 

I knew, as I've learnt and mentioned before, that you just have to keep going when you're feeling sad when travelling and going to the glacier was the best thing I could have done. It was just the most stunning sight you can imagine.

It's Autumn here now and so some of the trees were changing colour, it was unbelievably beautiful. 

I even got to see - and I managed to photograph - condors!! Mother Nature was on my side and she certainly knows how to soothe you!

The Perito Moreno Glacier is huge at 28km, and active, such that there is ice cleaving off the front of the glacier every few minutes. I'd been looking at one part and it just looked like it was going to go to me. Don't ask me why, it was just a feeling I had, although maybe backed up by the large crack in the ice behind it! (but there were lots of cracks which didn't look to me like they were unstable...) Anyway, I sat for around 30 minutes just looking at the glacier and then it started. A small piece of ice cleaved off the face of the glacier just to the left of this huge piece of ice and I started recording. 5 seconds later a larger piece came off, at 15 seconds another piece fell into the water and then at 26 seconds it happened! That huge section of the glacier cleaved from its face and I had captured it all on video! Unbelievable! Unfortunately I can't upload videos easily to my blog whilst I'm on the go or else you would definitely be getting this on here!

Every 4 years or so the glacier makes its way to the land opposite its face, you can see evidence of this in the ice at the front of this picture. 

When it does, the water flowing underneath it erodes the ice forming a bridge. With the pressure, eventually the bridge collapses and you're left with the ice you can see in the picture.

The colour of this piece was incredible, so blue (due to the blue light being able to penetrate the ice further than other colours). Stunning.

And of course, occasionally such a large chunk breaks off that it takes a long time to melt and you have an iceberg.

Today, I've been the Glaciarium, the museum dedicated to ice and glaciers. It's about 6km out of town but there's a free bus out there. It was super interesting and if you're ever in El Calafate, I can highly recommend it! Lunch back in town followed and then I returned to the hostel where I've spent the remaining time speaking Spanish, yes Spanish, to Patricia, drinking maté and writing blog posts! Tomorrow I'm off to El Chalten on yet another early bus. Seriously do they not like their beds here? And so I'll tell you all about that in a few days!