Well hey again.
A couple of pre ramble points:
- 1. Photees will have to follow shortly. Sorry - current internet is painfully slow (read; Ange tries not to smash head into screen repeatedly).
- 2. The COMMENTS function has been switched on. For all stories. This means you can have your two cents instead of having to passively skim read all this blog drivel. For example: "Ange, do you EVER take that green beenie off?!" The answer to which is, "yes actually, I do. But somehow I´m always wearing the damn thing whenever a photee is taken!" So to make a comment (or ask a question if ye fancy) I think you go right down to the end of the story, scroll a bit further and there should be a button "Add Comment" - or summink relatively simple like that :-) BUT PLEASE BE NICE!!!! What with seeing so many god-awful photos of myself - the ego is delicate!
Ok. So this is our last night in a wee town called El Chalten. YES we ARE STILL in Patagonia. It´s positively frightening when we consult a map, to see just how LITTLE of this HUMUNGOUS continent we´ve covered. Ah well - 9 months to go yet!
We spent a couple of days in El Calafate, primarily to see the Glaciar Perito Moreno. This is a very very big glaciar that is reportedly one of the few remaining "stable" glaciars in the world. What this means is that the big bugger is actually advancing rather than receding. Could you all hear the Al Gore/David Suziki kinda tone there?
Anyhoo - so gravity, from the sheer weight of this thing, steadily pushes it forward. Approx 2 metres (I think) per day! Cool! Of course, during the day, huge chunks of ice are cracking off the face and falling into the lake. So while it might be moving forward each day - enough is breaking off to leave it in the same basic spot... ie - stable. Make any sense?
BORING! But wait! theres more! Yeah - we went there! And the exciting part is - you can hear it... creaking and cracking. And little (about the size of a microwave) bits of ice fall off and crack onto ice below or kaboom into the water below! Then - you keep waiting and you hear a really big cracking and a kind of rumbling and bigger bits crash off. We had the great privledge of watching a couple of bits the size of... um... 4wds lets say... falling off. The sound is just incredible! And the huge waves created in the lake below usually manage to tip over some of the icebergs already floating - which is kinda funny to watch. Honestly - you could stand all day holding your breath waiting for the next bit. And running a sweep on just which bit WILL be next. Naturally.
El Calafate didn´t have all that much else to offer. Unbelievably touristy - so we pushed on and got ourselves a bus here to El Chalten. Cue that cowboy-tumbleweed-spurs-chinking western Doodleedoo dum dum dum music. Anyone have a clue what I mean? Well its a dusty ol´town with pretty much one main street, a handful of wooden (very simple saloon style) stores, bars and hostels and mountains all around. Oh and a river.
So we trekked off to conquer those mountains - cos we´re supertrekkers now. Went up to the base of the main mountain Mount Fitz Roy. Quite a stunner - but sadly as we finally made the summit (gasping as usual) the clouds closed in and our view was somewhat obscured. Pretty good feeling of being right up in the clouds though. And of course the three glacial lagoons right at the base of the towering peaks were pretty specky themselves! Trekked our way back down (which is easier on the lungs but a total BITCH on the knees!!!) and had lunch by yet another stunning stream.
As we neared the end of our trek for the day (only a wee 7 hour one this time) it became apparent that one of the supertrekkers (that would be Ben) wasn´t feeling so super anymore :-( Seems a nasty cold/flu kinda thing has goddim! So he´s been out for the past two days and I´ve been the dutiful, caring helpful girlfriend! No really! I have! Well that is when my book ran out. And I got back from my own mini-trek. And I was done with defeating myself at solitaire.
My mini-trek was a MUST DO because the day yesterday was blissfully sunny and blue skied. I just did a wee two hour trek out to a bit of a plain that had some damn fine views of them thar mountains that had been so selfishly obscured by clouds the other day. Please stand by for pics.
Alright this has proved to be quite a longwinded entry with nothing much said. Sigh. Sorry.
Tomorrow we get on another bus - travel for 12 hours - stay in some dodgey town that the bus makes us stay in - hop back on the bus and travel for 14 hours to our next destination... Barriloche. Tis the northern reaches of Patagonia - a bit of a "Lakes District" kinda deal. So new scenes and adventures for us.
Hope everyones well and happy! Catch yàll soon.
