Travel Quarter

Another flight, this time to the near the end of Argentina to El Calafate. Walking out of the airport and 50m to the minibus in howling wind and spitting rain didn’t endear me to this place at all. Arriving at the hostel, in a small and appearingly deserted windswept God forsaken town, I wondered why on earth I had 3 days here, and how I would possibly survive the boredom. Grindr had now become a new way of assessing a new place on a scale of modernity & liberalism, rather than for any other purpose. In Mendoza, the nearest gay was within 10km. In Bariloche, the nearest within 630km. In El Calafate it only picked up one gay, rather than the 200 it displays. He was 1086km away. Oh my god.

The next day was an early start. Dressed in a vest, a T-shirt, a long sleeved top, another T-shirt, a hoddie, another hoodie, and a borrowed 1980´s puffer jacket I closely resembled the Michelin man on steroids. Today was the Big Ice Trek on the Perito Moreno Glacier. We visited the glacier first from land, from viewing platforms and heard the thunders and long held grumbles as the glacier moved and cracked. Seeing it occasionally collapse at the front, creating huge waves and rocking the ice bergs already set free. We then approached by boat, and then hiked up alongside the glacier, before donning crampons and trekking onto the glacier itself. No matter where else I have been before in the world, I have usually been somewhere similar. But here, the terrain is so alien, you aren’t sure what is solid or liquid, what could take your weight or how to move quickly. You are quickly faced with huge cracks and crevices, small streams forming, and huge streams pooring into thunderous bore holes that reached to the bottom of the glacier and lubricated its movement over the rock beneath. The sun was bright but the wind howling, but we spent a good 4hrs trekking over the ice and most marveling at its beauty. I luckily had my “I heart Manchester” T-shirt on which looks good in the pics (if you ignore the rest of the outfit I have on that is!!). After Machu Picchu, one of my most favourite days. The evening was spent over steak and Malbec with Ciara who I had met in Mendoza on wine tours, and a Canadian from Vancouver called Tom. We tried to sustain until the bars got going, but at 3.30am we called it a day.

By my second day I was much more attuned to El Calafate, and the remoteness of the place with its beauty, and the warm and friendly hostel slowly thawed my urban heart. Six of us from our hostel had signed up to a day horse riding, and we weredriven by our local guide (dressed in a weird beret) to his ranch about 1 hour from El Calafate. We stopped on route to see an eagle devour a jack rabbit in the middle of the dirt track. For the rest of the day were often close to condors, with two pairs swooping over head constantly, trying to outsmart and overtake the rabbits on the ground. The backdrop to them was the snow topped Andes, with a large mint green glacier lake and another azure blue lake in front of that. We had spectacular views of the Perito Moreno Glacier, and truly stunning scenery that really reminded you of where you were. Lunch was of course steak sandwiches (three of courses!) with plenty of malbec, letting the horses direct the way back because we had gone past worrying.

Another flight, this time to the near the end of Argentina to El Calafate. Walking out of the airport and 50m to the minibus in howling wind and spitting rain didn’t endear me to this place at all. Arriving at the hostel, in a small and appearingly deserted windswept God forsaken town, I wondered why on earth I had 3 days here, and how I would possibly survive the boredom. Grindr had now become a new way of assessing a new place on a scale of modernity & liberalism, rather than for any other purpose. In Mendoza, the nearest gay was within 10km. In Bariloche, the nearest within 630km. In El Calafate it only picked up one gay, rather than the 200 it displays. He was 1086km away. Oh my god.

The next day was an early start. Dressed in a vest, a T-shirt, a long sleeved top, another T-shirt, a hoddie, another hoodie, and a borrowed 1980´s puffer jacket I closely resembled the Michelin man on steroids. Today was the Big Ice Trek on the Perito Moreno Glacier. We visited the glacier first from land, from viewing platforms and heard the thunders and long held grumbles as the glacier moved and cracked. Seeing it occasionally collapse at the front, creating huge waves and rocking the ice bergs already set free. We then approached by boat, and then hiked up alongside the glacier, before donning crampons and trekking onto the glacier itself. No matter where else I have been before in the world, I have usually been somewhere similar. But here, the terrain is so alien, you aren’t sure what is solid or liquid, what could take your weight or how to move quickly. You are quickly faced with huge cracks and crevices, small streams forming, and huge streams pooring into thunderous bore holes that reached to the bottom of the glacier and lubricated its movement over the rock beneath. The sun was bright but the wind howling, but we spent a good 4hrs trekking over the ice and most marveling at its beauty. I luckily had my “I heart Manchester” T-shirt on which looks good in the pics (if you ignore the rest of the outfit I have on that is!!). After Machu Picchu, one of my most favourite days. The evening was spent over steak and Malbec with Ciara who I had met in Mendoza on wine tours, and a Canadian from Vancouver called Tom. We tried to sustain until the bars got going, but at 3.30am we called it a day.

By my second day I was much more attuned to El Calafate, and the remoteness of the place with its beauty, and the warm and friendly hostel slowly thawed my urban heart. Six of us from our hostel had signed up to a day horse riding, and we weredriven by our local guide (dressed in a weird beret) to his ranch about 1 hour from El Calafate. We stopped on route to see an eagle devour a jack rabbit in the middle of the dirt track. For the rest of the day were often close to condors, with two pairs swooping over head constantly, trying to outsmart and overtake the rabbits on the ground. The backdrop to them was the snow topped Andes, with a large mint green glacier lake and another azure blue lake in front of that. We had spectacular views of the Perito Moreno Glacier, and truly stunning scenery that really reminded you of where you were. Lunch was of course steak sandwiches (three of courses!) with plenty of malbec, letting the horses direct the way back because we had gone past worrying.