The day after I got back from my trek in TdP I had booked a day trip to the Perito Moreno glacier in Argentina, so I was pretty tired, but I slept for most of the 5.5 hour bus ride. And I ran into this couple I had met while hiking the W which was cool.
When we got to the border though, they didn´t want to let me and this Australian family through because of their new reciprocity fee rules. As of the 14 of january, Canadians, Aussies, and Americans have to pay recprocity fees to enter the country at any border (not just at airports which had been the case before), and for some reason, you had to have payed the fee in advance online before getting to the border--they wouldn't accept payment there. So the guy was bitching about it and making a big deal, but then since we were returning to Chile later that afternoon he let us through but said that we were going to have to pay it online while we were in Calafate and present the receipt on our way back, otherwise they wouldn´t let us leave the country. So silly. And I will be going back and forth to Argentina a few times, so it´s still shitty to pay 75$, but at least it wasn´t just for one day--the Aussies were literally just going though for the day to see the glacier, and then had to pay this ridiculous fee to spend about 8 hours in the country.
Once we got through I just slept the rest of the way, and when we got to the Parque nacional las Glaciares, it was unreal! The Perito Moreno glaciar is the biggest in Patagonia; one of the new advancing glaciers in the world, and the sheer size of it is just breathtaking. We didn´t have very much time there though--just about an hour to walk around and see it from different angles, and then I went in a boat to see it from the bottom. There were so many different colours and formations in it, and it was amazing how varied a piece of ice could be. With the sun heating it up, every so often a part would fall off into the water making a giant splash and filling the air with a resounding BOOM. The ripple of this piece would radiate for probably 30 m outwards, and then eventually the fallen piece would float back up to the surface to join the giant pieces of ice floating at the base of the glacier, that looked so small in comparison to the glacier.
The glacier spans 5 km across and is over 70 m tall from the water! Combined with the backdrop of the mountains, it makes you feel so tiny and insignificant. It also descends like 170 m below the water--it´s vastness is awe-inspiring. Despite the beauty and uniqueness of the actual glaciar, the touristic aspect took a little bit away from the experience. When I saw Glacar Grey in TdP, we climbed up to it, so not only was there this sense of personal discovery, but we were also the only ones there. At Perito Moreno, you sit in a bus for 5 hours, get out with the hundreds of other tourists and take a bunch of photos like everyone else around you. And then you get herded back onto the bus for the long ride home. It´s definitely not as magical as being by yourself out in nature.
On the way back we had to stop in El Calafate for half an hour so me and the Aussies could run to an internet cafe and pay the stupid reciprocity fee. We ended up getting back into town just before 11pm after having been picked up at 630am, so it was quite a long day, but definitely worth it, because Perito Moreno was unlike anything I had ever seen before.
The glacier spans 5 km across and is over 70 m tall from the water! Combined with the backdrop of the mountains, it makes you feel so tiny and insignificant. It also descends like 170 m below the water--it´s vastness is awe-inspiring. Despite the beauty and uniqueness of the actual glaciar, the touristic aspect took a little bit away from the experience. When I saw Glacar Grey in TdP, we climbed up to it, so not only was there this sense of personal discovery, but we were also the only ones there. At Perito Moreno, you sit in a bus for 5 hours, get out with the hundreds of other tourists and take a bunch of photos like everyone else around you. And then you get herded back onto the bus for the long ride home. It´s definitely not as magical as being by yourself out in nature.
On the way back we had to stop in El Calafate for half an hour so me and the Aussies could run to an internet cafe and pay the stupid reciprocity fee. We ended up getting back into town just before 11pm after having been picked up at 630am, so it was quite a long day, but definitely worth it, because Perito Moreno was unlike anything I had ever seen before.
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