Glacier Perito Moreno and El Chalten

I’ve spent the last few days trekking around Cerro Fitzroy and in El Chalten – well out of range of a computer.

What’s been happening...
On Saturday I went out to the Perito Moreno Glacier – one of the reasons I had wanted to come to Patagonia. And it was amazing! We had plenty of time to wonder around the various lookouts to see both faces of the glacier. The highlight was sitting in front of the glacier in the afternoon sun drinking a small bottle of vino tinto listening to the glacier creek and groan – an unbelievable sound, which often seemed to come from deep within. And when the glacier calves (huge chunks of ice breaking off and sliding into the lake below) the noise fills the valley.

The glacier is enormous – from my vantage point it seemed impossible to judge the height of the main face (a staggering 50m apparently).

I took loads of pics but none of them really do it justice. It was far too big and impressive to photograph adequately.



That evening I travelled up to El Chalten. For much of the journey the bus juddered along a bumpy unpaved road that felt like a river bed running up the middle of a broad valley surrounded by sweeping hills. As the sun set the night-sky turned from water-colour yellow to purple. When the bus stopped I managed to get a couple of pics.

From El Chalten I spent three days trekking in the national park. We had plenty of wine and great views of Cerro Fitzroy (3045m) from our campsite.

Unfortunately the hiking was blighted by blisters – the worst I’ve ever had. One is the size of a 50p piece, the other a 10p piece. The rest of my hiking was done in sandals.