After the battle with my digestive system, we departed Ushuaia for Calafate, another small town an hour north by plane. The great attractions of Calafate have little to do with the town itself. In general, people travel there as a stopover to places such as Torres del Paine across the border in Chile or Chalten both of which are national parks for hiking and camping. I'll write more about that later. Another attraction is the glacier Perito Moreno.
You guessed it! We spent part of a day admiring this cold-blue mass of ice with the help of our friendly taxista (taxi driver) Pablo.
We joined a group of about 50 senior citizens from around the world by boarding this boat which took us within 200 meters of the glacier. Several times large pieces of ice broke off and crashed into the water. Whenever this happened we enjoyed the roll of the boat riding the waves created by the ice.
Of course we had to take a group photo. One of the crew photographers was nice enough to use my camera instead of hers for this shot.
The colors were incredibly vivid. After the hour long boat ride we took a quick bus ride up to the top of the overlooking hill. We had some instant soup and galletitas (cookies) at a small snack bar and walked the board walks from mirador to mirador (look-out point). Impresionante!
Later that evening we met up with some other ACAers in Calafate where we celebrated a friend's birthday with a big restaurant meal and, of course, helado (ice cream). It was a fabulous day.
1 comment:
How did you take it all in. It seems like you could have sat there for hours and still not have been able to fully appreciate the incredible magnificance of it all. Trully an opportunity of a lifetime.
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