We arrived at the tiny airport of El Calafate, built next to the third largest lake in the world Lake Argentina. Flying in we noticed the beautiful teal coloring of the lake. Not sure why it is so beautiful, but we will find out!
Driving to our hotel the land is very much like the inland deserts of California, sparse with brush and highlands in the distance, except with an amazing teal lake to our right the while time. Calafate Parque Hotel was our end destination for the day which turned out to be situated in the middle of town. We were so tired our heads hit the pillow and we went to sleep without dinner.
Monday morning we were up at 5:30 AM and on the bus for our Boat Tour of the Glaciers at 7 AM. It was a 3 hulled catamaran very similar to the one that you take to Catalina and we had the best seat in the house! Except for passengers in the Captains Club who actually had the best seat on the boat, but ours were better because the person I was next to had a better spouse then anybody up there. (Thank Kyle for that logic).
Words cannot describe how awesome the glaciers are. They were absolutely, indescribable. I guess the only word that can describe then is… Scrumtralesant. (A Will Ferrellism).
The boat took us right next to glaciers and icebergs. The wind whips off the glaciers and lake is bone chilling. Good thing there was hot cocoa on the boat and out favorite, alfafores, which are little cookies layered with dolce de leche and covered in white or milk chocolate. Yum!
The first wow was the Speggazini glacier which is the tallest of the glaciers that we were going to see.
Second was the Upsala Glacier in the Upsala inlet, filled with low icebergs and then the big wall of Upsala. This glacier was the biggest in the world but has been melting due to Global Warming and now is the second largest in the world.
For the third glacier, we disembarked to this tiny island to walk into the forest to Oneida Lake. We ate a spaghetti lunch at a restaurant built to cater to the tour passengers and then finished with the walk to through the forest. The forest was something you image in Robinhood, with a dense moss covered trees and rivers and streams.
At Oneida Lake we saw our third glacier off in the distance.
We had to be careful though, Bulls have a run of the beach in Patagonia!
It was a busy day and we were tired, probably from all the cold, so we stayed at our hotel for dinner. It was delicious. Greg had the Patagonian beef and mashed potatoes and Denay grilled chicken breast and mashed potatoes and of course our favorite, Terrazza Malbec 2006 to wash it all down.
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