Ever since I heard about this glacier, I knew I HAD TO see it. One of those things you are certain to do … someday. And so that day came. I found myself heading south on Ruta 40, towards Patagonia, where glaciers grow real big. Like Perrito Moreno.
It was a long ride to El Calafate, the motor of the bus was not in the best shape and required occasional maintenance from the drivers, I was even getting worried we would not make it all the way. But we did, luckily, although we arrived around 6 or 7 hours later than planned, we finally reached “El Calafate” at 3am. At eight, I was already on my way to see Perito Moreno, THE glacier I was waiting to see for so long.
Perito Moreno is as spectacular as expected, it’s a huge mass of ice and makes you feel respect, not really wishing to hike on it. Especially when you see the huge chunks of ice falling into the moraine lake it created. I saw several of them. It happens so suddenly. The whole glacier makes cracking noises coming from inside of it all the time but it’s kind of unpredictable to guess when it’s actually going to fall off.
The irony is that so many people actually traveled this way to the the giant bridge on the glacier tear down. They were hoping this would happen just the moment, the day they were there, ready with their cameras and video cameras. But the bridge broke at 4am in the morning and left everybody disappointed to see only the remains of it.
Still, watching huge chunks of ice falling with lots of noise into the water, diving deep in and coming back up above the water surface, creating a huge wave, was quite an impressive sight. Now I have this memory to carry with me, along with a few photos I was able to capture the glacier’s beauty.