Argentina Day 12 - El Calafate

Day 12: Tuesday January 16, 2007

We got up early this morning. When dinner is at 10, it’s hard to get up at 6. After developing a slight cough over the past few days, I woke up this morning with no voice. I also didn’t get a hot shower. It was also cold, windy and raining. Not the best way to start a day.

But what we had the opportunity to see made up for it. The bus picked us up at about 7:45 (even though they were supposed to come at 7:15), and we drove out to Califate National Park. I like that if you switch the l and f in that word, you’d have a Café Late =)

Anyway, we took a boat for the whole day around the lake here, and saying it was incredible is an understatement. This boat, which held about 100 people or so, went pretty fast for its size. Going along the water, we saw probably 50 icebergs of all different sizes. Icebergs are pieces of glaciers that have broken off and are drifting in the water. The neat thing about the icebergs, is how they look. For some reason, I’d always imagined them as pyramid shaped, with the peak above the water. In reality, they are of course all different shapes, curved, cornered, and beautifully white. They were gorgeous. Smaller pieces of icebergs floated by in the water, and it was like the lake was a huge cup of soda, with ice cubes floating around inside.

And then we saw it. The first of 4 stops to see glaciers today. I am not sure what I really expected to see when we saw the glacier, but what we saw was better. There is no way to really grasp the size of the glacier, in a picture or in words, but just know that they’re huge. We of course took a ton of pictures, which you can see here:

http://www.belanaomi.com/Argentina%20Pictures.htm

For lunch, we stopped and could get off the boat and walk right up to the lake shore, and touch little icebergs. Every few minutes, we heard what sounded like thunder, and noting the weather conditions - could have been; But it was actually the sound of the glaciers shifting and breaking, and every once in a while pieces of ice actually would break off the enormous glacier.

The tour lasted until 4:00 pm, and after the hour drive, we got back to town at 5, and we came back and took some time to walk around town. Tomorrow we take another tour, but rather than from a boat, we take it from a bus and get out and walk on the icebergs. Hopefully I won’t kill myself! =)

We came back to the hotel to rest up and have some supper, and this is when I am doing my posting and uploading, so enjoy.