Crossing Borders and a Growing Glacier

This month is just blowing right by and tomorrow starts the Holy month of Ramadan meaning we are all about to get a whole lot busier. I have been sharing a post about Ramadan every year which you can check out here. As always I am available to answer any questions you might have.. 

Right now I want to continue with our trip to Patagonia. We started with a few ups and downs and then found ourselves in the magical Torres Del Paine now we head to Argentina. 

So I had checked a bunch of forums and had read multiple times about people driving into Argentina from Chile and I "assumed" that they were renting a car in one country and returning it in another. I was mistaken. Turns out those people were making round trips. So how were people like us crossing the border? 

                             

They take a bus. What should have been a 4 hour drive took us 6 hours! We slept.. a lot. We went through two border immigrations and then finally.. finally arrived in Argentina. El Calafate to be exact.

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There is one major reason for visiting El Calafate and that is to visit Perito Moreno Glacier, it is one of the most famous natural wonders in Patagonia. It is considered to be one of the world's few stable or growing glaciers. Currently it is larger than the city of Buenos Aires and over 20 stories tall. 

But first we needed to pick up our rental car, get something to eat and get to the Los Glaciares National Park and fast.. since the bus took us longer than expected. 

On a very very side note.. I just want to mention how clean all these towns and cities were. People were constantly cleaning. I watched a woman wash the gas station.. windows and all with soapy water. Liter was always being picked up. They may not be the richest countries or world powers but they take such pride in where they live. 

Lunch was a ridiculously awesome sandwich that I just have to post.. how do you even eat such a thing?! 

Perito Moreno is an extremely accessible glacier featuring 3 miles worth of pathways and viewpoints. There are also boat tours as well as trekking tours where you can walk on the glacier. 

The glacier is named after Francisco “Perito” Moreno, the explorer and scientist who mapped Patagonia in the 19th century. “Perito” actually means “expert”.

Scientists estimate the glacier is roughly 18,000 years old, a remnant of the last Ice Age and ranks as the third-largest freshwater reserve in the world.

Ice chunks the size of buildings calve off daily creating ice bergs.. the process is thundering loud. We heard it multiple times while we were there.. and glimpsed it once or twice as well but were never quick enough to capture it on video.

 

In two days we saw two very different glaciers in two very different ways. Which one was better? Oh that's like picking a favorite child. They were both amazing in very different ways.

Gray Glacier was more about the journey.. it was exciting. But Perito Moreno was breathtaking. There was such a soothing calm to it. You could sit and watch it for hours and then just when you think you have seen it.. understood it it calves with a thunderous boom and you go back to just awe and amazement.

If you had the opportunity to visit both do both. But if you could only see one then I'd go with Perito Moreno. Since we arrived a little later than we hoped we couldn't spend with it as much time as we would have liked but to have witnessed sometimes like this.. it's one of those things that will stay with us forever. 

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