Archive for category El Calafate

The virus on my laptop has mutated into a strange beast. The young Albanian that programmed it was kind enough to incorporate in a friendly message that pops up every 10 seconds and bounces happily around the screen saying “This Computer is Being Attaked” (sic). And there’s a picture of a fairy wand, which is nice. The only thing I don’t like about it is that it makes doing anything on the computer absolutely impossible. So, my apologies for the intermittant photo uploads. It’s the Albanian’s fault.

Perito Moreno was nice, but I just have to speak the truth a little bit here: it wasn’t that great. I’d been hearing about it for 3 and a half months now, mostly surrounded by superlatives and hyperbole. Usually, I would think that nothing could live up to hype like that, but my experience in Iguazu made me think that maybe yes, it really will be that stupendously life-changingly out-of this world.

Don’t get me wrong, it was really cool. And we had outstanding weather. But it’s kind of like looking at a big, blue, snowy cliff for 6 hours. Every once in a while a car-sized chunk of the big snowy cliff falls into the water and eveybody cheers, and there’s comraderie and everything, but the park is really developed, almost Disney-esque. They’ve erected metal sidewalks where trails used to be, and the massive flow of foreign tourists has made the Argentines become really organized and funnel all of us into specific zones to see the glacier. It was kind of like watching a really big movie about a glacier, with lots of noisily chewing Italian and French people in the audience.

A giant, unflavored Slurpee:

An untitled short film about my experience:

I opted to dole out some serious pesos for “MiniTrekking,” which allows you to take a catamaran embarque to the other side of the glacier, where you get out and follow a guide up onto the glacier, wearing crampons to stay upright. It was fine, and a cool experience, but we were in a single-file line like school kids the whole way, going very slowly and stopping about every 45 seconds for the middle-aged Germans to catch up. In 3 hours, I bet we walked one kilometer. It felt like we were moving at a you-know-what’s pace. But there was Scotch at the end, a highlight.

MiniTrekking:

Scotch at the End:

So, in a word, Perito Moreno: meh. Un-hype-live-up-able.