Perito Moreno

(8 April 2012)

We are staying in El Calafate for a couple of days. El Calafate seems a town built in a rush, mostly for tourists. The most popular attraction here around is the Perito Moreno glacier, a majestic, blue hued, 4 Km front glacier that occasionally drops towers of ice into the lake that it feeds. 

50 meters above water, 120 below the water surface.

We were lucky enough to observe three major collapses, probably a 100 cubic meters of ice each? I am not sure, it is hard to estimate. But it was something like I have never seen before. By the way, the glacier is not receding (like, unfortunately, many other glaciers) because of global worming. Indeed it is not receding at all. Perito Moreno is stable and the ice that it donates to the lake is readily replaced by the new one that is formed back at the top.

Numbers. The entrance at the national park for Perito Moreno is 100 AR$, and the bus from El Calafate is also 100 AR$. To see the glacier from the lake, you have to buy a boat ticket for another 70 AR$, and this is totally worth it. To be honest, spending all the day at the glacier is not necessary. If I could choose, say with my car, I would go in the afternoon, for an half a day excursion.