Oh boy! How to describe this trip so far? AWESOME! Probably the most unique weekend I've yet to have in Argentina. I got in last night around 6pm and was chillin with the peeps in my hostel, sharing a beer with the German, chattin with the Irish, comparing scary movies with the Australian and vegetarian recipes with the Brit. I feel absolutely at home amongst all these foreigners in this barren cold land.
I booked the mini trek to Perito Moreno Glacier today. It rained but it was still spectacular. We got on the bus which took us 2 hours away to the Rico Brazo of Lago Argentino where we boarded a boat that took us across the water to the shore of the forest next to theis huge wall of ice. We hiked through the wet lush forest to the edge of what looked like a a monstrous white wave of snow frozen in mid lurch onto the rocks. The size of this thing is seriously inconceivable, yet there it is right in front of your eyes! We trekked across the beach and rocks to base camp where Diego our guide put on our crampons which reminded me of awkward metal bear traps on our feet. And then before you know it... I'M STANDING ON A GLACIER! Within 2 steps onto the ice I was satisfied. We could have turned around and gone home right then and there and it would have been worth it!
The mountains and peaks and valleys and crevices and holes that just defy wonder, pristine white, and sometimes a bright pure blue that I've only ever seen in gatorade flavors. (Aparently the blue parts are the older ice where it is most compacted, fun fact!) Trudging up and down to the sound of the crunch and slush of the giant ice cube under my metal claws accented by the tapping of the raindrops on the back of the awkward banana yellow rain coat, and asking for photos from the German girls while offering to take them for the sweet old Mexican couple who I always seemed to bump into right as they were having a romantic moment... such was the the trek! We reached our summit with an incredible panoramic of the glacier, the forest, the beach, and the lake where we came upon a set of tables nestled into the ice adorned with bottles of Scotch and alfajores for our adventurous pleasure! Coolest bar in the world....knee slapper!
After hiking back down and disembarking from our crampons we had some time to wander the forest and have lunch. I loved the solitue and the absolutely perfect beauty of the nature. I don't know how else to relate it, just breathing in freshness everywhere and treading on soft wet earth rich with red color, fallen trees black and soaked with rain, next to the crawling rock formations, grey shore, and the white-blue ice constantly cracking and churning in undetectable motion. I sat out on the rocks listening to the glacier for awhile. The 2 other Americans and the French boy joined me. As we were joking about how the whole front of Perito Moreno was going to fall down and kill us with a tidal wave, a huge chunk of the front wall broke off and went crashing into the lake in an enormous white splash! The sound of falling ice is so impressive. It's like thunder during a rainstorm except as if the clouds are made of stone smacking into each other. From the balconies we were able to see the glacier from a completely different perspective. Imagine an infinity of whiteness, like an ocean of ice that oozes out from the mountains. Absolutely spectacular. I'm so glad I had that experience because now I can describe to my grandchildren in vivid detail even the color and sound and smell of a glacier when they ask me what one was.
Now to recount some of the glacierology I learned today:
Glaciers dont have to be found in cold places or high elevations. The Patagonia ice field, roughly the size of the state of Israel and containing 300 glaciers, is in a low latitude and only 2,000 m above sea level. Patagonia glaciers are formed by the wind patterns that carry moisture from the Pacific Ocean up over the peaks of the Andes where they get cold and condense and form snow. The snow freezes in the upper part of the glacier, the ice factory they say, and eventually pushes down and out to the front with each season of new snows. Perito Moreno is only 450 years old and the 3rd largest in Argentina but its famous for its easy access and spectacular ice falls. It is also one of 2 stable non-receeding glaciers left in the world. All other glaciers are receeding and shrinking except for Perito Moreno and one more on the Chilean side. This is because its ice factory area is much much larger then its breking area so more ice is created than what breaks off in the spring each year. The other glaciers though are not so lucky. They've all been receeding since the ice age its true but the rate of breakage and melting has quadrupled in the past hundred years, much faster than its previous rate. This is a problem because Earth's glaciers regulate her atmospheric temperatures. It's like driving a car without any antifreeze or coolants basically. So yeah that's the tragic part. Listening to Marcelo our bus guide talk about it this morning made me want to cry! What more does our earth have to do to make us listen to it?
I guess the good news is that I finally found one place in Argentina where smoking is prohibed.
No comments:
Post a Comment