moreno glacier and torres del paine

when i grow up i want to be an iceberg. seriously. i have seen some mega super awesome icebergs in the last few days. or a llama. they´re so cool. and pretty. and they walk funny.

ok, first things first. i went to el calafate in argentina. it´s a swinging little town. it looks very european, like a little austrian ski chalet village. except of course everyone speaks spanish. anyway, i spent a few hours (six to be exact) going between chile and argentina ended up in a room in calafate. the next morning we cruised to perito moreno glacier. it´s SO big. 60 meters high and 4.5 kilometers wide, this iceberg covers 642 square kms. we´re talking seriously big. and it calves (drops) ice and i saw it do it heaps. you see the ice fall then you hear the sound of it and it´s like a huge rumble of thunder. amazing.

so in the morning we went for this massive two hour hike that involved scrambling over rocks and through mud... i choose to think of it as expanding my physical repitore to gain visualistic gain, rather than slogging my guts out for a view. both are technically accurate. anyway, it was good.

in the afternoon we took a boat cruise on the lake with the iceberg in it. OH MY GOD! so good! freezing cold with a mega wind chill factor, but so amazing, we were so close to the glacier. and then it calved right in front of the boat. of course my digi cam which had been switched on all day, just happened to be switched off. dammit. but it was cool, take my word for it.

anyway, last night i spent another night in calafate and headed back towards peurto natales today. except i get to the border between argentina and chile (which p.s. is in the middle of NO WHERE!) and swa to the right bus and this guy hands me a form and says here you need to fill this in to get into the national park. so i explain to his very nicely that i am in fact not going to torres del paine but rather back to natales. he says "do you wnat to come anyway? i´ll take you back to natales with the rest of the group tonight". OK! like i´m going to refuse a free tour anywhere let alone to somewhere amazing that i wanted to go but thought i was going to miss.

torres del paine is gorgeous. we saw little icebergs, i got to hold a huge chunk of ice that had calved off it, see a massive waterfall, get close to some llamas(although they´re a slightly different breed and called something else here), see this bird that is like the cousin of the emu, some condors and get really close to a grey fox. such a nice day. there are paths that people trek for days around the lakes and mountains of the park and to the torres themselves (three huge granite pillars) but one day was enough for me. it´s a pretty hardcore kind of place.

anyway, i´m staying one more naight in natales and then flying off to santiago and lima tomorrow from punta arenas (for those of you playing on the map at home). i´m going to try and score a flight to cuzco from lima rather than get the bus. for the simple reason being that i´m stupid and didn´t realise that particular bus takes 30 hours. and it´s 1 hour to fly. so, i´m trying to use my spanglish to navigate a cheap deal tomorrow.

keep your fingers crossed for me kids!

ok, i´m off to eat some empanadas, drink some mate and dream about becoming an iceberg... or a llama.

see you soon guys,
love,
simone xxx