Walking on Perito Moreno; nature is patient

After Antarctica and Greenland Patagonia is the third place on earth where most of the glaciers are found. They may have been there for thousands of years but the touristic access to them is relatively new. The National Park of Glaciers were founded in 1937. Both Perito Moreno and Upsala, Spagazzini glaciers are inside the frontiers of the park. Most visited one, the Perito Moreno is about 50 kilometres from the city of El Calafate. 

After an hour drive from the city you reach to the entrance of the park, you then take a boat and make a twenty minute ride to reach to Perito Moreno. When you start seeing the front of the glacier you do not realize that it is 30 kilometres long, it’s a moving glacier, the front face is about sixty meters high, sharp at the top, with various tones of the blue changing by the light coming from the sun. As you reach to the shore the official guides of the park await you with crampon shoes; you will be making a little trekking on top of the glacier. The crampon stables your foot on ice, it is not hard to walk, you need to open your legs, squat a bit and move slowly. On a sunny day like this it is quite enjoyable to walk on ice, to admire the blue, to drink the water or even bite the ice like I did, the most delicious water you can ever taste. During our mini trekking on the glacier we make two summits, it may not be Everest, but the feeling is similar. While walking on the glacier we see water making a thin line along the ice, they are quite deep actually, I wonder how water can make such a deep hole inside the glacier. Water is patient! 

On our way back, after taking of our crampons and take the ferry back, we then go to the viewpoint to see Perito Moreno from a wider angle; we then realize how long it is. Walking on an iron platform and seeing it from the front and the sides we are lucky to witness a crush, an ‘avalanche’, first little ice particles falling than a big one falling altogether to the lake. It is amazing!