Let’s be honest about something for a second. Sometimes when you go to touristy places they can be a bit of a let down. Either they turn out to not be as cool in reality as you’d think, or you’ve simply seen it so much in pictures it has lost its “punch”. Frankly, when we were planning to go see the Perito Moreno Glacier, I worried a bit that this might be the case. Holly and I have seen and even touched other glaciers, and we’ve seen this particular glacier so many times on TV and the internet, that I worried that maybe it wouldn’t be as neat as I was thinking. WRONG. It was a just as amazing as I’d hoped!
The Perito Moreno Glacier sits about an hour outside the town of El Calafate, Argentina in Patagonia. To see Mount Fitz Roy near El Chalten, you have to fly into El Calafate, so when most people see both on the same trip. Much the like the awesomeness of the Grand Canyon can’t be properly conveyed through pictures, neither can the Perito Moreno Glacier. It is absolutely jaw dropping! The glacier itself is several hundred feet tall at its terminal face, and over 3 miles wide and its widest… it’s a bit hard to comprehend. I found myself doing a lot of panorama pictures in order to capture just how bit it is, but I’m afraid I failed miserably! One of the interesting things about this particular glacier is that while visitors regularly get to see the glacier calve (huge chunks falling off), this particular glacier has been stable for years, meaning it’s not receding like so many other glaciers around the world. Another point of interest is just how accessible the glacier is. You can literally drive to the overlooks you see in the pictures here, and there are ramps all over the place to make viewing for handicapped people a possibility. Of the other glaciers we’ve seen around the world, you either couldn’t get nearly this close, or you had to hike over really rough terrain to see them.
As I mentioned, I fear I haven’t truly captured the glacier’s greatness, so in the interest of telling more of the story, I’ve included some more companion photos to elaborate further.
More from Argentina next week!
–Dan Thompson
