El Calafate

Hola,

I was super excited to get to Patagonia and our first stop El Calafate, did not disappoint! From the moment we flew in passing over huge stretches of desert and bright blue lakes i was in love. We landed at El Calafate airport which is a few kilometres out oc the ity znd looks like you've landed in the middle of nowhere, it was just an airport in an empty scrubby desert and ours was the only plane.

I wrangled a ride share with in a taxi with an english couple (big win for my budget life) and by the time we rolled into town i was already thinking about getting a working visa and staying in Patagonia for ever.

El calafate itself doesn't have a lot going on, except doggos, doggos everywhere. Bib gorgeous doggos that want to love you and be with you forever. We were adopted by several dogs in our three days here. I think they all have owners becauxe they are in good condition but they all wander around the streets and not many have collars so its hard to say. Every time we would walk somewhere another doggo would jump up and join us on our walk, usually waiting patiently outside shops for us as well. So cute. Already planning to move here and own all the doggos.

The hostel is probably the best in the world as well, although very expensive because we ended up in a private room. Our first night we ate at the hostel restaurant James ordered the BBQ plate and the staff let me have the buffet sides and a free glass of wine, whuch was nicer than the NZD $3-4 bottles we've been buying. So while i tucked into my usual pasta and salad James got a massive plate of meat consisiting of something steaky and a sausage and raved about how its the best meat he's ever eaten and how full he is when the server brought over another huge plate of chicked breast and more steaky looking stuff. He was struggling through it when he was brought another giant steaky thing. These steaky things were probably different animals but who knows. Anyway he had cold meats for lunch the next two days and was happy. Bowel cancer is progressing well.

The first day we decided to just chill out, strolled around the very touristy centre of town, and the very untouristy parts of town, adopted at least 3 doggos and went to a weird little museum. We tried to find a nice lake front to hang out on but it seemed a little deserted one because it was crazy windy, just like home, and two because a lot of it seemed flooded.

The next day, the day I'd been waiting for we went to Perito Moreno glacier. So amazing! And we found out why the town is flooded. So because the glacier is stable, one of only about 3 in the world or something it often grows and dams the lake. The side of the lake without an outlet grew to 14 metres higher than the side if the lake the town is on. Even though the lake dams regularly, every couple of years. It seems it doesn't last that long, or not long enough to build up crazy flood waters or maybe the town planners just forgot, but as the pressure builds the water finally busts through the ice dam forming a bridge and then a spectacular collapse. We missed the last on by one month exactly. You win some you loose some, but at least we missed the flood.

We decided to go for the glacier hike, it had snowed on the hills overnight and was trying to snow the morning we arrived but was mostly raining. However by the time we took the boat across the lake

and hiked up to it it had mostly fined up. We were fitted with crampons and went out on the ice with a couple of guides. I was pretty magestic in my crampons, James didn't agree, he said i looked dorky and ungainly, but he wouldn't know. The tour finished with a ten year old Argentinean whiskey, with 350 year old ice. I liked the ice the best. Walking on the glacier was great but seeing the glacier in full from the otherside was the highlight. Could have saved 3000 pesos but not james can tick glacier walk off his bucket list.

Today we are heading 3 hours north to El Chalten for some amazing hiking. It was pretty hard to make the decision not to go further south to Torres del Paine, a famous national park on the Chilean side, but apparently El Chalten is just as beautiful and easily accessible, plus now we have to return to do Torres del pain next time.

So north we go...