El Calafate, again...
November 6th, 2007
It has been relatively uneventful since leaving El Chalten. I had a great time there, and was a bit sad to leave....We had to stay in El Calafate longer than we wished to, for scheduling purposes.
Monday morning our lucky weather streak broke. We had scheduled a trip to the Perito Moreno Glacier - about a 1.5 hour bus ride from town. It was gray and freezing and drizzly out. The Glacier was quite nice, and on a warmer day I could have stayed there for hours. However, the poor weather drew me to the only shelter in the area, a tiny snack bar, where I stood for several hours, until our bus driver finally let us board again.
We did however, get lucky while freezing in front of the glacier - and saw an enormous glacial chunk calving off, hitting the water below with a boom.
The most positive part of El Calafate was all the different people we met in our hostel, also cooking dinner and relaxing with a bottle of wine at night. As with our first time passing through El Calafate, there was little of interest to us, and we were eager to be anywhere else.
Our plans to go to Chile next died, while we were at the Glacier. We realized while shivering in the cold, that camping in weather like this might yield some incredible unpleasantries. I had a hunch that we would be hit with bad weather - A hunch which was supported when we looked at forecast. It is rumored that in Patagonia, they can have several different weather systems in a day, which might have made us hopeful - but we had also heard of the incredible expense associated with getting to the park - and didn't think the expense, bundled with the poor weather looming seemed worth the trip.
After gathering itineraries and costs all over town and juggling ideas, we finally settled on our current plan.
We felt our best option was the 4.5 hour bus ride to Rio Gallegos, a coastal city, probably mostly used for layovers to other cities. From Rio Gallegos - the bus would continue north, bringing us to Puerto Madryn 18 hours later. I felt that I was so far from home, that I should have been riding alongside at a different ocean, something more exotic than the Atlantic.
It has been relatively uneventful since leaving El Chalten. I had a great time there, and was a bit sad to leave....We had to stay in El Calafate longer than we wished to, for scheduling purposes.
Monday morning our lucky weather streak broke. We had scheduled a trip to the Perito Moreno Glacier - about a 1.5 hour bus ride from town. It was gray and freezing and drizzly out. The Glacier was quite nice, and on a warmer day I could have stayed there for hours. However, the poor weather drew me to the only shelter in the area, a tiny snack bar, where I stood for several hours, until our bus driver finally let us board again.
We did however, get lucky while freezing in front of the glacier - and saw an enormous glacial chunk calving off, hitting the water below with a boom.
The most positive part of El Calafate was all the different people we met in our hostel, also cooking dinner and relaxing with a bottle of wine at night. As with our first time passing through El Calafate, there was little of interest to us, and we were eager to be anywhere else.
Our plans to go to Chile next died, while we were at the Glacier. We realized while shivering in the cold, that camping in weather like this might yield some incredible unpleasantries. I had a hunch that we would be hit with bad weather - A hunch which was supported when we looked at forecast. It is rumored that in Patagonia, they can have several different weather systems in a day, which might have made us hopeful - but we had also heard of the incredible expense associated with getting to the park - and didn't think the expense, bundled with the poor weather looming seemed worth the trip.
After gathering itineraries and costs all over town and juggling ideas, we finally settled on our current plan.
We felt our best option was the 4.5 hour bus ride to Rio Gallegos, a coastal city, probably mostly used for layovers to other cities. From Rio Gallegos - the bus would continue north, bringing us to Puerto Madryn 18 hours later. I felt that I was so far from home, that I should have been riding alongside at a different ocean, something more exotic than the Atlantic.
posted by Samantha Farbman at 2:31 PM
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