Watching ice melt has never been high on my list of leisure activities. It just seems like there are better things one could be doing with one’s time… particularly when you’re slap-bang in the southern heart of South America. But as they say, when in Rome; which is how my wife and I ended up on a bus headed west through the steppes of Patagonia.
“We’ll spend about four hours at Perito Moreno,” our guide shouted in her sultry Spanish-tinged English; battling to be heard over the rowdy backpackers at the rear of our small tour bus. That’s the problem with joining affordable excursions from backpackers’ hostels. The backpackers.
Nonetheless, as we strained to hear our guide pointing out the fauna and flora of the plains surrounding the town of El Calafate – the indigenous Austral parakeet is the world’s most southerly parrot species, by the by – there was a curious buzz of excitement at the prospect of spending one-sixth of a day watching ice turn into water.
Now admittedly the Perito Moreno glacier isn’t your garden-variety ice sculpture. Thirty kilometres long, roughly 60 metres thick, nearly two million cubic metres… it is one of the world’s few advancing glaciers. So perhaps no surprise that a morning at the ice-face would quickly turn into the runaway highlight of our whirlwind trip through the home of the gaucho.
As our bus rolled along to the overloud chatter of Aussie backpackers and the beat of Argentine pop, away to our right icebergs floated by on the blue waters of Lago Argentino – Argentina’s biggest lake, and the third-largest in South America.
It’s Lago Argentino that keeps the Perito Moreno at bay, playing an eternal argy-bargee with what is far and away the tourist highlight of the Parque Nacional los Glaciares. With a name like that, there’s no chance of being surprised at what lies around the final bend of the RP-11 as it heads towards Chile.
And predictable though it may be, that first glimpse of the Perito Moreno is – quite simply – jaw dropping; an ice-lolly that will stop you in your tracks.
Layers of cobalt, aquamarine and – what could easily be – Bombay Sapphire-infused ice lie in layer upon layer; a sandwich of frozen water up to 80 metres thick. On the surface, the ice river stretches from deep in the Andes like a hundred-lane motorway. The high Andean snows compacted down to form the bulldozer that ploughs into Lago Argentino. Slashed by crevasses and razor-sharp seracs, it’s as untamed a landscape as you could ask for.
On the viewpoint at Península de Magallanes this overcast early-summer morning, the parking lot is already full of tour buses like ours. The boardwalks that criss-cross the viewing area – separated from the glacier by little more than fifty metres – are teeming with visitors.
But, incredibly, there’s silence.
Bar the occasional click of a camera shutter or rustle of raincoats (be warned, even summer in Patagonia can get damp), everyone is speaking in hushed tones. Even the backpackers have shut up. This cathedral of ice demands it; wagging a finger at us all to keep quiet and pay our respects. To sit and appreciate the ancient creaks and groans which echo across as the ice battles the lake. Every few minutes the glacier wins, and a towering column of ice cracks, teeters, hesitates… then collapses into the waters below in an enormous column of sub-zero spray.
Against all expectations, it’s riveting. We sit, we watch, we gasp. We wait for the next fall. This is our honeymoon, but my wife and I barely speak a word. The Patagonian sierra finches chatter around us, but otherwise we only have eyes for the ice.
After what is surely only a few minutes our tour guide is back: “Your four hours are finished, the bus is leaving now. We must go.”
Four hours of melting ice and we’re desperate for more. We regret not signing up for the glacier trekking, where crampon-clad tourists toast their walk with a whisky on the rocks; the ‘rocks’ courtesy of the glacier. There’s no time for a boat trip from Puerto Bandera to the glacier face either; although it’s the best way to get up close and personal with a few thousand years of snow. No time, must dash, have to go… it seems there are never enough hours in the day to do everything you want to when travelling.
Destination? The end of the world.
But we have a plane to catch, and it’s the icebergs floating on Lago Argentino that are our last view of the steppes as our Aerolineas Argentinas jet climbs and banks to the south. Destination? The end of the world.
Nervous flyers would do well to take the bus if they want to visit Ushuaia. An hour or two after leaving El Calafate our jet dodges snow-capped Andean peaks, tries not to ditch into the wind-whipped Beagle Channel and skirts the edge of Chilean airspace before bouncing onto the runway at Ushuaia. Welcome to the most southerly town in the world.
Ushuaia (pronounced oo-swei-ya) is a workaday town unlikely to win any architecture awards, but for adventurous travellers looking for a taste of untamed Patagonia this little settlement on the big toe of the Americas is your gateway to heaven.
Clinging to the bootstraps of the continent at 54° south, this is as close as you’ll get to Antarctica without forking out a fistful of dollars for an expedition cruise.
And, as with most seaside towns, life in Ushuaia revolves around the quayside so there are few better places to blow away the cobwebs than a wander along the Muelle Tourístico.
We envy the Antarctic cruise ships heading off into the wild seas of the Drake Passage, but our wallets will only stretch to a few hours on one of the many sightseeing boats that cruise the chilly Beagle Channel.
The winds here blow straight up from Antarctica, and snow can fall at any time of the year. But tempting as it is to sip hot chocolate down below, it pays to wrap up warm and brave the upper-deck… you’ll be rewarded with sightings of black-browed albatrosses, giant petrels, Magellanic penguins and – if you’re lucky – orca.
Some sightseing boats also cruise west towards Ushuaia’s main attraction; the Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego, where we find ourselves the following day. From the dock at Lapataia Bay (you can also hop on a regular minibus shuttle from town, as we did) the park offers 630km² of dramatic coastline, pristine mountains, ancient beech forests and lakes overflowing with trout and salmon.
We wander happily along the sea shore; admiring beaver dams, beech forests and sea lions cavorting in quiet coves. You could happily spend anywhere from an afternoon to a week exploring the network of well-marked paths that traverse the lower reaches of the park.
But as I say, time is always in short supply and our day in the park flies by all too quickly. There’s still the historic homestead of Estancia Harberton, with its cetacean research station, to explore. And the original inhabitants to meet at the Museo Yámana Aborígenes Fueguinos. And a walk up to the Glaciar Martial to tackle. In season, the ski runs here offer an easy morning on the slopes too, or you can hop on the shuttle bus to Cerro Casto where you’ll find 15 kilometres of piste.
Those will all have to wait, we decide over dinner, for next time. Ensconced at a window table at the quaint seafront restaurant Volver, the white horses on the Beagle Channel gallop away like the time on our honeymoon itself.
While these snow-capped peaks and ancient glaciers appear immune to the passing of time, sadly we are not. The end of the world, the end of a holiday. But certainly not the end of my fascination with Patagonia. To steal a phrase from Winston, this honeymoon taste of southern Argentina wasn’t really the end. Perhaps just the end of the beginning… of more than one love affair.
First published in the Sunday Times, Travel & Food, July 2011
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