Perito Moreno glacier (credit: L. Hower, 2017).
Perito Moreno glacier with the informational sign visible to show scale of distance from the walkways to the ice (credit: L. Hower, 2017).
My first impression of Calafate was its resemblance to South Lake Tahoe. Picture neon signs, lots of retail stores, signage in Spanish and English. No casinos that I could find (and I wasn’t looking), but you get the idea.
However, Calafate has a more subtle charm that takes time to detect. For example, we found a “Libro Bar,” or a book bar in town. Our first night’s dinner was in a cozy spot with a big lab dog taking up the whole front door step. Some roads were paved and some were packed gravel. Every cafe had a fortress of homemade desserts and artisanal chocolates. There were a few stores designated solely to the sale of alfajores, the signature coconut-covered Dulce de Leche sandwich cookies of Argentina. Carpaccio was a standard offering in the region, but here there were choices of lamb and Guanaco. And it was a launchpad to a whole bunch of glaciers within a few hours drive.
We settled into our hotel for the night and look forward to our visit the next day to the famous Perito Moreno glacier, 1.5 hours drive from Calafate. Perito Moreno has extensive global brand awareness for its proximity to Calafate, and the subsequent tourism infrastructure created around its behemoth size and amazing scenery. However it’s actually one of the smaller glaciers in el Parque Nacional de Los Glaciares (PNLG), trumped in size by the Viedma Glacier to its north. When looking at a map of PNLG, I gained a greater appreciation for the network of glaciers and wildness this whole park offered.
Our visit to Perito Moreno started off with a boat ride that brought us along the length of the glacier, enabling a great position for photographs and frostbite. Windy gusts coming off a glacier are pretty cold (I can confirm this with certainty). When we came back to the dock, we discovered a whole network of elevated pathways that brings visitors several arms’ lengths from the glacier. The view above the glacier was most incredible. Like a thousand meringues lined up against the mountains circling it, Perito Moreno was 50 meters at its shortest and over 70 meters high at its tallest. It was also alive. I hadn’t known this about glaciers (in all my travels with glaciers in the past), but when you spend time close by a glacier, you realize the noise along the glacier’s external edge and within it. In one sitting, a few chunks of ice broke off into the glacial lake beneath its edge, creating a mini tidal wave and a large crashing sound. The “calving” process I had read about, where glaciers are dropping chunks of ice, did not happen in silence.
I enjoyed the coastal trail alongside the glacier’s edge and spent most of my time there walking and listening to the glacier. The most notable thing about this day and tour was the notable absence of discussion about climate change. Glacial changes and unprecedented melting rates were integral to the climate change and adaptation conversations in the U.S., and here we were under the awning of one of the most famous in the world. No literature, no reference of it in the printed brochure for PNLG) and no verbal reference from the guide. I even waited until we returned to Calafate before passing judgment, just in case there were concluding remarks about climate change at the end of the tour. Nada.
“Wow.” Perito Moreno glacier (credit: L. Hower, 2017).
I was amazed. These glaciers tell the story of climate change more apolitically and objectively than any politician or global leader ever could. This was a teachable moment for the thousands of tourists that come through and understand really see firsthand, how climate change can and will shift our sea levels and millions of lives worldwide. In spite of the notable omission, my visit to Perito Moreno was an unforgettable, beautiful one.
