We saw something even older than us yesterday. Awoke to a huge cloudless sky and a bright sunny day - for once the curse of the wrinklitourist was in abeyance - with the hotel in deep shadow but the expanse of lake and Andean foothills stretched out in front sharp and clear, and already slightly shimmering. Picked up by a minibus, with a bilingual guide, which drove the 40 or so kilometres to the National Park of the Glaciers. On the way we passed estancias, the main buildings clustered inside wind-protecting stands of poplar, learnt about the Calafate bush (a kind of berberis), the fruit of which turns your mouth purple and guarantees that you will return to Patagonia. Taking their wool to the Atlantic, the early Patagonian farmers would shelter from the cruel winds of the pampa behind it. Further on there were condors picking over the bones of a sheep, and a brown eagle perched on a lichen-covered boulder by the roadside. As we approached the Park, we could see the peaks in the morning light. And then the glacier. This stretches out into Lake Argentino, the largest in the country, and rears up above as you sail towards it. The contorted shapes which centuries of pressure on the packed snow have twisted and forced into huge jagged pillars are lined with a deep lapis lazuli, on the surface a powdery greyish white, and sometimes striated with brown where they have picked up mud on their way down the mountain. The leading edge is constantly shifting and cracking and we saw several calvings while we were there. There is also an extensive network of walkways all over the adjacent hillside, and we were mesmerised by the views. It is so vast, and has a chill air of age and ponderous power as it oozes into the lake. We could have stayed there all day watching.
After all this wonder and natural beauty, the Brother was so deeply moved that he had to take a photo of an old tanker lorry slowly crumbling at the lakeside. So much for Glacier Perito Moreno.
We saw something even older than us yesterday. Awoke to a huge cloudless sky and a bright sunny day - for once the curse of the wrinklitourist was in abeyance - with the hotel in deep shadow but the expanse of lake and Andean foothills stretched out in front sharp and clear, and already slightly shimmering. Picked up by a minibus, with a bilingual guide, which drove the 40 or so kilometres to the National Park of the Glaciers. On the way we passed estancias, the main buildings clustered inside wind-protecting stands of poplar, learnt about the Calafate bush (a kind of berberis), the fruit of which turns your mouth purple and guarantees that you will return to Patagonia. Taking their wool to the Atlantic, the early Patagonian farmers would shelter from the cruel winds of the pampa behind it. Further on there were condors picking over the bones of a sheep, and a brown eagle perched on a lichen-covered boulder by the roadside. As we approached the Park, we could see the peaks in the morning light. And then the glacier. This stretches out into Lake Argentino, the largest in the country, and rears up above as you sail towards it. The contorted shapes which centuries of pressure on the packed snow have twisted and forced into huge jagged pillars are lined with a deep lapis lazuli, on the surface a powdery greyish white, and sometimes striated with brown where they have picked up mud on their way down the mountain. The leading edge is constantly shifting and cracking and we saw several calvings while we were there. There is also an extensive network of walkways all over the adjacent hillside, and we were mesmerised by the views. It is so vast, and has a chill air of age and ponderous power as it oozes into the lake. We could have stayed there all day watching.
After all this wonder and natural beauty, the Brother was so deeply moved that he had to take a photo of an old tanker lorry slowly crumbling at the lakeside. So much for Glacier Perito Moreno.
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