Day 9 – Up and close with the glaciers

Los Glaciares National Park is on the border with Chile. It has a surface of ​​7240 km2.

In the park we find mountains, lakes, forests and massive glaciers. To the west we find the Andes, buried under snow and ice. The Patagonian steppe is located in the east.

The park gets its name from the fact that there are several glaciers in this area. About 30% of this park consists of an ice field, the largest outside Antarctica. There are 47 large glaciers, of which 13 are moving eastward. There are some 200 small glaciers.

The park was added in 1981 to the World Heritage List of UNESCO.

The most important and best-known glaciers are relatively easy to reach from El Calafate, so today we spend the day with the ice monsters. We sail five hours by catamaran through the National Park, so we have a packed lunch ... and a motion sickness pill. The first glacier on the program is the Upsala Glacier, named after the University of Uppsala in Sweden, which funded the first studies in the area.

He is best known for the fact that he is rapidly shrinking. Many think that this is a consequence of global warming. He is also known for the large field of icebergs which lies off the glacier. The boats are therefore not always able to come up close to the glacier. Some of these icebergs are indeed huge, the boat must navigate between. The Upsala glacier can only be seen from a distance. He comes out into the lake. He is 80 m high and 7 km wide. Then we proceed to the next glacier. Meanwhile, we see smaller glaciers that end in the high mountainpeaks. The Spegazzini glacier can be seen up close. This is not a flat glacier but the ice meanders over the high cliffs into the depths of the lake.

We hear cracking  from afar. We arrive just in time, when a large piece of ice detaches from the ice wall. The ice cube  is just a little too big for my coke 😀.

Satisfied we return to El Calafate where we just have a little time to spend in town. I walk back to the hotel on foot.  I stop along the bank of  the lake that is crowded with flamingos. Their outstanding water ballet is the perfect ending of this perfect day.