Quo Vaddis Cont.

Note from Erin: the WiFi in Trelew is very spotty, so the photos will have to wait!

(Steve)

By this point, you are probably wondering about the name of this post… Quo Vaddis was the name of the boat that took us on the tour. It must be the flagship of the fleet as it was the biggest catamaran on the lake and that night we saw an ad in the Aerolineas Argentinas in flight magazine for the tour company and the boat in the picture was none other than our boat. The catamaran had three levels, the lower two were enclosed passenger compartments with observation decks at the rear . The top was an observation deck and the boat’s bridge.

The passenger compartments were comfortably outfitted with leather chairs and huge windows. During the winter, the deep waters of Lago Argentino never freeze, so I imagine that they use these boats all year round, though the roads from El Calafate to the marina an hour away are reportedly barely passable during the deep winter snows. If anything, I would have wanted more outdoor observation room as I found the cabin too warm and wanted to be outside I the wind.

Our first stop after about an hour was in a section of the park that appeared to be a low valley filled with a strange forest of trees. This is a part of the National Park, so there was a restaurant (see Erin’s post). The coolest part for me was a walk of about 800 meters through the forest to the Lago Moretti, a lake formed at the base of a smaller glacier. The trees in the forest are unique to this area and could serve as a movie set for a haunted forest. The trees were twisted, spaced apart in the woods, and covered with grey moss. The woods were filled with birds. The little lake was filled with icebergs… some smaller pieces were close enough to the shore for us to touch, which Paco was excited to do. In colder months, the ice comes all the way to the beach and it’s possible to climb onto some of them, but not this time.

After lunch, we got back on the boat and made our way to Glacier Upsala, the largest in the park.
Normally, it’s possible for the boats to navigate to within a couple of hundred meters of the huge face of the glacier but they had a huge portion of the glacier break off within the past week or two and we couldn’t get within 3 kilometers (!) due to the huge ice flows. Many of the icebergs were enormous. Imagine that the face of the glacier is more than 3 kilometers wide and the entire channel was completely filled with huge chunks of ice. The icebergs were the most amazing shade of blue due to the highly compressed and pure nature of the ice within them. I don’t think it’s possible to capture this scale in pictures, but I tried.

We cruised by bergs that dwarfed the boat and many had the most unbelievable shapes including holes, arcs, etc.

After roaming amongst the bergs for about 30 minutes we turned around and made our way down another arm of the lake towards Glacier Spegazzini. Along the way, we saw the rock formations created over the years by the glaciers and saw another smaller one that had work a nice crevasse into the mountains. The glacier was still there, but the ice stopped about a thousand feet above the lake, so the area between was filled with running water and small falls.

Spegazzini isn’t the largest glacier in the park, but it is the tallest. The wall of ice on the face was reported to be nearly 450 feet high and the glacier was working it’s way down a steep mountain side that went up over 3000 feet above the lake… the force on the ice must be incredible. The face was covered with huge cracks and many enormous pieces appeared to be teetering on the edge of falling off, but nothing occurred while we were there.

I had no idea what to expect of the tour but I was impressed. The entire trip was well organized, from the bus from the hotel to the boat itself. The ship was impressive. Later in the afternoon during the trip back to the marina, the captain invited Paco to come up to the bridge for photos. He even offered to let him sit in his chair and “steer” the boat, but Paco got shy and wouldn’t do it. The bridge was impressive and very luxurious… the ever present thermos of hot water and Mate next to the captain’s work area.

Erin now: So what happened with the Captain was that a staff member came to Paco and asked if he wanted to meet the Captain. Paco announced to the entire cabin “I am going to meet the Captain” loudly in English and proceeded to march with Steve upstairs. When Paco did not want to sit in the chair, he said, “I just wanted to see the captain” and that was that. Still, this, in contrast to our experience at the restaurant, is a more traditional reflection of Argentine treatment of kids!

Steve again: After the return to the marina, we boarded the same bus for the trip home. Let’s just say that the fleet of boats is one of the main attractions for visitors to El Calafate… in fact, it’s probably the reason for the whole town’s existence as a tourist destination (there are no other industries here other than some cattle operations like throughout Patagonia. There were twelve or so full-sized tour busses waiting… these busses are there for nothing other than shuttling people back and forth from town the 50 km or so to the marina and back.

Paco and I were bushed, but Paco insisted on accompanying me into town. The bus would be making a stop near the town center before making its way to our hotel. He and I decided to get off early so I could find some sunglasses as I had broken mine and would need them for the trek on the ice the next day. What a trooper, Paco walked proudly throughout the town in his hiking boots. He was the judge of which glassed I would buy, then we made our way to the place where the taxis and remises pick you up. We waited for about ten minutes and when our car arrived we hopped in and told the drive to take us to our hotel. The driver turned and said, “Senior Haas, si?” It turned out to be Raúl, the employee from the hotel who had helped us that morning. Like many people in this town, apparently, he has two or three different jobs. The taxis are the personal cars of their drivers equipped with the metering equipment and they put a “taxi” or “remise” sign in the window when they are working and take it down when they are not.

Erin now: I stayed on the bus while the boys went into to town to find the sunglasses. And the bus started dropping people off, but dropped off some in the city center. When he got close to the Hotel, he said Señora Lumpama, acá! And had stopped 50m from the door, uphill with the backpack and all the lunch boxes. It was a stark contrast to the morning when people were collected at the door! Steve: The explanation was that the bus could not make it up the steep gravel drives to the hotels while loaded with passengers. That morning we were the second stop so the bus had been nearly empty. Erin: Sure.

Steve: We were all exhausted and decided to have an early dinner at the hotel and get to sleep early so we could get an early start in the morning. Our plan was for me to go on the ice trek while Erin and Paco took a remise to the park to see Perito Moreno. I was talking to the folks at the hotel about a late check out… I had been led to believe that the mini trek was only a half-day adventure, so I wanted to be able to use the room until about 2 or 3 so I could shower after the hike and before the flight to Trelew. Ana, at the front desk, seemed confused and said that she didn’t think I would be back before 6 or 7 pm… a real issue as our flight was at 7 or so. Hmmm, a call to the trekking company confirmed this… indeed the mini-trek was only 90 minutes on the ice but with travel time, waiting for the boat to cross the channel, and time to wait while the folks on the longer trip made their way back, it was a full day. Oops, I had to cancel or I would miss the flight. The tour company was not very nice about much of this as it was they who originally told me I could be done by 2 pm or so. They gave me a hard time about cancelling, of course, but they did credit me back. I was a bit bummed about missing this opportunity, but it turns out that we would have a terrific day all together the anyway.