El Calafate, Patagonia

El Calafate is another ramshackle pioneer town hidden among the Patagonian Andes only 35km to the Chilean border somewhere on a mountain!We arrived by flying from Trelew with accompanying turbulance over the top of the Andes but a fantastic aerial view. The town did not exsist until the early 80´s when only a few Argentinians had visited and no foreigners at all. Then a TV crew were called to film a chunk of ice falling off the great Perito Moreno Glacier and the rest is history!Its full of backpackers (nearly all at least 20 years younger then your intrepid friends)quite alot of annoying public school kids on their gap year who have been everywhere and done everything in their short lives already, lots of hostels and all you can eat parillas for $p32 which Mark insists on visiting at every mealtime!
As another town in the making there are no restrictions on buildings, style or position, so Mark (a 17th September Virgo!) was desperate to tidy and organise a bit of town planning! As a result if you didn´t perch your timber frame hotel on the edge of a precipice overlooking the huge Lago Argentino then Joe Bloggsios is likely to plonk his shack right in front of your guests view!Our hosts for the stay had had the foresight to do this at Hosteria Lumapa and a very friendly home-like feel greeted us along with Tehuelche Indian wall hangings - but some precarious fixtures and fittings also!All under 25 yrs, the youthful hoteliers Pablo (so like Martin Stubbington it was uncanny)Anna and Leandro are ready to help and enjoy your company at any possible moment culminating in a deliciouso dinner with the beautiful Mabel from Sardinia and promises of meeting there for Italian lessons summer 2008!Nowhere near Alghero!
The highlight of our 5 day stay in El Calafate was the trip to and mini-trek on the amazing Perito Merino Glacier amd meeting Nicole and Julian from Melbourne. They too had to endure the babbling factoid-stream that omits from the Naylor orifice as fast as snow melts on the equator and view his attempts at youthful leaps from ice cap to ice cap - a true life long member of the tufty club,girls!
For number crunchers the formidable glacier is 8kms wide, 32kms in length to the snow field and 110m in height; the visible wall above the waterline of Lago Argentino reaching 64metres or 15 storeys of a high rise.It is moving at an amazing rate of a metre a day which is why its so special - 500 metres a year, so the content of the snow field arrives to the front of the glacier in about 75 years. In comparison in the Alps it takes about 10,000 years for the snow field to reach the end of glaciers!So truly the speediest of glaciers!
Half hourly the glacier cracks and loses a whole building´s mass of ice that seem to explode into the Lago with bomb-like force and resonance. A truly wonderful sight to watch,hear and wait for on the balconies above. Our trek on the top of the glacier to the fastest moving part, the middle,was a great experience with crampons attached and the nimblest of mountain guides it was certainly a test for the new knees and achilles tendons! Stepping gingerly over azure blue clefts of melting ice which you could just about fall through imagining the ice closing over you and crushing you into the heart of an icy tomb - how did Joe Simpson manage to get down to base camp with his leg in pieces? Many discussions about Australian /British sport, politics,culture and history has hopefully made new firm friends between Melbourne and Henley on Thames! Until the next cricket or rugby match anyway!Adious El Calafate XX