El Calafate, Argentina

Lovely atmosphere in our hostel, coffee and breakfast also better than expected. Today we are off early to hike on the Puerto Moreno glacier. Mixed thoughts post Antarctica as to whether anything ice related will be as good. Strange doing an organised tour as it picked up at each hotel, it then takes about an hour to reach the Los Glaciares national park and the start of our trip. We board a boat across to the south side of the glacier. It is quite epic, it is 170km long and 5 km wide and at the front stands 50m tall above water and another 100m below. It is self sustaining, so as much adds to the top from the cold Andes air as breaks off at the base. I think the most impressive part is the sound of ice breaking, like a whip cracking as it moves at different velocities along the edges causing crevasses and ultimately tumbles off into the lake. We walked for a couple of hours on the ice, which was harder than expected with the crampons. Learnt about sink holes and colours of the ice – still looks like meringue to me! Justin had whisky on glacier rocks to celebrate the finish, whilst I stayed with chocolate. We then got to see the north face via a series of boardwalks before heading back to town. It seems like the whole bus slept on the way back. Grabbed groceries for a budget meal at the hostel, still reeling from postage charge.