Argentina (1)
We managed to streamline our entry into Argentina on the last days of 2006 with a tour out to the Moreno Glacier. We took a mini bus which was full to the point of discomfort, and drove straight from Puerto Natales through the border and through the town of El Calafarte to the glacier. This is special in that it is one of the few glaciers in the world that isn´t receding. It is stationary which seems to be quite an incredible feat given our weather patterns at the moment.
The first view was through a steamy window giving the smooth hills down to the jagged edges of the glacier at the end of the lake a romantic appearance. Our driver was a bit of a Grandpa driver so we missed the opportunity to take a boat to view the glacier from the lake, but the close-up from the viewing platforms was spectacular in itself. Half an hour later when we saw a huge chunk of ice calf off into the lake we felt like we had achieved what we had gone to see. We also bumped into Roxanne, our friend from the Salt Plains of Bolivia, who was staying in El Calafate.
Our plan was to see if we could fly straight up to Buenos Aires and spend New Years Eve in the big city but we soon found out about Argentina´s tiered financial system. Local people to El Calafate (including the President of Argentina) pay US$40 to BA, other Argentinians pay about $US120, we as foreigners pay US$275! As far as we had known before the flight was going to be $40 so we were a bit thrown and decided to put the decision to fly on hold. We went and booked into the local HI hostal that we knew Roxanne was staying in. After a lot of soul searching we decided to make it in good time to Mendoza for our mountain climb up Aconcagua, flying was the only way. We booked into the next available flight which left on New Years Day.
New Years went off with a bang in El Calafate. Literally. The locals went absolutely fireworks mad and the street resembled a war zone with so much smoke and tongues of fire occasionaly illuminating the silhouettes of the pyromaniacs. We had a party going in our hostal with Roxanne, Rachel and Gretchen from the Torres del Paine walk, and a few new faces.
The next morning we had New Years Day breakfast in the only cafe open in town. It was completely mad! It was the full eggs and bacon deal though and we went to the airport satisfied. As the hours ticked by waiting for our plane to arrive an hour or two late, we played cards - Marty winning as usual. Finaly we were able to board our long skinny plane. I have to say that the Argentinian airline didn´t do itself many favours in trying to win popularity votes. In what felt like fairly clear, smooth sailing, the pilot had the ´stay seated´light on which the air hostesses strictly enforced. No visiting the bathroom but much much worse, no drinks or snacks for the 2 hours down to Ushuaia. There we touched down in the continent´s most southern town and most of the passengers got off. We refueled, other passengers got on and we took off only to be told to remain seated again. Marty and I were so hungry we started eyeing each other off as potential food sources when finaly they decided the unfelt danger was over and let us have an extra sandwhich each - thank goodness!
In Buenos Aires we took a taxi straight to the bus terminal and managed to get on an overnight bus to Mendoza. We slept a good proportion of the 13 hour trip away. We were really excited to finally be into the last preparation stage for our climb up Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Andes.
