Glaciar Perito Moreno (November 2 to 14)

After driving all the east coast down to Rio Gallegos we decided to cross the country to the west for seeing some mountains and glaciers. The mekka in Argentina for this is the village "El Calafate" with the famous glacier Perito Moreno. But before seeing it, we had to go some more kilometers through the more or less flat, dry, and dusty Argentinian pampas and now the all the time expected wind increased its power clearly. Taking a walk in the moon-like landscape therefore turned into a demanding activity.

Furthermore we spent a week working via workaway in a soon to be opened hostel in El Calafate. This gave us the possibility to get out of the car for some days, having normal beds, warm showers, a furnished kitchen, and a living room, as no guests were there yet. We did some painting, woodwork to build lockers for the backpacks of the backpackers, and served as actors for the hostels web appearance on booking.com.

At the end of the working week, the opening party took place and we met a few people from El Calafate, all working in the tourism industry, and got some interesting insight in this way of living in a remote place. El Calafate in principle is an island in the Argentinian pampas with a few hundred kilometers to go in every direction to come to the next city. Hundred thousands of tourists are coming just for seeing the glacier for a day or two and then heading to the next tourist attraction. We followed our pace and went slowly in the direction to the national park in which the glaciar Perito Moreno is located in (80km from El Calafate) and enjoyed the upcoming mountain landscape after all the flat and dusty kilometers before. The next day we entered the park and already shortly after the parking lot this really breathtaking scenery hit us, with the glaciar crawling to the Lago Argentino, 50 to 80 meters high with a permanent sound of cracking ice and falling pieces.

We spent two days with quite warm weather (when having shelter from the obligatory wind) in the park, followed each by overnight stays with fantastic mountain panorama.