After a good night’s sleep, I caught an early morning bus back across the border into Argentina, to the town of El Calafate, home of the Perito Moreno glacier. On the bus I got chatting to a really nice Kiwi guy called Chris. He had an impressive amount of camera kit with him and so, feeling a little embarrassed after hopping off the bus to take a photo with my smartphone, I felt I had to explain the misfortune that had befallen my SLR at Iguazu. By a complete stroke of luck, Chris happened to have a spare Canon 40D in his bag that he’d been looking to sell! Yep, his “spare” camera was significantly better than my normal camera.
(As an aside, I'd hopped off the bus to take a photo of this roadside stall, which was selling the most amazing cheese, salami, honey, nougat, wine etc. Definitely beats the roadside eateries you find in most countries! Having taken a photo it would have been rude if I hadn't then purchased some cheese and bread for lunch...)
Chris and I met up for a few drinks that night to discuss a deal on the camera. Until this point I’d been planning to buy a new camera body whilst transiting through LA on my way to Australia, but this was too good an opportunity to pass up. It’s a much better camera than I would have bought new, for a decent price AND meant that I could abandon the smartphone camera sooner than I’d anticipated! Hurrah!
I was pretty excited to be able to put it to the test the following day at the Perito Moreno glacier. First stop was a one-hour boat trip which allows you to get very close to the South side of the glacier. I then headed to the main viewing area where I met up with Chris again and we walked around the viewing platforms together admiring the glacier from different angles.
It's 60m high, 35km long and 5km wide and is one of very few glaciers in the world which is actually advancing - apparently by up to 2m every day. Every now and then we’d hear an almighty CRACK and a chunk of the glacier would break off and crash into the water below. It was really impressive and completely mesmerising to watch. It was one of those sights where you find yourself taking hundreds of photos from ever-so-slightly different angles, as you just can’t take your eyes off it!
Afer spending a couple of hours there we headed back into town and Chris and I had another dinner and drinks session to round off our El Calafate experience! The next day he headed back to Buenos Aires and I moved on to Bariloche!
(As an aside, I'd hopped off the bus to take a photo of this roadside stall, which was selling the most amazing cheese, salami, honey, nougat, wine etc. Definitely beats the roadside eateries you find in most countries! Having taken a photo it would have been rude if I hadn't then purchased some cheese and bread for lunch...)
 |
| Somewhat better than McDonalds and Little Chef! |
I was pretty excited to be able to put it to the test the following day at the Perito Moreno glacier. First stop was a one-hour boat trip which allows you to get very close to the South side of the glacier. I then headed to the main viewing area where I met up with Chris again and we walked around the viewing platforms together admiring the glacier from different angles.
 |
| Gives you a sense of the size of this thing... |
 |
| Amazing Texture |
 |
| Amazing colour |
 |
| Perito and me |
No comments:
Post a Comment