Let
it snow, let it snow, let it snow in El Calafate (con't)
Wed
Sep 4, 2002 6:42 pm
Today, we awoke to
snowflakes. We spent most of the day with Christmas jingles in our heads.
:) We finally made it to the Moreno Glacier, one of the natural wonders
of the world, and the whole point of coming to El Calafate. The Moreno glacier
is formed from snow that falls in the Andes and flows down to the lakes
in El Calafate, where the glacier puts on an impressive show as chunks fall
off into the water. Up until 1988 the glacier used to regularly block the
flow of water from one lake to another, the water level would rise, and
there would be a spectacular gush of water and crack of ice when the ice
dam broke. But, the dam hasn´t formed for quite some time.
The glacier looks really really blue, as does the water on the north side
of the glacier. No one has been able to give us a great explanation to the
color, other than saying that there is sediment that floats in the water
that turns it aqua. You can take a boat ride along the face of the glacier,
where the ice towers 60 meters above the water. No gigantic chunks fell
while we were on the boat though, which was quite a bummer. At it´s
deepest, the glacier reaches up to 700 meters of solid ice. This thing is
huge.
We are told that the glacier looks better when it is cloudy out, which was
the one redeeming factor to the weather today. It was a bit chilly for my
tastes and it snowed quite a bit, though it didn´t pile up on the
ground, which was good, or we might have been stuck at the glacier.
Well, I´ve got to book our bus and go help cook dinner (if Rom and
Patty haven´t finished it yet)
Ciao everybody, talk to you again after we´ve spent some time in Bariloche.
Alison and Patty
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