El Calafate

When I was about nine years old, my family took a trip to Blackwater Falls, West Virginia. We went in March and there was a blizzard, but we were only there for a few days, so one afternoon we went tobogganing. No one was around so they hadn’t turned on the lift (like a ski lift, only for sleds!), so we had to trudge to the top of the hill, and once we got up there, there was so much snow the toboggans wouldn't go. By the time we started walking back to our cabin, my brother, who was six, and I were very cold and unhappy, and it was a long walk, so, to keep us going, my mom taught us “The Jeep Song,” a song she had learned in Girl Scouts. This song is full of nonsense lines, like “If Easter eggs don’t wash their legs their children will have ducks (quack quack!) / I’d rather buy a lemon pie for forty-seven bucks,” and “Oh loop-d-loop in your noodle soup just to give your socks a shine / I’m guilty, judge, I ate the fudge, three cheers for Auld Lang Syne.” In case you’re wondering, the song doesn’t have a single reference to a jeep. The strategy worked, we survived the walk back. And, as an extra bonus, I still remember the entire song.

I bring this up, because last weekend I went with friends Michael and Martín to El Calafate in Patagonia, and it was so cold that I considered breaking out into The Jeep Song on more than one occasion. I spent the entire weekend in six shirts/sweaters and three pairs of leggings/pants (as evident by the photos). In the last few years I have been lucky enough to see some really beautiful places, but for the most part these places have been beautiful because they’ve been lush and green. Patagonia is beautiful in its emptiness. I have never seen so much open space in my life. Also, it is far enough south that we experienced a very strange phenomenon: the sun came up over the lake around 10am and set around 5pm in almost the same spot.

Sunrise

Sunset

On Friday we went to see the famous Perito Moreno glacier. The glacier is about 3 miles wide and 250 feet high. It is also the world’s third largest fresh water reserve and one of only three glaciers in Patagonia that is not retreating. It is, in fact, advancing, and because of this it makes a lot of noise. It creaks and groans and occasionally you can hear ice breaking off and falling. The strangest thing about the sounds is that we never actually saw anything move. We were standing in front of this massive ice formation in one of those huge silences that happens when it is very very cold, and then we would hear a loud crash without a source and then it would be silent again.

Martín, me, and Michael

On Saturday we did a 5-hour horseback tour through the area outside of El Calafate. I have been on “horse treks” before, and usually you get on a very docile horse that just follows the horse in front of it and you walk along a trail for a couple hours. This was not that kind of tour. First of all, there was no trail. We walked along the road for about ten minutes and then we were just off in the vast emptiness that is Patagonia.


We walked along the Lago Argentino, the largest lake in the country, and picnicked by the shore. Our guide’s name was Luís, and he was a lesson in stereotypical Latino male chauvinism. Usually I can smile and ignore certain things, chalking them up to cultural difference, but I was pretty sick of him calling me “mujer” the whole time. Especially since I was the only mujer there. But other than that it was a lovely afternoon.


There was a flock of big bird floating in the water near where we were eating, and when Luís told us they were flamingos I thought he was just giving us a hard time. But it turns out he was serious! Who would have thought that the first place I saw wild flamingos would be the place I went to to see glaciers?

Two particularly exciting things happen on our “cabalgato” tour. First, about six of Luís’s dogs (he owns 16) came with us. While the dogs in El Calafate are domesticated, they are still pretty wild, and these particular dogs hunted down a jackrabbit. If someone had asked me, hey do you want to watch a pack of dogs hunt down a jackrabbit?, I would have said, no, gross! But actually it was pretty cool. It was right out of a National Geographic special. The dogs circled the rabbit and then cornered it, and got it by the throat. Then the guide broke its neck, to make sure it wasn’t suffering, and tied it to his horse to take home and cook for dinner.


The other exciting thing is that I fell off my horse. My horse, Dogo, did not like walking, or following my instructions. If any of the other horses starting going faster, or even just got ahead of us, he would start trotting, which I could handle, or galloping, which I couldn’t really handle. We had galloped a few times and I was fine, but this time he took off down a sandy hill, veered around a bush, and jumped over another bush. Upon landing, I managed to hold on for a couple more seconds before falling sideways. I have a very clear visual image of the ground coming up quickly and Dogo’s hoofs very close to my face.

My entry in the guest book back at the tour office (aka Luís's house)

I was only off the horse for about three minutes before Luís helped me back on and we were off again.

Sunday morning was drearier than the other days, but also warmer. The town was pretty quiet because it was Election Day, and most things were closed. We went on a lovely walk in the morning, and a couple local dogs adopted us.


We got back Sunday night and I’ve spent the week hanging out with friends. Michael left on Tuesday, which was very sad. But I've been hanging out with my other lovely friends, and I'm going to Uruguay for a couple of days tomorrow, so look forward to another update!