When you fail your camera *and* the beauty around you! {Perito Moreno Glacier, Argentina}

“Be ready by 7.45 am” said a fax from our travel agent that had been slipped under our hotel door. Naah, not a problem. Unless your holiday is on a beach or a relaxing villa where the plan is to do nothing, you have to be ready to wake up wee early! And walk A LOT. A LOT, A LOT.

We were ready at 7.45 am of course. Wearing woollen inners, two sweaters, a snow jacket, snow gloves, and a woollen cap. Impeccably dressed & proud!

Our bus took us from our nice warm hotel in El Calafate to the Perito Moreno Glacier, 85 kms away. We had a guide who spoke into the mic, in both English & Spanish. Our peaceful morning nap was interrupted every 3 minutes by fun tit bits and super insightful information such as the type of birds, stones and pebbles found here.

A walking talking Wikipedia. *With* page translate. 

Oh the tourist season is Oct-Apr? We *know*, we *ARE* those tourists!! 

Our first view from the coach, minutes before we arrived!

When we finally got out, we completely immersed ourselves with blowing steam from our mouths (living  with adults does that to 4 year olds), while the other travellers crowded around a “Map” which looked like this:

BTW, this map is *not* available on google maps

          “Bye! have fun! Be back by 2!” said Ms Wikipedia.

          Er, what? We are on our own now? What is this map? Are we supposed to use our brains now? 

          What did she say? Was it important? OMG shall we ask again?!!

          After a moment of panic came the sanity:

          Uh, let’s. just. go. 

It was BEAUTIFUL. CALM. AND PEACEFUL. Being somewhere in the end of the world (soo close to the Antarctic!) somehow it seemed like we were the only ones there. 

At least for the first ten minutes.

At least until I pulled out my camera (that eventually drove me to the brink of insanity!)

Taking pictures of stacks of ice is. not. easy. There is an issue bigger than your teeth looking somewhere between butterscotch and bumblebee yellow. Ending up with beautiful moments captured in dark, dingy pictures. Exhibit A:

Our Visit to the Andies last year: You see my predicament?

Well this time, it’s as if the Universe said “hell alright, we’ll give you a bit of Sun this time, let’s see what you can do now!! (LOL, har har har, snigger…!!)”

So what presented was the exact opposite. A Big White Blur. Exhibit B:

The whitish, White Walker repellant! 

Dark & Dingy V/s Big White Blur.  I wonder which I hated the most.

I know, I know, we’re supposed to “just be in the present eff-ing moment” soak in the beauty, forget cameras and selfies. BUT I *WAS* in the present moment! I soaked it all in within the ten minutes that I was there! And we had 3 hour 50 minutes more to go! I had this DSLR (ok, the cheapest possible one) a little bit of talent (Well at least I thought I had some before this trip!) and this gorgeous scene in front of me. So all the philosophers be damned, I turned the dial on fidgeting, fumbling and fiddling with the camera settings, to the max!

Increase the f-stop to increase the depth. Reduce the ISO to reduce noise. Change white balance. Repeat. All the cliches possible that would be flagged off in the Cliche Finder.

I gave up after the eleven hundred and twenty third picture of ice, sooo languished that I didn’t even look at them or my camera for a fortnight!

I’m a purist. Let me just make that clear. Pictures should be edited on a computer only to be cropped or aligned. (Translation: I’ve no freakin clue how to do anything else)

But I did give in and stitch three pictures together to get the iconic panoramic image of Patagonia (Translation: My sister-in-law did it for me)

clap clap clap! And the credit goes to...

So what exactly is the big deal? Why go all the way to see stacks of ICE?

You’ll probably know that the Patagonian Ice Sheet is one of the major Ice sheets after the biggies, Greenland & Antartica (I didn’t, but it’s not like I scored well in the Are You Smarter Than A Preschooler Quiz either!). Most glaciers begin at The Andies and The Perito Moreno Glacier is the biggest around here. What makes it cooler is that it is one of the few “surging” ones, growing at the rate of 2 m per day! 

Take that, global warming!

So we have this whole 5 kms wide snout of the glacier flowing into the Lake Argentina and a pretty big balcony constructed on the opposite end for viewing. i.e. for the old & lazy, photographers, parents and their little kids who aren’t allowed to trek on the glacier.

(Disclaimer: you can’t actually build a snowman there)

So I doubt I have those beautiful pictures to boast about, but I did score a 43% fluency on my Duolingo score on speaking Geology (and a 47% on Glaciology!) and did have a fantastic cup of Hot Chocolate at the end of the 4 hour walk! 

Here are some pictures anyways, You can judge all you want!! 

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Until later! Stay in touch!
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