For The Love of Travel

A day of bumming around town…..

The history of El Calafate began in the first decades of the twentieth century. Originally, it was simply a sheltering place for wool traders. The town was officially founded in 1927 by the Argentinian government to promote settlement, but it was the creation of the nearby National Park in 1937 that sparked growth and the building of better road access.

El Calafate’s source of income is glacier and wildlife tourism, and it became transformed, during Mr Kirchner’s period as provincial governor, when the government built an airport in 2000.  The quickly booming town ran a programme that sold small lots of inexpensive land to local residents who intended to build houses or businesses. Some 3,000 had filled out the paperwork and were waiting for approval, but after Néstor Kirchner moved into the presidential offices in 2003 priorities changed. 

(Néstor Carlos Kirchner served as President of Argentina from 25 May 2003 until 10 December 2007. Kirchner’s four-year presidency was notable for presiding over a dramatic fall in poverty and unemployment, following the economic crisis of 2001, together with an extension of social security coverage, a major expansion in housing and infrastructure, higher spending on scientific research and education, and substantial increases in real wage levels). 

BUT, there were always issues about corruption that followed him and wife.  

Mr Kirchner, his wife, and some 50 other government functionaries found themselves front of the line and were awarded large plots of land in preferential locations at very low prices. In the most famous case, Néstor Kirchner bought two hectares near the town’s old airstrip for $50,000, then sold the lot to the Chilean Cencosud supermarket conglomerate for $2.4 million two years later. 

The view is that he enriched himself dramatically by mixing private and state business. Until 2003, Kirchner had no property in El Calafate. Now the Kirchner’s run 60 to 70 per cent of the economic activity in the town.

Much of the town is typical of Patagonia, with dirt roads and nondescript houses with wriggly tin roofs. Here is a sample…

But at Los Sauces, a hotel the Kirchners built on one of the parcels of land they bought near the mountain waters of Lago Argentino, the advantages of privilege are clear.

His wife, Cristina Elisabet Fernandez de Kirchner, and often referred to by her initials CFK, an Argentine lawyer and politician, took over as President from 2007 to 2015.  She was the second woman to serve as President of Argentina, after Isabel Martinez de Peron, 1974–76.

The new Argentinian President Mauricio Macri said he wants to start a “new kind of relationship” with Britain over the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) as he tries to move his country towards a centrist position in world affairs. Macri said he would continue to press Argentina’s claim to sovereignty, but he hoped the mood of ‘dialogue could change’.

MORE Ice Ice Baby!

Visited ‘the Rivers of Ice Circuit’ off Punta Bandera, including the thousand year old Upsala and Spegazzini glaciers. 

Beautiful start to the day travelling out of El Calafate and saw an amazing cloud formation, of which Joan de Miro would be proud!

 A rainbow greeted us as the catamaran pulled out of the harbour.  

And then the weather declined ..drizzle, fog, generally overcast. What a shame, but never mind.  Saw some fab blue blue ice floes drifting away on the cold waters..and lying close to:

• the main wall of the Upsala Glacier. It feeds the Perito Moreno glacier and is well known for its rapid retreat, which many see as evidence for global warming. It is 60 kms long and has 2 fronts in width. 70 metres high.  It’s surface is so flat that armed forces based in Antartica train there and planes can land
• the immensity of the Spegazzini Glacial wall of 135 metres.  
• Back in El Calafate…a lovely view over blue Lago Argentino, horsies pastured in the foreground….

ICE, ICE BABY!

On the Argentine side, 13 glaciers stem from the Patagonian ice cap and flow into the Argentino and Viedma lakes, including Perito Moreno, Upsala and Spegazzini (more about the latter 2 in the next post!).

Glacier formation occurs by compression of snow layers which are accumulated, crushed, and the air forced out – turning the snow layers into a compact mass of ice. Under gravity force, a glacier moves slowly along its slope, between mountain walls and reaches a gigantic size.  The more compact the ice is, the less white light can be filtered, only rays of short wave can be filtered, causing glacial ice to appear blue.  

I have wanting to see the Perito Moreno glacier for decades….now finally!!!! Only an hour by car from El Calafate to the Parque Nacional Los Glaciares. I spent 3 hours walking to get various viewpoints of the glacier – all absolutely beautiful.   

Freddy Mercury and David Bowie (who wrote the lyrics and song for Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby”), must have been thinking about this glacier!

It originates from the Southern Patagonian Ice Field . In its descent, it reaches the southern branch of  Lake Argentino, with a front of 5 km in length, 4 kms in width and surfacing on the water with a height of 60 metres. It advances 2 metres a day, moving over a rock bed and forms an ice dam at the edge of the Magallanes Peninsula, cutting off the flow of water from the Brazo Rico to Canal de Los Tempanos. The accumulated water exerts enormous pressure on the ice wall, finally bursting through the ‘natural dam’.

When you stand in front of the glacier, you can hear a loud cracking and sometimes booming sound….the ice is ‘calving’ due to glacial expansion, blocks breaking loose and crashing into the water, sending large tidal waves to the shoreline. Magic.

Perito Moreno Glacier, was named after the explorer Francisco Moreno, a pioneer who studied the region in the 19th century and played a major role in defending the territory of Argentina in the conflict surrounding the international border dispute with Chile.   

I did overdose on the vista, both through walking a few kilometres and seeing the southern face of the glacier by boat. Then, on the way home, I saw a fox ….a Crested Caracara vulture and a lovely perennial shrub, Hamelia patens, Firebush.  WHAT A GREAT DAY !!

El Calafate is having a festival over 14 – 20 Feb and there’s a concert with Ricky Martin!!!! Bugger that’s its on the 20th!! I’ll be in Antartica. Would have been great to see him in concert….”Livin’ la vida loca’ will resonate strongly in this neck of the woods ….some examples….

1. there’s a petrol strike on in Rio Gallegos. El Calafate is 2 towns away. Despite modern day telecommunication systems, there is no advance knowledge of when petrol will arrive. When someone sees a tanker pull into a station, the car queue begins….people spend hours waiting patiently….lucky me this morning…only and hour and a half. That means I can travel to El Chalten tomorrow – yay!  
2. Aerolineas Argentina airline had no booking systems operating for hours yesterday (connectivity issue), so I couldn’t confirm flight timing for 16th – will have to go again today.
3. most businesses deal in cash, the infrastructure re credit cards is sparse – hence people have been queueing in long lines at all the banks in the main street – apparently it was a long weekend last weekend and ATM’s “ran dry”. Banks have been struggling to load sufficient cash to keep pace with withdrawals. I went at 6am this morning and the ATM would only let me draw out $100 at a time with a fee each time! SERIOUSLY!
4. hygiene continues to be a major issue in both Chile and Argentina. Sewerage plants can’t process toilet paper, so you have to place used paper in a separate bin in the facility you are in (including hotels), and they are mostly open bins. And out of hotels, usually paper is not supplied, nor soap. BYO. Ugh.   WE ARE SO LUCKY IN OZ!!!!