El CalafateEl Calafate

Published on November 9, 2019 ⋅ 3min read

Sunlight glistened on the ragged ridges of ice, like white teeth gleaming in the mirror after a good brushing. Stretching deep into the mouth of the valley, the glacier gnawed ceaselessly away at the land. An icy wind blew, soft yet relentless in its attack, like the cold breath of death down the back of your neck. Sudden cracks, followed by a thunderous rumbling, heralded the calving of the ice, as enormous chunks broke off and fell into the crystalline lake below. Sleet and spittle exploded outward in the aftermath of the glacier's roar...

The bus made good time and we arrived about 11am. We already knew from our previous stop at El Calafate that there was a bus departing for the Perito Merino glacier at 1pm, so we decided, since the weather was decent enough, that we'd go find a campsite, quickly pitch our tents, then come back to the bus station and head to the glacier.

The first campsite we visited had no one around. It seemed closed, perhaps not yet open for the season. Rather than pitch our tents and just hope someone would show up and allow it, we decided to walk a little further into town and found another campsite. A lovely old lady welcomed us (or so I assume, she only spoke Spanish) and we were quickly set up. By the time I'd finished pitching my tent, it was dry once more. I had packed it away earlier, still wet from the melting snow, but a few minutes stretched out in the Argentinian sun had it dry again.

While pitching my tent, I struggled to kneel on the ground. With the heat of the day, I no longer needed my thermals, so I took them off, revealing something I'd been dreading: a swollen knee. I'd started to feel it earlier while walking. It had become stiff in the knee and I wasn't able to bend it as much. I'd hoped it was just stiff joints from a cold start, but no. The swelling was clear to see. I put on compression bandages, hoping that it would help prevent the swelling from increasing, but I held little hope. I knew what this meant. It wasn't the first time it had happened to me.

We returned to the bus station for 12:30pm, eating some lunch while we waited and then caught the bus to the glacier. It was just over an hour away from the town.

The glacier was mighty. Stretching for kilometres up a valley, it was a solid wall of ice. It reminded me very much of the Wall from Game of Thrones. The face glacier was 70m tall, while in the middle it had been seismically measured to be almost 700m deep! Snow capped mountains flanked the glacier, rising into the clouds like hulking giants. The ice held brilliant hues of blue, that intensified with the sunlight. With the way the light bounced around, it looked almost as if there was a source of light emanating from within, like the Tesseract from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The whole park area was a raised walkway, with many viewing platforms affording different angles and lines of sight of the glacier. Every now and again you'd hear a sharp crack, followed by a rumble, as chunks of ice broke away and fell off the face of the glacier. It was very exciting and almost every time you left a viewing platform, you would hear such a noise, which brought you running back to see.

We spent a good couple of hours walking slowly around the walkway. Dad couldn't stop taking photos, he was enthralled by the ice. With each passing step, I could feel my knee seize up slightly more, and by the end of the walkway I was really limping. I could no longer bend my knee. I sat down in the café near the bus stop and rested for the last hour, while dad went out and took more photos.

When we returned to El Calafate, we had the chance to hop off the bus in the town centre, rather than at the bus station further away. By now I knew my knee was in a bad shape, so I went to the pharmacy and bought some ibuprofen, which was what I'd previously been prescribed for my swollen knees. We stopped at a pizza place for dinner and just as we were finishing eating, we bumped into Rian and Helena, a couple whom we had met on the ferry to Puerto Natales. They had just done the Torres del Paine trek and were heading to El Chalten the next day. We swapped stories and wished them well on the rest of their journey.

The next day, my knee had ballooned. There was not much of a choice: I simply had to lie down, elevate my leg, take the ibuprofen, and hope that it would recover. I spent the entire day lying on the couch in the campsite common room. In the evening, we went to a fancy restaurant and had a steak dinner, something which Argentina is renowned for. We had to try it at least once!

The next day, we returned to Chile and Puerto Natales, where we would spend a couple of nights and prepare for the big Torres del Paine trek.

However, with my knee swollen, it wasn't looking promising...