20 Feb: El Chalten (ARG) --> El Calafate (ARG) --> Perito Moreno (ARG).
Marc woke up this morning feeling the full effects of yesterday. He is definitely a trooper and everyone in our group has been so kind to offer meds to us to facilitate Marc's recovery. Fortunately today was mostly a travel day with a minimal amount of walking, so a good day for Marc to rest up.
Outside of Marc's illness, the group was feeling the effects of doing almost 27 miles of hiking over the previous 2 days (here and here). We checked out of our hotel and the group ventured to El Calafate, which is now a booming metropolis compared to when I was last there in 1998, for lunch and to get some cash. Speaking of which, El Chalten is completely different and Ushuaia has grown from 8000 inhabitants in 1998 to 80,000 in 2015. Wow.
After lunch, we headed to Perito Moreno Glaciar on Lago Argentina. The overcast skies actually helped us out in terms of bringing out more blue in our pics from the glacier. It is really hard to capture on film how vast Perito Moreno is. Trust me, it is. We saw the glacier from both lake level on a cruise and on the walking platforms, so it was good to get pics from both perspectives.
While in El Calafate, we picked up some local chocolate for the patient. So on the ride to the estancia that we are staying at, he started chomping. It seemed to help Marc's mindset, so that's positive. We're staying at a full working ranch that I immediately remembered from my trip in 1998. It's a gorgeous landscape over Lago Roca and Lago Argentina.
A word about yesterday's hike. I had a feeling that the hike was one of the ones I did in 1998. I remembered it sucking big time. Now part of it was a brutal climb but a major part of it was because of how out of shape I was back then. For better or worse, it was as I remembered it in terms of how steep and how relentless the final climb was. BUT.... we had sunny skies yesterday as opposed to when I did the climb in over twice the time in 1998. And I was really proud of my effort yesterday around not stopping until I got to the top. So there's that.
Keep on reading. Marc and I enjoy reading your comments, especially as he battles the untimely chest cold. Thanks for sending them in.
Outside of Marc's illness, the group was feeling the effects of doing almost 27 miles of hiking over the previous 2 days (here and here). We checked out of our hotel and the group ventured to El Calafate, which is now a booming metropolis compared to when I was last there in 1998, for lunch and to get some cash. Speaking of which, El Chalten is completely different and Ushuaia has grown from 8000 inhabitants in 1998 to 80,000 in 2015. Wow.
After lunch, we headed to Perito Moreno Glaciar on Lago Argentina. The overcast skies actually helped us out in terms of bringing out more blue in our pics from the glacier. It is really hard to capture on film how vast Perito Moreno is. Trust me, it is. We saw the glacier from both lake level on a cruise and on the walking platforms, so it was good to get pics from both perspectives.
While in El Calafate, we picked up some local chocolate for the patient. So on the ride to the estancia that we are staying at, he started chomping. It seemed to help Marc's mindset, so that's positive. We're staying at a full working ranch that I immediately remembered from my trip in 1998. It's a gorgeous landscape over Lago Roca and Lago Argentina.
A word about yesterday's hike. I had a feeling that the hike was one of the ones I did in 1998. I remembered it sucking big time. Now part of it was a brutal climb but a major part of it was because of how out of shape I was back then. For better or worse, it was as I remembered it in terms of how steep and how relentless the final climb was. BUT.... we had sunny skies yesterday as opposed to when I did the climb in over twice the time in 1998. And I was really proud of my effort yesterday around not stopping until I got to the top. So there's that.
Keep on reading. Marc and I enjoy reading your comments, especially as he battles the untimely chest cold. Thanks for sending them in.
