Being our own boss today, having the luxury of the hire car meant we didn´t have to be on a tour bus at 0800 but could have a leisurely get-up and set off for the glacier via the supermarket and lunch provisioning when we felt ready. Even without a 4th person in the car we still had a cheaper day out than we would have via an official tour bus, with none of the sheep mentality to contend with.
The drive to the glacier was across a massive Patagonian Steppe (thousands of miles of desert like scrubland) and the closer we got the more overcast it became. So what started as a blue sky day was now grey and looming, also for the first time we saw some cattle in nearby fields.
This didn´t dent our experience though, nothing could, we parked the car up and started our walk along the 3km of paths that create the viewing platform for the mighty beast that is the Perito Moreno Glacier.
Yes it was wet, but also unbelievably loud as the ice melt caused chunks of ice to fall to its demise in the waters below. We watched on in awe as we breathed in the sight before us, this magnetic sight that loses everything in writing and can only truly be experienced up close and personal. If you hear the ice fall you´ve missed it! It is apparently one of the few glaciers in the world that is still growing, yet here we all are standing here along this huge expanse of railings egging it on to melt before our eyes, wanting to capture on film, on video, the amazing scene as its front face dies before our eyes.
We spent a long time watching, photographing, videoing, listening, watching, enjoying this huge rare phenomenon we´d travelled to see.
Occasionally we´d bump into some of the others who´d took the bus tour, the Irish couple, Stephie, Josh, Elise, we even bumped into a Dutch couple we´d met in Puerto Madryn who came snorkelling with sea lions with us.
Returning to the car we had lunch in a dry window between showers and then returned to the glacier for a 2nd time, why? Because we could! The rain didn´t let up and in fact got heavier as the afternoon wore on. We´d read that the glacier was more active late afternoon but considering the rain we guessed correctly that the most spectacular breakages had happened earlier on in the day.
An awesome day out!