PATAGONIA and THE ANDES!

Okay so here I go. We are in the town of El Calafate, which is about 100 kilometers from Glaciers National Park. We are really close to Chile and are going there tonight (hopefully we have a hostel). Anyways, we took a tour yesterday with a guide in the park. It started with a busride on the local dirt road through Estancias (ranches) where we spotted condors (they look like gigantic turkeys and hawks), sheep and goats, bunnies, hawks, a gaucho on his horse and with his three dogs, and a ton of birds. Then we entered the south entrance of the park to see the Glacier Moreno, one of the many in the huge park, the biggest in Argentina. It was great to have a guide who spoke in English and Spanish. We got to practice our Spanish. We have been trying to talk to everyone in Spanish and it has been coming along. We can understand it better and our next step is to only talk to one another in Spanish for a couple of days. We went on a trek by the lake and learned more about the Glacier. It is stable, meaning that every season it freezes out to the same point and it is not receding, since 1917. We then went to the look out boards. These are a bunch of metal trails that they have laid out so you can see the glacier from different angles. We ate our lunch there and watched for pieces of the glacier melting and falling into the lake. The sound was so so loud and you had to watch because they would fall first and then you would hear the sound later. We saw a couple and even got one on video- so lucky! Amber saw a huge piece fall and crash into the water, making a huge wake. Then we took a boat ride across the lake and got pretty close to the glacier. It was pretty cold there, but not too bad. This day was really life changing, we felt as if we were in a movie. Seeing something so large makes you feel so small and puts things into perspective. These glaciers hold so much of our worlds fresh water and if we have anything to do with them melting all over the world, we have to stop it now. They are amazingly beautiful and really undescribable. Our natural world is crazy, we feel so lucky to live in a time where we have the freedom to see it. We want to see more in Chile and then back again at the the top of this park. So it was a great day and worth every penny it took to get us here. El Calafate is a cool town, the most American tourists of any place so far though. It is like Mexico, Tahoe, and the Nevada desert all wrapped up into one. The outdoor scene is big here- gear stores everywhere. Cuz would say that I am cuzin' hard as I point it all out to Amber. But the scenery is amazing. Tonight we are off to Puerto Natales in Chile, even farther south. We are so far south that it gets light at about 4am and gets dark at 11pm. Long summer days! It is really windy here though but still around 65 degrees. So off to Chile to see and trek Torres del Paine! I have wanted to see this place since I started working at Adventure 16 and got the poster in my room. It has awe inspiring red peaks, lakes and glaciers. Patagonia and the Andes mountain range is definately one of the most amazing places in the world. I am glad to share it with all of you on this blog and will update it before Christmas. We don't know where we will be for the holiday, but we miss you all and wish you the best with your friends and family. Stay warm and know that we are thinking of you all. Happy Holidays and winter solstice from Amber and Sean!