After the Torres hike, we had a rest day in Puerto Natales. It was great timing because it just happened to be the same day as the first ever South American screening of the Reel Paddling Whitewater Film Festival! So Ryan was stoked about that! We decided to have a date night and go watch some paddling flicks.
We went to a little school auditorium where the movies were being shown. Lots of them were from Canada, and it was nice to see a little bit of home so far away! There was one about a guy who was paddling the route to be taken by the oil tankers on the west coast, if the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline is built from Alberta to Kitimat in BC. The film just made me so angry that our government will likely allow this to happen, and potentially destroy that beautiful part of our country. It´s now been a month since I left my job helping the approvals process for that type of project and I couldn´t be happier.
The next day we headed off to Argentina! Or first stop was Calafate. It was such a cool little town with a lot going on. It kind of had a Collingwood or Wasaga Beach feel to it, like it is the place the city people escape to on the summer weekends. There was a main street filled with cafes, outdoor patios, nice restaurants, souvenir shops and an amazing ice cream parlour with about a million flavours I wanted to try! There was also a bird sanctuary on the waterfront with awesome birds so that wasn´t bad either!
We took a day trip to the Perito Moreno Glacier. It was absolutely stunning, the kind of thing you can sit and watch for hours. We actually heard it before we saw it. The glacier seemed to be alive, making almost constant creaking, splashing and cracking noises like thunder. But we didn´t see any pieces falling off the face at first, so all these noises were coming from the icy blue depths! Then as it got a bit hotter during the afternoon, we began to see a few chunks falling off the 5k, 50m tall glacier face. Even the little pieces made huge crashing noises as they fell into the lake below. Then we saw a HUGE chunk fall off and become an iceberg in the water below. It was amazing.
The next day we went on a tour from a company called Enjoy El Calafate. We did 2 ziplines over a canyon, did a little rock climbing, a rappel, and a via feretta. The guides were awesome and so funny, and it felt so good to be outdoors climbing again! It´s been a while since we have gone in Toronto. Ryan had a great time chatting with the guides about their setup and their business. After we finished the via feretta, they gave us a shot of liquor made from a local bush, and then a chocolate bar, sweet!
After that we went to check out the local museum which had a few dinosaur skeletons and a skeleton of a giant mammal that used to live here only 5000 years ago. The other town we were in, Puerto Natales, was the site where archaeologists found the remains of a giant ground dwelling sloth called a Milodon. It´s crazy for me to think that only a few thousand years ago there were giant sloths roaming around! (Too bas us stupid huans showed up and killed them all).
Then we hopped on the bus to our next destination, El Chalten, to hike around Mount Fitz Roy!
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