The main purpose is to visit art museums, but it’s a great opportunity, so I included in my travel plan the World Heritage Iguazu National Park to see the Iguazu Falls, which straddle the border of Argentina and Brazil, and the Perito Moreno Glacier in Los Glaciares National Park, also a World Heritage Site. In this article, I’d like to write about my first experience of seeing a glacier in South America!
The Perito Moreno Glacier is located in the town of El Calafate in the southern end of Argentina, so I decided to go there on a day trip from Buenos Aires. When I tell Japanese people who live in Argentina, "I went to see the Perito Moreno Glacier on a day trip!", every one of them is surprised, so it might have been better to stay in El Calafate for at least one night, but I really enjoyed it, even though it was a day trip. Well, let's get going!
Departing Buenos Aires Airport at 5:10 am, we went directly south and arrived at El Calafate Airport in the southern end of South America at 8:20 am. Argentina’s land area ranks 8th in the world, the next largest after India, so it took more than 3 hours, even though we were traveling in the same country. First up, the moment I stepped off the plane I was amazed at how nice the air was. I was like, “What is this crystal-clear air!?” Then, I took a taxi to Los Glaciares National Park. This National Park is one of Patagonia's largest national parks and was registered as a Natural World Heritage Site in 1981. “Glaciares” means “glacier” in Spanish. Located at the southernmost end of the Andes Mountains, it is said to have the 3rd largest area of glaciers in the world after Antarctica and Greenland.
Thankfully, a taxi will take you all the way to the Perito Moreno Glacier, so, even though it's a nature activity, you don't need much physical strength. I got to the glacier sitting all the way.
I spent the next two hours just gazing at the glacier, during which time the leading edge of the glacier broke off and collapsed several times. In just the two hours I was here, chunks of glacier broke off into the water over and over again. Every time a bit of the glacier broke off, there was an explosive sound so loud that you would think something had been shot with a gun.
I even wondered whether something I couldn't see might be attacking the glacier and it was dying. But then, while many glaciers are retreating due to the effects of global warming, apparently Perito Moreno Glacier is a rare glacier, the only one in the world that keeps on growing vigorously and is not retreating.
And what's more, the blue colors of the glacier are so beautiful, they’re out of this world. I was impressed by how beautiful natural blue colors can be. The blue of the lake in El Calafate and the blue of the sky are each slightly different, but they are both beautiful blues. The blue glacier looks like ice cream to me. An ice cream so big that you've never seen one like it. It's enormously gigantic, but I feel as though I could just scoop it up from the side with a spoon. It's a little difficult to convey in photos, so how about going to Argentina and seeing the real thing?
Plus, when the ice splashes down into the lake, the water sprays up about 10 meters. Then, the water spray creates a world of white, like in the photo. Doesn't it make you feel as though an unidentified life form is about to emerge from below? It’s supposed to be the real world right there in front of you, but the natural scenery is so unreal that you wonder a bit whether it’s real or unreal, like you are watching a movie. Such was my disorientating glacier experience.
Argentina is said to be the farthest country from Japan, on the exact opposite side, so you think it's really far away, but I think it's worth going there and appreciating it in real life!
This has been Shoko Yamamoto living in Paracas, Ica Province, Peru, reporting from Argentina. Well, here’s where I say “Adios!”
