Calafate and Perito Moreno

Calafate is the gateway to the Perito Moreno Glacier in the providence of Santa Cruz, Argentina. This glacier unlike most other glaciers on earth is growing and is to Argentina what the Masai Mara is to Kenya as a tourist attraction. Most visitors will stay in Calafate and visit the glacier for the day. As a result, the tourist accommodations are booming at an incredible pace. I was there the first time in May 2009; and returned in February 2010, I was amazed as to the number of new hotels and lodges rising along the shoreline of the lake on the road to the glacier. The old sleeping town is gone. Still much of the old charm is still left as illustrated above.

I have previously visited glaciers in Iceland and Alaska but none compares in majesty and awe to Perito Moreno. The iceflow covers approximately 100 square miles and has and average height of 200 feet where it flows into Lago Argentino. One of the major attractions for this glacier, is the fracture. This occurs when the ice flow creates an ice dam splitting the lake in two. When the dam is eventually broken it causes a spectacular water rush. This event is not easily predictable and not an annual event. Just watching and listening to iceflow moving is most interesting. One hears like rifle shots as the ice flows and chunks of ice break and fall into the lake. This process of large pieces of ice separating from the glacier is called calving; these calves then float about the lake pushed by the winds and water current until eventually melting away.

As tourism increases in Perito Moreno, the government activities to accommodate the influx of people is impacting this natural wonder. An extensive elevated metal trail and stairs ways is being completed. No doubt this will expedite the movement of visitors but at a cost of impacting the beauty of the area. They have constructed several “orange colored” rest stops along the trail that ruins the view. Could have they done this in a more subdue way? Is there a need for these structures in the first place?

The hand of bureaucracy using the excuse of “safety” has struck again in Perito Moreno. When I was there in 2009, I was able to access the shoreline in the area where the ice dam is formed (see image below). Now the old elevated trail that provided access to the shoreline has been closed.

No longer will visitors be able to experience to be close to the iceflow from land, see the deep blue/cyan colors created by the light filtered through the cracks in the clear ice from ground level, or touch the milky blue waters. Yes, there are boat tours that take you close to the iceflow or trekking on the glacier, but another experience to enjoy the glacier has been lost. Where else in the world could one experienced standing near the base of such a massive wall of ice?

I found that renting a car to visit the glacier for the day is more cost effective plus gives you the flexibility of staying at the glacier longer and stopping along the road to take landscape photos. One thing about Argentina that is more extreme than in other countries that I have traveled, is their gouging of tourists. You will pay ten times more for entering the national parks than a local citizen; but their practice of charging higher airfares to foreigners I have never experienced before. And is you are a US citizen and fly into the country, you will pay $130 fee, the good news, once you pay it, the passport is stamped and good for multiple entrances until the passport expires. In fairness this practice is not limited to Argentina, the same applies in Chile , but if you cross the border by land this fee is not charged, so walk or drive, don’t fly.

Trelew, Argentina

Trelew is a city of about 100,000 and I visited there because its airport that gives access to the Peninsula de Valdez, Punta Tombo (the largest pinguinera in the world) and other coastal areas in Patagonia. It started as a railroad town and was colonized by Welsh immigrants in the middle of the XIX century. I stayed day there in wait for a departure flight the next day. There is a university and next to it the Paleontologico Edigio Feruglio (MEF). The latter is quite a surprise and its collections of fossil dinosaurs and their displays among the best I have seen. There is a research room with a glass wall where you can see paleontologists cleaning and restoring their latest findings.

I was there in the middle of February and the first night at about 7 PM, I was walking around the lake next to the bus station. It is man-made and surrounded by a broad walkway and appears to receive water drainage from the city streets.

It was obvious that it was heavy polluted with a peculiar green color and a noxious odor. Nevertheless, it was a bird’s paradise. There were ducks, geese, the ever present gulls, stilts and flamingoes.

All of the sudden I saw a flock of little birds dropping in from the sky, settling on the water and starting to swim around in circles. This was on of those spectacles of nature that are overwhelming to witness. It appears this group of birds was just a scout group for a huge flight of migrating birds. Within minutes another flock started to drop from the sky followed subsequent waves, and suddenly, the whole surface of the lake was covered with these birds. They were Wilson’s Phalaropes…and I had not camera with me.

I had seen a similar occurrence in Texas more than forty years ago, where I visited to wait for the arrival of spring the migration of warblers who crossed the Gulf of Mexico. I was in a coastal area overgrown with bushes and small trees. Suddenly, small birds started to drop from the sky exhausted and perching in whatever branch had space for one more. There were several species of warblers and as in Trelew, arrived in consecutive waves. After a short rest period, they started to look for food. These birds were tired and did not mind the proximity of the bird watchers. Although the phalaropes in Trelew did not look exhausted, they were very busy feeding and ignored my presence.

I returned early the next morning and they were still there feeding in their funny way. They swim around in circles and this action seems to create vortexes in the water that disturb the bottom causing particles of food and small bugs to surface are rapidly picked by their slender beaks. The whole flock performs this behavior in unison and the feeding frenzy was continuous. These birds were in their winter plumage. By mid-morning they started to depart and by the time they arrive in North America they will sporting their breeding plumage.

Bustamante, Argentina

Lorenzo Soriano (1901-1987) arrived in Bahia Bustamante in 1953 after searching all over the Patagonian coastline to start a seaweed farm. It grew into several buildings including a school, a bodega and a church as well as accommodations for the workers. The seaweed harvesting operations ceased back in the 1990s but one of his sons converted the place into an ecological hacienda in 2004. Some of these facilities were upgraded and converted into cottages for the tourists.
Arrived in the evening at the administration building where a lady greeted us and started running looking for Sol? What did she mean? I turned out that Sol was not the Sun, but the young lady that seems to be everywhere and doing everything. She runs the place along with Nicolas. Sol takes care of housekeeping and the restaurant while Nicolas entertains the guests with nature tours, horse back riding as well as the boats excursion.

We settled (I went in this adventure with two photographer friends, at least they think they are) in one of the cottages that included a kitchen, dinning area, rooms with 3 beds and a bathroom. It was clean and neat and the only limitation it that electricity ran from 8-12 PM. This was not much of a hindrance since I have time to recharge the camera batteries, left early in the morning, and did not return to it until sunset. In the morning we were welcomed by a gorgeous sunrise.

There are roads in Bustamante but they are not marked so other than the directions provided by Nicolas we were on our own. The first morning we ended up at Penguin’s island. It is separated by a tidal basin from the mainland but luck had it that the tide was receding, so I waited for about ½ hour and walked to the island. It is low lying covered by shrubbery where the penguins have their underground nests.

We continued to explore the various trails the rest of the day. Late the first evening we ran into a fox family with 4 young ones. They have discovered what was I told a hairy armadillo but they did not seem to know what to do with it. These were very curious and allowed me to get some great images.

The last full morning we drove up to the Bahia del Medio, which turned out to be the best place for photographing. Most other places in the morning in Bustamante one finds himself facing east in the morning and shooting against the sun. In this location one can have the sun in the back having the sun falling directly into the wildlife. Here we found 3 dead pilot whales as well as a large kill of langostinos that covered the entire shore like a red carpet.

There were numerous shore birds such as American, Blackish and Magellanic oystercatchers; the later was a new species for me. Numerous flocks of plovers and sandpipers busily feeding for their upcoming migration north; these were not concerned with my presence. I wonder if I will see some of these waders in the shores of Virginia in the spring. The one below is a mystery; is it a Baird’s or a White Rumped Sandpiper?

One afternoon Nicolas took us in a boat to the bird and sea lions island. Amazingly when we approached the later, they stampeded towards the shore to welcome the visitors creating a dust cloud in their hurry. One came close to the boat for a closer look.

While visiting the sea lions, there were steamer ducks battling each other. Quiet a vicious fight, they grab each other by the bills and don’t let, quiet a battle until a referee appears and breaks the fight.

Although I had been many places, Bustamante is really a diamond for those interested in nature and photography in a pristine location. I visited other areas in Argentina last year and in this trip, so far this is my favorite place and in my opinion, more rewarding than the Peninsula de Valdez further up the coast.

Passage to Argentina and Chile

After almost a month of roaming the two largest Spanish speaking countries in South America,
I find myself recovering at home. Fortunately, I departed Santiago, Chile just the Thursday night before the earthquake. Some of those buildings I photographed in the city and now damaged as I had seen in the news. Wondered what happened to those fellow travelers who were headed for Easter Islands the next morning.

I started the trip by flying into Buenos Aires where I spent a few days and was amazed as to the construction activity going on compared to what I saw there year before in May. From there I flew to Trelew in the province of Chubut for my major destination at the Peninsula de Valdez, site of one of the largest national parks in Argentina. It was a desolate area mostly like a steppe of low rolling hills covered by low brushes and short grasses as seen above with steep cliffs making the beaches difficult to access. Most of the coastal area of this province has the same topography. My major purpose to go Valdez was to photograph orcas attacking sea lions on the beaches. Unfortunately I arrived a few weeks ahead of time and to access the areas where these activities take place, a permit must be obtained; an excuse to return next year.

From Valdez I drove down the coast to Bustamante, an isolated hacienda that back in the XX century started as a center of aquaculture where algae was collected and processed for food and pharmaceutical uses. Now it is a developing ecotourism center and the old housing for the workers has been fitted as cottages for tourists. It is a vast pristine area not yet widely known but I am sure it will become a center for nature lovers.

From Bustamante I roamed up the coast back to Trelew and visited the port of Camarones where I had the best seafood meal of the whole trip in an old gas station transformed into a restaurant by a couple of young entrepreneurs. Farther up the coast I ended up a Punta Tombo, the largest pinguinera in Argentina and perhaps the world. What an experience seen about 250 hundred thousands of Magellan penguins nesting over the hills along a small bay. No need to see another penguin for the rest of my life,a false statement, they are so cute and friendly.

From Trelew I flew to Calafate, where again I had visited in May of the previous year. In such a short time it has lost is quaint ways and is overcrowded with sprawling new real estate developments and hotels. Progress has paved the road to Perito Moreno glacier. After a couple of days here I departed for Chile.

I arrived in Puerto Natale which I visited in the last decade and rented a vehicle to go to Torres del Paine, probably my most favorite site in the world due to its massive granite towers, ice flows and glacial lakes.

I returned with 330 GBs of data or more specific about 24,000 images. Why so many? I took a lot of multiple photos for HDR images all over as well as wildlife. The trip went well when it came to transportation and accommodations but suffered photo equipment as well as some photographer’s failure. During my previous long trip to Africa last summer I ran out of storage space for the images but this time, one camera died and suffered from faulty exposure as well as the traditional autofocus problems. More to come from this wonderful trip.

La Recoleta

La Recoleta is the most famous cemetery in Buenos Aires where all the famous people of the country are buried. There are other cemeteries in major capitals of the world like those in Paris and Milano where some of the mausoleums are also elaborate works of arts. La Recoleta was founded in 1822 and has 4,800 tombs and a living population of cats asking for affections.
Below is one of the may streets in the necropolis.


Next to the cemetery is the Basilica del Pilar, dating back to 1716 in the Baroque style. The clock seen above the bells is of British origin. It not really a big church so the Basilica connotation is not really appropriate when compared to the original Basilica del Pilar in Saragoza, Spain. Some of the external wall are covered by murals showing panoramic views of Rio la Plata.

The styles of the mausoleums is diverse to meet all tastes and some already customized to meet the most demanding personal requirements. There was one already made for me.

I found the tomb below one of the most impressive with the figures to human size scale. The black marble provides great contrast with the gold halo and the white marble statues.

The mausoleum of Iliana Crocciati de Szaszak was unique. She died in 1970 in Italy victim of a snow avalanche that buried the hotel where she spending her honeymoon. the dog was her favorite pet. The epitaph written by her father is heart breaking but yo will have to go there to read it.

One of the rewards of traveling is the connections that one made among the various places visited. While in Ushuaia early in this trip I visited the prison there that it is now a museum. One of the cells was occupied by Simon Radowitzky, an Ukranian anarchist who assassinated the chief of police in Buenos Aires, Coronel Ramon Falcon, while riding an open carriage. Below is Falcon's burial place. Simon was the only prisoner to escape from the prison in Ushuaia although he was later caught in Chile and returned to the prison. He eventually was released and proceeded to join the Civil War in Spain. Afterwards he migrated to Mexico where he worked in a toy factory until his death in 1956.

And of course, one cannot visit this cemetery without visiting the most famous Argentine personality of the XX century, Isabel Peron. It is is the most visited site in the whole cemetery.

Perito Moreno Glacier

A few times during my travels I am overwhelmed by what I find. Even though I know where I am going and what I am going to see, I find myself not prepared for what I encounter. During my recent travels to Argentina I found myself in this situation when I first arrived at the Perito Moreno Glacier near the city of Calafate. I have seen glaciers previously in Iceland, Alaska, Mongolia and Chile but not of the magnitude and scenery of this one. It is located at the Glaciers National Park where there are other glaciers but Perito Moreno is the master. It is about 3 miles wide and the ice walls about 200 feet high. The ice mass advances about 6 feet per day and is one of the few glaciers that is still advancing; it has not been told about the green house effect yet. I took a boat tour and got real close to the ice wall but at a safe distance. The walls are shedding blocks of ice continuously and when they fall into the water, create great waves and noise. The noise sounds as the crack of a high powered rifle but by the time you hear it, the block of ice is already fallen. One is able to photograph the splash and waves created by the fallen block of ice but it is very difficult to capture one falling.



This photo was taken from the boat and gives a good perspective of the ice wall height and its blue color. But there is no image that can capture all the hue of blues visible to the eye. In some areas the ice seem fluorescent.
I mentioned the intense sounds before but these are heard very frequent also due to the moving ice blocks. There were hikers over the glacier but they do not get into areas as the ones to the right. I would be really wonderful to get inside of those spaces in between the spikes of blue ice.


This image shows a narrow area between the glacier and a point of land of the Peninsula de Magallanes. At times the glacier grows an blocks the southern branch of the Lago Argentino. This does not happens every year but when it does, thousands of tourists arrive to see the collapse of the bridge due to the pressure of the water rising in the bloked lake. This view is from the southern branch of the Lago Argentino looking north.

This view gives a panoramic view of the whole glacier and the mountains are to the West. You can see the tree leaves changing into red and yellows since I was there in the fall. The seasons are reversed from the northen to the southern hemispheres.

The park has a brand new system of elevated metal trails that provide for easy walking and great views. These trails lead to various vantage points to just observe the spectacle, watch for birds or hunting for the opportunity to see the glacier calving.

This image was taken with a 16 mm lens set at a 45 degrees angle to get the diagonal of a full frame digital camera. Then I Photoshop it and cropped it to get the widest dimension cutting off the corners. No image of this place can really capture its magnificence.