The end of the world and a glaciar

This last week found me in the southernmost city on the American continents, Ushuaia. In reality, there is Chilean land south of Ushuaia and even a small Argentinian community on Antarctica itself, but Argentina´s rules on what makes a city a city (at least 10,000 inhabitants), leaves Ushuaia with this proud claim. Ushuaia is actually an island, there is no overland route to the rest of Argentina. This is a common jumping off point point for passenger ships to Antarctica but also has a beautiful national park and a penguin refuge. Yes, I did march with the penguins, or at least next to them. They aren´t the same type we saw in the movie but they´re pretty cute anyway. Foot traffic on the island is limited to about 15 people per day and scientists here are doing research on the impact of tourism on penguin behavior and breeding. It was clear that they could care less that we were there staring at them and snapping photos, so we´ll see what they find. While in Ushuaia, I met Luis, Veronica and Lucas. Luis was the knowledgable penguin tour guide who lives in northern Argentina but first came down here years ago to try to make it to Antartica. He now comes each summer to teach tourists about penguins and live near the sea. Lucas and Veronica were students in Buenos Aires who had returned home for summer break, as most Argentinian young people do.
After several days in Ushuaia, I flew up to Calafate, just days before the airlines went on strike! Calafate is a small but growing tourist town that is the base for visits to the Petito Moreno Glaciar. As the Argentines in Ushuaia warned me, it´s a bit of Disneyland at the end of Argentina with little more than hotels, restaurants and outdoors shops on its single main street. Don´t stay long they said.
The glaciar was incredible. See my pics and you´ll know. This incredible piece of ice moves 2 meters a day, but is receding like most of the worlds glaciars. Its blue color comes from compression of ice. The more, compressed, the more blue. Cloudy days, like the one I had, also bring out the blue color. One of the most fantastic things about the glaciar is how alive it is. If one listens carefully, there is a constant orchestra of ice moaning, squeaking and cracking with the occasional deafening crash of pieces (human size and larger) into the water off the front face.
My final stop in my tour of Argentina´s southern tip was El Chalten. A tiny village 4 hours north of Calafate by dirt road that quadruples in population TO 2000 in the touristy summer months (that are now beginning to end). It is a hiker´s and climbers dream. In the near distance are several peaks, the largest of which is the famous Fitz Roy mountain. The area is also known for its gorgeous turquoise mountainous lakes. There, I made a 15 mile (roundtrip) journey to walk on the glaciar which was incredibly interesting. A glaciar is not just a block of ice. It is an intricate network of hills, valleys, rivers, caves and ponds. To get there, we even crossed a river on a zip line! The next day, I trekked to see Fitz Roy and Lago de los Tres with Chieh, spunky Japanese hairstylist from New York.
I´ve now returned to Calafate feeling the 27 miles I logged over the past two days and a little stomach bug I caught on the way back. I stayed longer than expected in disneyland but I head to Chile tomorrow.
Good bye Argentina.