D18 -- Sailing Among the Glaciers

Our day was spent aboard a large catamaran touring several glaciers in an Argentine national park that borders Chile. Once we got underway we headed upstairs to the lookout deck, and man oh man was it freezing, even after we put on an extra layer of clothes. Elva really liked the color of the glacial lake, which was a kind of milky turquoise blue. We ended up visiting two large glaciers (Spegazzini and Upsala) and then we docked and walked about ½ mile to Lago Onelli, a lake that was surrounded by glaciers and filled with small chunks of ice that had broken off from the glaciers.

While sitting by the shore of the lake we were entertained by a young couple, an American woman and we think an Australian man, who decided to strip down to their underwear & t-shirts and swim/wade to one of the small chunks of ice, which they climbed on top of so they could get some great photos. We admired their spunk but there was no way we were getting in that freezing water.

The trip to Upsala glacier was really cool because we had to navigate around HUGE icebergs (some were at least 2-3 times as big as our boat, and that was just the 15-20% of the iceberg that was above water). Elva really enjoyed Glacier Spegazzini, which is the tallest glacier in the park. We had a great time on the catamaran but by the end of the eleven hour journey we were anxious to get off and stretch our legs.

- Thomas