The first day in El Calafate was our day off the bikes and we strolled into town after a nice breakfast at our accommodation. Our host had recommended several things to do and the first on the list was the Glaciarium – a museum about snow, ice and glaciers on the outskirts of town. Lucas had told us about a free shuttle bus to the Glaciarium which we took and we met a Scottish couple on the bus. At the Glaciarium was an option to pay entry just into the museum or combined with a session in the glacier bar – we bought the combined ticket and really enjoyed the museum – all information was in English and Spanish and it was so well organised and presented and so much information was provided. Then we had our timed session into the glacier bar – it was a room completely built from ice and kept at -17 degrees Celsius 🥶 – they provided a warm poncho with hood and gloves – I was in shorts 😂❄️❄️😂🥶 good thing I am Austrian 😂 The session lasted for 30 minutes and included one drink of high percentage alcohol served in a glass made of ice. We both chose whiskey and Andrew filmed me as I “drank” my whiskey – or at least tried to – somehow the ice glass must have not been smooth and all the whiskey ran out and soaked through the poncho and my jumper underneath 😳😞😂 I helped finish Andrew’s and his glass was fine but I had a jumper soaked in whiskey 😂😂 After washing the whiskey out of my thick jumper as best as possible, we returned on the shuttle bus back to the city with me smelling like I had fallen in a whiskey barrel 😂

We strolled through a beautiful garden where the information centre and headquarters of the Perito Moreno National Park is and several life sized statues of Francisco Pascasio Moreno, who was an explorer and scientist who discovered Lake Argentino and Mount Fitz Roy and whom the glacier is named after.

Our next stop was the ecological reserve Laguna Nimez which is a bird watcher’s paradise and at the end of the walkway we saw more pink flamingoes in the distance – it was very windy but I managed to get a few good pictures with my white camera taken through the binoculars to get a closer view of the flamingoes – most of them had their tails in the air snd their neck and head under water. We saw several other bird species in snd around the lake, including a black-faced ibis (Theristicus melanopis), Coscoroba swans (Coscoroba coscoroba), Southern lapwing (Vanellus chilensis), a type of Cinclodes ? Buff- winged or bar-winged?? sitting in a bush singing, and a number of ducks and coots snd other small birds. After the walk around the Laguna, we went straight for dinner at a place with a great view over the town and the sunset.

The next day we rode to the Perito Moreno glacier. The road was spectacular – all 40km sealed but a very windy road with a maximum speed limit of 40km/hr (does not apply to motorcycles 😂🏍). We had chatted with our host for a while over breakfast and were fairly late to travel to the glacier which meant we had no traffic ahead of us slowing us down or spoiling the views 🤗 (sometimes it is the late bird that gets the better views 😂). Early on we saw chunks of ice floating in the lake and when we saw the first glimpse of the glacier it was one of those jaw-dropping moments even though we had seen so many pictures in the Glaciarium the day before – nothing prepares you for the huge size of this glacier. We were directed to park at the bottom carpark and changed out of our motorcycle gear into more comfortable hiking attire, storing all the gear on the bikes. We headed up the trail with the views of the glacier getting nearer and we walked the entire lengths of the walkway and often stopped to hear the thunder when a piece of ice broke off and then look for the icefall and the tidal wave – I managed to get one of the icefalls on video 🤗 Even though the day was overcast and it drizzled on and off, the view of the glacier is breathtaking – it is the only glacier which is still advancing and it is 70m high and more than 4km wide. We could have stayed for hours and looked and listened but the park closes at 6:00pm and we took the free shuttle bus back to the car park. After enjoying our ride back, again with very little traffic and no oncoming traffic as the Patk was closed, we stopped at the El Calafate town sign and left one of our stickers there. We then went straight to dinner at Morrison (where we had eaten the first night) for our final dinner in El Calafate. El Calafate and the glacier was certainly another unforgettable experience and one to add to the highlights list 🥰🤗.