Day: 8
Trajectory: In and around El Calafate, incl. Perito Moreno Glaciar.

Distance covered:   150 km (approx. 20 on foot)

Our hostel in El Calafate

We decided to stay another night in Calafate. Tiso slept in a bit and I got up at 7 am to visit the Nimez Bird reserve, an excellent birding site and as good as the sites I am familiar with back in the UK.

This was a superb birding site – highly recommended

This is not a birding blog, but I’ll just show one or two of the birds I saw that particularly pleased me.

Cinereous Harrier (male)

and Cinereous Harrier (female)

a couple of chimangos

some flamingos flying by

and a pretty little pipit

An excellent morning’s birding in a superb IBA. To sum up with one picture:

a final picture that says it all …

We had lunch, and set off for the Perito Moreno Glaciar, some 80 km from Calafate. This was to be very different from the Viedma Glaciar of the previous day, and as we were arriving late in the afternoon we were able to drive right up to the stairways.

A long view of the glacier face

The views were excellent, and the site extremely well designed with a series of walkways that covered a huge area and offered viewing from many different heights and angles. The walkways wound through woodland and were a pleasure in themselves:

The glacier has an extensive system of observation walkways that go right down …

… and back up again

So well designed are the walkways and so well spaced the steps and flights that coming back up was no effort at all, even in the driving rain as it was time to leave.

The glacier from another angle

The glacier can be viewed from a number of different positions. We could hear the constant sounds of chunks breaking off and falling into the water and we were lucky enough to see one substantial piece fall.

Large section of ice breaking away and falling into the water

Our visit to the glacier over we drove back to the hostel for a welcome evening meal and to plan the following day. More in tomorrow’s blog.