EL CALAFATE - 15/01/2013 03:56:48 PM [DPA]
It's like standing on the border between eternity and transience when you visit the Los Glaciares National Park in the Argentinian part of Patagonia.
On the one hand, there is almost a sacred silence which covers the millenia-old white steppes. On the other, there is the crackling sound of sheets of ice falling and crashing into the water.
The 7240 sq km park in Santa Cruz province has 300 glaciers, including the star among them that gets everyone's attention, the Perito Moreno glacier. It is neither the largest nor the highest, not even the oldest or newest one.
But it is the one which can be seen the best because it rises up so majestically.
The glacier, declared a World Natural Heritage site by UNESCO, is roughly the size of Buenos Aires.
A winding path made of steel and wood in front of the glacier's north side enables visitors to view it from various angles. But the closest approach is by boat, on a route dubbed "Canal de los Tmpanos" - channel of ice bergs.
Seen from land, the vessels heading out to Perito Moreno seem like paper boats, tiny white ants compared with the gigantic ice.
Along the way, the boat glides among oddly-shaped icebergs - here one shaped like a long nose, there one that looks like a sword. Some floes are within one's reach. The figures twirl around, split apart, and change shape in the waves created as the boat moves forward.
Right in front of the glacier the boat's engines are turned off, and silence takes over. But then there is a thundering sound as a huge chunk of ice breaks off and comes crashing down into the sea, in turn creating new floating ice formations.
There are some ships that travel further, heading to the tip of other glaciers, such as the Spegazzini or the Viedma glacier.
Only the Upsala, an ice mass 870 sq km in size, is unreachable by boat. The glacier's front tongue of ice has for years blocked the access by sea to its kingdom.
For more than 90 years now the Perito Moreno glacier has been stable. It has achieved a perfect balance between growing and shrinking. Like a tamed animal, this is a glacier that can be touched and handled.
On its southern side there are improvised booths where visitors can equip themselves with spikes and then head out for a guided round-trip trek through the snowy landscape.
The group treks for an hour and a half with the aim of discovering a new colour emerging from the crevices and caverns. It is one that they have never seen before - neither dark blue, nor a sky-blue, and not turquoise. After lengthy debate, the visitors agree on the term "glacier blue".
Before starting back, they seal their agreement with a glass of Irish whisky that the trail guides serve up - cooled by the ice chipped away from the glacier.
Reaching the Perito Moreno region involves flying in to the international El Calafate airport of the town of the same name located some 78km from the glaciers. Travel by bus or car to the Los Glaciares National Park takes about four hours.
The main travel season is from October through April.
