Tres Cerdos Adventures: More Glaciers, More Travel

Lago Argentino

On Christmas we were scheduled to go back on a boat and then get on top of the Moreno glacier and walk around. The previous day was fun but was also very touristy, so we opted out of the glacial hike. We instead drove to some good viewpoints of the glacier and walked around. We made it back to the ranch in time for another amazing three-course lunch, then lounged around and explored later. My rump was too abraded from horseback riding the previous day, so I hiked while Anna and Than rode with Frederico and Jeff (Anna's dad) drove up to a viewpoint and hiked back. I made it fairly high up the mountain in an hour, got some good views and then ran down it. Once again, we ate late and fell asleep quickly afterwards.

Lady Slippers?

Moreno Glacier from the hills behind Hosteria Alta Vista

The next morning Frederico took us to a neighboring ranch that was fairly close but had a much different climate and a rockier terrain. He took us to a large rock formation that had some native paintings from 4000 years ago! They didn't look like much but it was cool to see that some of the patterns still exist. From there we drove to the shearing shed where the workers still use some of the 100+ year old equipment in the shearing of 16,000 sheep each year. It was an amazingly sophisiticated yet very manual setup.

On our way out, we stopped in downtown Califate, which catered entirely to the tourist population with a lot of upscale gift shops with local wares. The town was very nice, likely as a result of the country's president hailing from the town and siphoning money back into it. From there, it was off to Bariloche, a larger town in the north of Patagonia. We flew in the late afternoon, got in in the evening, and were shuttle from the airport through Bariloche and then to the northwest part of town where we took a boat for a 45 minute ride to Isla Victoria and our hosteria.