A reasonable pickup time at 9 am means Kyle and Leanne can have a leisurely breakfast in the hotel lobby. Pickings are a bit slim but certainly enough to start us off on a good day.  And you can’t complain when the hotel is $64 per room per night and comes with breakfast.

Today we will sojourn to Perito Moreno in Los Glaciares National Park to see one of the most impressive glaciers around. It’s an hour and half away from El Calafate.  The topography on the journey there reminded us of The Tibetan Highlands. At first the fields were yellow and brown similar to a California mountains as the area is one of the world’s largest desert.  Cattle farms sprawl more than 10,000 hectares.  

Our guide Marisa is peppy, enthusiastic and happy to be here with all of us.  She is giving a bi-lingual tour speaking first in Spanish and then repeating in English.  Kyle likes this as it gives us a chance to see what we can understand in Spanish (which still isn’t much but more than a week ago). There is a couple in van that we start chatting with.  They are from Poland which is one of the few countries we keep meeting people from that is not a country we will visit on our trip.

As the glacier comes into view, she’s as excited to see it as all of us are, leading us in gasping for our breathes. Leanne is just hoping the teens are showing enough excitement back or else Marisa might be crushed. The view was outstanding at our first viewpoint where we witness the blue and white 18,000 year old glacier sitting majestically in a valley. 

The 250 km2 (97 sq mi) ice formation, 30 km (19 mi) in length, is one of 48 glaciers fed by the Southern Patagonian Ice Field located in the Andes system shared with Chile. This ice field is the world's third largest reserve of fresh water. The terminus of the Perito Moreno Glacier is 5 km (3.1 mi) wide, with an average height of 74 m (240 ft) above the surface of the water of Argentino Lake. It has a total ice depth of 170 meters (558 ft).

Despite the fact that most of the innumerable glaciers worldwide are retreating as a result of global warming and climate change, one of the few unusual glaciers that maintains a state of equilibrium is the Perito Moreno glacier because it continues to accumulate mass at a rate similar to that of its loss. The reason remains debated by glaciologists. Marisa says the reason is because the glacier is lodged on the bottom of the lagoon and not free floating which helps it maintain its equilibrium.

We drive closer and Marisa drops us off at the walking trails and gives us 3 hours to explore before the bus will pick us up again.  She has given us a map and information guide on the bus. Of course, the damn brochure has to mention that the park contains a very dangerous type of yellow jacket who will not only try to sting you repeatedly but also try to gauge and eat you with its fanged mouth.  Perfect, great way to market to tourists.  As a result, John is anxious as he insists swarms of killer bees are going to attack us.  Leanne tries to calm his fears with the great line from the Harriet movie we just saw “fear is your enemy.” We notice the pathway is raised well above the foliage most likely for this bee swarm risk.  We snap away not even seeing a harmless fly.  

The glacier is difficult to describe in words alone.  There is a wall of ice that stretches from one side of land to the other side and majestically juts out of the lagoon 70 meters high.  “Holy crap, that is right out of the game of thrones, it’s The Wall in the North,” Kyle says.  Of course it’s not as tall as The Wall in Game of Thrones but that doesn’t diminish Kyle’s excitement.

From different angles the ice is varying shades of blue from baby blue to cobalt mixed in with white.  The adjacent Lake Argentino is the biggest freshwater lake in Argentina with a surface area of 1,415 km2 (546 sq mi), an average depth of 150 m (492 ft), and a maximum depth of 500 m (1,640 ft). And it’s yes freezing cold at 2 degrees Celsius.  

The photos only start to capture its incredible beauty. Snap. Snap. Snap. We simply can’t get enough photos of our Ice Age relic here.  The polarized sunglasses we brought make its hues even more vibrant while protecting our eyes too. 

Pop. Crackle. Crash.   Sounds like thunder. Marisa told us we’d hear thunder like sounds as the ancient ice crashes to the lake.  The challenge is that you hear to cracking sound and then have to scan the huge ice wall to see which part actually has ice falling which is no easy feat. The first few cracks, we can’t find the falling ice.  Then on the next crack, one of the kids points to the base of the glacier and says there.  We look and there are pebble sized ice pellets falling raining down into the lagoon.  “You have to be kidding me that giant cracking thunder sound produces a few ice cubes?” Kyle says a little disappointedly.

Keep the faith as Leanne says.  Further along our hike, we hear an even greater cracking sound and this time are looking at the perfect spot as a giant chunk of ice falls down into the lagoon.  It was so big that it caused a tidal wave in the lagoon that we watched as the wave rolled out and eventually dispersed.  We would actually see a second large one.  Those ones were definitely not disappointing.

After the hike, we find a glacier front view table at the restaurant for lunch and continue to enjoy Perito Moreno’s beauty over empanadas, Argentine pizza, and chicken ragout — all while answering more “would you rather” questions on the Get Gabbin’ app. 

After lunch, we get even closer to the glacier via an hour boat ride. Another experience of a lifetime.  It’s absolutely gorgeous as we drink in its frozen beauty, take a million more photos, and elbow our way for good positioning.  

Marisa told us it would be really crowded today at the glacier because of the holiday week. To us, it was a sparsely populated joy.  This is how we know travel isn’t equal in the world. While yes it was a little crowded, it pales in comparison to lines at Taj Mahal, Mona Lisa or Ho Chi Minh mausoleum. Everything is relative. 

We head back to town.  Tomorrow’s journey is to Torre del Paine National Park in Chile.  The tour sent Kyle a note that said that we need to pay 25,000 Chilean Pesos per person to enter the national park. Kyle has messaged the tour company repeatedly asking if this can be paid in Argentine Pesos or if we have to pay in Chilean Pesos but never received a response.  So the safe course of action is to convert Argentina Pesos into Chilean Pesos.    

Kyle heads to the money exchange where there are a gaggle of people already waiting.  He waits on the line for 20 minutes and when it’s his turn, the agent informs him (in Spanish of course) that they have no Chilean Pesos and his best bet is Western Union. It’s now 5:20pm and Kyle asks if it’s still open to which she responds yes.  Kyle sets off for the Western Union which is located inside the Post Office across from our hotel.  However; upon reaching it, both the Western Union and the Post Office are closed and locked up tight. 

Kyle next finds an ATM to see if by any chance, the ATM will allow withdraws in alternative currencies.  Alas, the answer is no. Kyle finally has an epiphany.  He just went straight to the Western Union in the post office but what if there was another one the money exchange person was talking about?  He checks his phone and sure enough, there is one on the outskirts of town. 

Kyle enters and is led to a back office window for international exchanges.  Kyle asks for 250,000 Chilean Pesos which at the real conversion rate should be 20,000 Argentine Pesos.  The Western Union clerk shows Kyle a calculator that he will need 25,000 Argentine Pesos to complete the transaction.  “Claro que no!” Kyle exclaims horrified at the thought of paying a 25% transaction fee.  Well apparently Western Union is the money of last resort for desperate people and right now Kyle qualifies for both categories and coughs up the Argentinian pesos.

Kyle arrives back at the hotel looking forlorn as Leanne is waiting in the lobby while John is having a remote singing lesson in our room. “What’s wrong?” Leanne asks.  “I got mugged,” Kyle responds.  “NO!!!!” Leanne shrieks horrified.  This has been one of our concerns on the trip and now it comes true.  “Yeah, I got mugged by the Western Union agent,” Kyle says as he plops on the cough and Leanne punches him in the arm.

The Polar Bar was such a hit the previous night that we return for round two.  We missed the family picture the night before so we make sure to jump on that first thing.  There are only two other people in the Polar Bar. We repeat the sequence of dancing, drinking, posing with the polar bear and filling up our iPhone memory with color changing pictures.

We return to the hotel and while we are waiting for the kids to assemble in the lobby for dinner, we start talking to the front desk person in Spanish but it turns out she speaks English.  She practices her English with us and we practice our Spanish with her.  She tells us this the first time she has spoken English with anyone.  She was a lot better at English than we were at Spanish.  Kyle has been having trouble securing bus tickets to El Chalten for the day after tomorrow so he takes advantage of her English and asks the best way to do it.  She directs us to the travel agent two doors down who is still open at 8pm.  

At the tourist office, we are working with the travel agent who also speaks English on our bus tickets. Noticing that he was sipping on a long metal straw out of a thermos, Leanne asked him what it was.  He gets excited and pops out of his seat and goes into the kitchen.  He comes back with a bag the size of a five pound sugar bag. It’s full of herbs and called Yerba Mate. “We drink this all day to ward off hunger, sometimes it’s a litle bitter.” he talks for several minutes about his country’s favorite hit drink.  Note to self: find some.  

Kyle successfully gets the tickets and meets us at the restaurant for a quick (or at least as quick as one can get in Argentina) dinner as we have to be up and ready to go to Chile in the lobby by 7am tomorrow morning.