Day 42 - 16 Jan.2012 - Lagho Roca

Today our main destination was Parque Nacional los Glaciares to see the famous Glacier Perito Moreno. Some people warned us that in this region the weather can be a bit unpredictable and it is not rare to get all four seasons in a day. With that in mind we consider ourselves being extremely lucky. The day was just gorgeous!
The Glacier Perito Moreno is about 30km long, 5km wide and 60m high but you can better sense its magnitude when you get closer to it by boat. We took an afternoon hour trip towards the southern face of this monstrous chunk of ice. Perito Moreno is a truly spectacular sight with its white and blue crown like formations above the main body of the glacier. Our boat stopped some 300m away from this massive ice wall. It seems awfully far away but taking that it calves and that what appears to be small chunks of ice falling into the lake could be equivalent to a 12-storey building, you have to keep the safe distance. We were lucky to watch a ‘lorry’ equivalent of iceberg falling into the Lago Argentino.
While most glaciers are receding in recent years, Gracier Moreno is considered stable. It creeps forward per average 1.6m per day. When it moves or calves the ice generates a very loud cracking noise, a bit like an incoming thunderstorm, which can be heard some kilometres away from the glacier.
Happy with our experiences we had seen, we left the national park and drove a bit further south to Lago Roca to stay at a more remote. We were lucky to get one of the last spots of the campsite. In fact they only have 22 places on 17 ha of land – a garden for each place! Our spot was at the edge of the campsite overlooking the Lago Roca, a southern arm of Lago Argentina with the snowy summits of the mountains in the background. So far this is the most beautiful campsite we have stayed at.