Breakfast was quieter than usual without Emily, Gabe, Deb, and Jeff. They had left the day before and were back home in Iowa and Washington. Nick and I tried to take advantage of one last breakfast at our hotel. Avocado toast and cookies really hit the spot. Nick must’ve enjoyed breakfast as much as I did because he agreed to take a taxi to the bus station, an uncommon luxury! Many people showed up right as the bus was supposed to leave, which meant we were about 20 minutes delayed. If I were that bus driver I would’ve shut the bus doors on time and left those suckers behind.

The border crossing leaving Chile went smoothly. Entering Argentina again was easy peasy, too, so we were happy about that. It was a windy day, but the views were gorgeous out of our big windows. Our bus ride was only 6.5 hours and we arrived to our hostel in the late afternoon. The town seemed really small so not much was going on when we arrived. We split a pizza for dinner and called it a night.

Our hostel came with breakfast, which usually for hostels is pretty sad. I always get mad and rant about it to Nick. It says included but then its just bread with nothing to put on it. Well not that hostel! It had scrambled eggs, fruit, tea, coffee, juices, cakes, dulce de leche, etc. Incredible! It definitely makes all other hostels look bad. The line for washing dishes after was so long I was a few minutes late for our pickup van. We got picked up early to go on a glacier excursion. At 7:00am we started to drive to the Perito Moreno Glacier with our guided group.

By 9:00am we had arrived to the balcony viewing area where we had one hour for free wandering. Nick and I walked the yellow circuit, which took us to several viewpoints of the front of the glacier. From most of the viewpoints we could see forest, water, icebergs, glacier, mountains, and a rainbow to seal the deal. I did rush Nick at the start since I was afraid the rainbow would disappear any second. It turns out we had plenty of time and could relax at the viewpoints. At 10:00am we boarded a boat that took us to the other side of the lake. That took around 30 minutes and from there we would start our big activity of the day, our hike.

Just before 11:00am we had finished being divided into smaller groups, had our hike leaders, were given our snacks, and were off. It took us about 1.5 hours to hike through the forested area. It was so beautiful hiking through the trees with views of the glacier in front of us and then beside us. Closer to the glacier we got our helmets, harnesses, and crampons. There was a short section of the hike where we had to use a carabiner to attach to a metal rope secured to the side of a cliff. That was due to the trail being narrow and high winds. It didn’t feel that necessary, but I’m sure they do it for good reason. There was one outhouse on the trail and I was impressed with how fancy it was. It had toilet paper and hand sanitizer!

Finally we made it to the ice! Our group got to hike on the ice for about 3 hours, which was fun. Our guides took us to look at some water on the glacier and then made up paths for us to take. No group went the same way, which was nice because it ended up feeling like it was just us out there! In reality I think that is the only activity people do in the area so there were hundreds of people. Some people hiked closer to the area we got our helmets from and had less time on the glacier. We opted for the all day hike, which meant we could go deeper and longer. Our guides used their axes to make steps for us in hard to navigate spots. There were times where we had to jump and climb to follow along. We had a little lunch break, took some photos, and then started making our way back down.

Once we were back to the gravel we got the reminded about how many people were really out there. Everyone ended around the same time and it was chaos taking off the crampons. After trekking back through the forest we made it back to the start for some tea and coffee. After which, around 5:30pm, we were back on our boat for a scenic cruise closer to the glacier. They served whiskey with ice chunks from the lake, and water for people like Nick and myself. There were also chocolate bon bons that we ate way too many of. The views were nice, but it was so windy outside that I didn’t stay on the deck for very long. It was a long day and we ended up back at our hostel in the evening. This was our only activity here but I definitely feel like it was worth it. It’s always so fun feeling like an explorer on a glacier. Nick and I agreed that while it wasn’t the prettiest glacier we’d ever trekked it was nice to have space from the other groups, explore, and be so close to the forest.

For dinner Nick found a pasta restaurant downtown. The carbonara was pretty good and the raviolis were just okay. There was a long line of people and the service was slow. We were a bit surprised the place had such a high rating, but maybe there wasn’t much competition in town. For dessert we got ice cream. We were pretty tired after our full day excursion so it was nice to eat a lot and then get to bed before our final destination in Patagonia the next day.