Post by Grubb.
Yesterday we woke up before dawn to stand outside our AirBnB to wait for our short bus to Puerto Bandera. It was just above freezing so we hoped that we would be the first, not the last, passengers the bus would pick up. We were fortunate in that regard. The place we’re staying at seems like it’s on the outskirts with its dirt roads and stray dogs and unobstructed view of the wind-stripped hills, but it’s less than a quarter mile drop into town so rides have an easy time finding us.
The road to Puerto Bandera passes through a large ranch (estancia) by Lake Argentina where the low sloping grassland makes for lush cattle grazing. The Puerto itself is tiny, featuring two docks mooring catamaran cruise boats that hold around two-hundred people.
We joined the line of anorak-bundled passengers who had signed up for traveling on the main deck. There was a separate, smaller group that boarded first. They had purchased tickets for the “Captain’s Table”, an overpriced gimmick that allowed people to ride the top deck where there was a bar.
When we were seated on our deck a cruise guide made some opening remarks in Spanish and then asked how many English speaking people were in the crowd. Ella and I signaled our presence; across the room we glimpsed another pair of raised hands. So on this excursion we would be the odd ones out. This meant that whenever a guide made a lengthy announcement in Spanish we got the tellingly shorter version in English.
As for missing out on the Captain’s Table drinks, the convivial table next to us brought their own bottle of mixed spirits and poured out measures into cups for anyone who wanted to join them in a toast.
An hour into cruising up the lake, we entered a sea of small icebergs that had broken off from the Uppsala Glacier. The portly man sitting across from us didn’t speak any English, but between pidgin Spanish and pidgin English we introduced ourselves and found out he was from Córdoba where we’ll be traveling tomorrow. He was gracious enough to take a picture of us snug against the cold breeze as we made our way towards the spread of icebergs.
Also at our table were a couple around our age from Buenos Aires who were being visited by their sister-in-law from Miami. She had left Argentina fifty years ago to settle in New Jersey. Her husband had died during Covid and this was her first extended trip since then. She had gone to Florence with her son, then to Barcelona where he flew back to the US and she had continued on to Madrid then Buenos Aires.
The boat made a studied examination of a singular iceberg so that everyone could exhaustively photograph the experience. I thought, okay, all right, but the real deal lies beneath the surface of the water. So I left that to my imagination. The sad isolated berg waiting for a big heavy-bottomed boat (not a catamaran!) to cut into and sink.
After a thorough examination of the lonely berg, the boat swung around so we could peer into the distance and barely make out the misty Upsala Glacier lipping the further most edge of the lake. We couldn’t get closer to take in the full immensity of the glacier scraping its way into the lake due to an impenetrable scattering of crumbling icebergs, the abrupt edge of the frozen Upsala advance breaking into jagged chunks as it hit the water.
The next pause in our cruise was the Spegazzini Glacier, a daunting, unforgettable wall of ice. See previous post.
Impressive scenery!