Ice, ice, baby

Hey, it´s christmas day and I´m in El Calafate. The sun is shining and I´m chilling out after drinking too much beer and champagne last night. The atmosphere is friendly and laidback. Yesterday I went to the Perito Moreno glacier the world´s only growning glacier (I think). To be honest I wasn´t expecting much exept a wall of ice but the warm day combined with no wind meant ideal conditions for calfing ie the glacier was dropping bits and pieces off itself left, right and centre. I saw three pretty big calfings and managed to photograph them all In fact I was directly in front of the calfings on two occasions - bloody spectacular. You don´t realise just how big the bits dropping off are until you feel the captain of the boat turn the bow to meet the oncoming wave - not quite 'A Perfect Storm' but decidedly wobbly. Photos will be on flickr soon (the internet is pretty slow in this part of the world and I don´t want to waste too much time in front of the computer.

Time moves in a different way here. The sun doesn´t set until 11pm and comes up again at 4.40am so the evenings are long and beautiful while the mornings are bright and sunny. And it´s hot, even with the constant wind, it´s hot. While we were on the boat yesterday we could feel the warm breeze coming down off the land until we were close to the ice-face when the breeze was cooler but once we turned back towards the shore the breeze got warm again. I am enjoying doing nothing and I´ve met some really nice people (another post).

To those of you who I didn't contact over christmas, I was thinking of you, in fact as I lay in bed last night I listed you and wished you happy christmas individually - maybe you feel an odd breeze at about 5am UK time/6am Italy time?