Margaret’s Antarctica Post 3: El Calafate

February 8, 2006: Patagonia at last! The Nikon D200 and Sony camcorder got their first real workout today as we have now embarked on the “real” part of our trip. Our arrival in El Calafate yesterday evening coincided with the arrival of another plane full of tourists and the town is absolutely packed with visitors. It’s difficult to find accommodation – and seating in restaurants – unless you pre-book. One of the benefits of joining an organised tour is having all this taken care of, leaving you free to enjoy as much as possible.
Today was devoted to a bus trip to the Perito Moreno glacier, named after one of the district’s pioneers. The road in starts out bitumenised but before the half-way point the surface deteriorates and road crews are seen at many points, preparing it for re-surfacing to handle the hoards of tourists who visit the glacier.

Summer is the peak season, although the glacier is accessible throughout the winter, according to our guide. The lake near El Calafate freezes over at this time, drawing enthusiastic skaters from other parts of South America.
El Calafate has the feel of a frontier town, which it is, due to the accelerated growth spurt fuelled by the tourist industry. The town is in the midst of a construction boom and state-of-the-art buildings with modern designs rub shoulders with older structures (many of them slightly run-down). Urban sprawl is very much in evidence!

A view of the sprawling township of El Calafate shows its location on the edge of Lago Argentina and some of the arid countryside that typifies the Patagonian steppe.

The scenery around the town is spectacular. El Calafate lies between the dry Argentinean plains and the Southern Andes. The town perches on the western bank of Lago Argentina, the country’s largest lake, and it’s overlooked by bare brown hills, behind which lie the sharp peaks of the Andes. Vegetation is typical of an arid area: tussocky grass, low thorn bushes and burrs.
The area is renowned for its lamb production, which is claimed to be the best in the world. Local wildlife is similar to the animals seen in the Australian sheep country: hares, raptors (birds of prey and scavengers), guanacos – and the occasional puma. We’ve seen the first three today – but the fourth is very elusive!

The bird in this picture is a caracara, a kind of buzzard that’s common in Patagonia. They frequent the roadsides to feast on the road kills, as this bird was doing when we passed.

A group of guanacos feeding on a patch of green grass on a hillside. The 200mm VR lens on the Nikon D200 made it possible to capture this shot. Without it, the animals would have been too small a part of the picture.

This vegetation changes as you enter the mountains, with the appearance of Nothofagus bushes, which belong to the same family as the Antarctic Beech and “Fagus” in Australia. There are three local species, ranging from a low-growing shrub like our Fagus to a tall, broad-spreading tree, like the ones you find in Australian rainforests. Many other plants are similar, too, reflecting the close ties between South America and Australia in the distant past. (South America is the only other place in the world with marsupials.)

A typical beech forest, showing the similarity of the trees to those of the same species in Australia.

After the bus has slowly meandered along the lakeside for about 40 minutes, you get the first glimpse of the end of the ice wall and then, rounding the corner, a large expanse of ice appears. With each turn you see more and more, until you arrive at the first viewing point for the glacier itself. If you’ve never seen a glacier before, Perito Merino is one of the best because it’s cleaner than most and its location is truly spectacular.

The first view of the Perito Moreno glacier shows its spectacular location.

The standard “tourist shot” of the Perito Moreno glacier, taken from the main viewing point. With the ice and snow occupying more than half of the subject area, over-exposure by 0.7-1.0 EV gave the best results.

Using the tele lens to take a close-up shot shows how rugged the surface of the glacier actually is. Once again, over-exposure was essential to record the image tones accurately.

Photographing the glacier is a challenge because the exposure metering system on a camera works by integrating all tones in the area it “sees” to an average grey. This can make large areas of ice and white snow look grey in shots so you have to over-expose to ensure the white reproduce as white. How much to over-expose depends on how much ice or snow there is in your shot and how dark the rest of the picture is. If you shoot raw files, much of the problem is solved because it’s easy to adjust exposure levels as part of the file conversion process and you don’t lose image quality; shooting JPEGs is more risky.
Another issue to contend with is the quality of the light. The area we’re in is roughly 50 degrees south of the equator; further south than Tasmania. This means the angle of the sun is low, twilights are long and most of the day has great lighting for taking pictures. However, the air is very dry and extremely clear, so colours are highly saturated and the contrast in shots is high. It’s easy to lose shadow detail if you don’t expose correctly. Here again, shooting raw files is the best choice as it allows you to bring out the hidden details in shadows without compromising highlights.
Tomorrow we head for El Chalten, where we’ll spend three nights and walk up to the base camps for Mount Fitzroy and Cerro Torres, two of the most spectacular “pointy” mountains in Patagonia. We hope the weather continues to be as good as it’s been so far.

Margaret Brown is technical editor for Photo Review Australia Magazine.

Margaret’s Antarctica Post 1: The Preparation
Margaret’s Antarctica Post 2: Buenos Aires
Margaret’s Antarctica Post 4: El Chalten
Margaret’s Antarctica Post 5: Tierra del Fuego
Margaret’s Antarctica Post 6: Drake Passage
Margaret’s Antarctica Post 7: Arrival in Antarctica
Margaret’s Antarctica Post 8: Antarctic Cruising
Margaret’s Antarctica Post 9: Farewell to the Frozen Continent
Margaret’s Antarctica Post 10: Wrap-up