Iced Drinks in the Park

ICED DRINKS IN THE PARK

We walked westwards out of Calafate in the cold sunshine of late
afternoon, out along the rough concrete central avenue and onto the
dirt. Immediately from the edge of town, the terrain began to roll like
a long sea beside that part of Lake Argentina, brown grassland
stretching off towards the mountains. The wind was against us, bringing
the chill of the ice cap swirling over the undulations, flicking the
short grass, stirring the dust and banishing all living things save the
well-furred hares, we two gringos and the stately condors which were
above all this.

There was apparently no transport. The park had closed for the winter
and the bus had resorted to charters elsewhere. But we could probably
walk it in two days. For the purpose, we had dumped surplus gear with a
shopkeeper whom we had humoured by buying some fly-blown fruit, a house
brick of cheese and a leg of mutton of purple hue which was now roughly
wrapped in newsprint and protruding from John's pack. Ten minutes out
of town, the wind snatched the wrapping to leave the leg-bone sticking
rawly skywards.

But we got a lift from a fisherman. Rich in machismo, he murdered his
suspension for our benefit over forty miles of bad road, bringing the
demise of several hares and his roars of approval each time.

He dropped us in darkness at the camp site, a clearing in a gully well
short of the Moreno glacier with stunted oaks and beeches and no other
visitors. We lit a fire under the trees as the wind dropped and a deep
frost took hold.

In the morning, we left the tents and rejoined the dirt road. And
after an hour, we came upon the glacier suddenly. It had been hidden by
trees and ridges, locating itself with distant booming like a
thunderstorm in the mountains. But around an open slope, we found a
skyline of hills and snow-capped peaks, and, still four kilometres
distant, a huge expanse of serrated ice.

It filled a valley a kilometre wide, curving upwards and away,
speckled with patchy sunlight and disappearing into cloud towards the
ice cap. The cloud was constantly on the move, clearing and thickening,
showing much and then showing little, while below it, the glacier
pushed out across the lake into the sunshine towards us. We stood and
stared for a full minute as the muted rumbling continued, laden with
understatement.

When we lowered our eyes, it was to find a more direct route than this
winding road. We pitched off down a slope through scrub to the bottom
of a gully strewn with dead trees and then rose into living broadleaf,
moving at a dog trot, taking separate courses through a carpet of
autumn leaves but staying in touch.

On a second ridge we were pulled up sharp. A gap in the trees showed
the south flank of the glacier stretching away below to the far side of
the lake. Seventy metres high and raked with huge vertical fissures, it
was divided into columns ready to fall. Ice debris floated nearby. We
watched and waited, taking absent steps onwards and downwards and no
ice fell.
Then we went down quickly, running and stumbling through deep leaves
to emerge on denuded rock in the sunlight.

Right there, the ice was jammed against the lakeside, piled high and
touchable to confirm the reality of this spectacular trick of nature.
The glacier, as if pushed by some giant bulldozer, was crushing against
this rocky shore over a stretch of two or three hundred metres. The ice
was clean, untouched by anything, the top layer of a valley-full of
snow and ice kept pure by the very size of the glacier,

It towered above us, blue and white, in massive heaps which pushed up
into the lowest trees. We hesitated lest some glacial heave should
bring some down upon us but the noises came from elsewhere and there
was no movement.

Along the bank we went then, edging up into the trees to get past the
ice, to where the northern flank stretched away across water littered
with ice floes.

Here was more action. Ice was falling even as we arrived. Water welled
up massively from below, like the sluice of an opening lock but a
million times more as it forced its way under the glacier, redressing
the difference between the stream-fed left and the river-drained right
of this bent finger lake. The flow was eroding the glacier's belly,
removing support for bergs the size of office blocks which tilted
unsustainably.

At first, we saw only minor falls, small lumps tumbling from the top,
hitting the water with slow heavy splashes but doing little to explain
the field of ice which floated there.

But as we moved forward, an earsplitting crash held us twisted in
mid-step. We watched an ice column the size of a ten storey building
tip slowly until the rotation broke its connection with the main body
and it descended vertically, throwing spray upwards and outwards in
huge arcs with a roar compounded by echoes from the rocky mountainsides
as the broken mass resurfaced slowly and water swirled between its
fractured floes.

We turned to continue. Another crash stopped us, another column fell,
another cloud of spray, back lit by the sun, tinged the mountainsides
with silver. We stared. We watched the waves setting off for distant
parts of the lake, and lumps of ice as big as cars toppling in the
aftermath to measure the height of the face in seconds, each fall
traced minutely by the sunlight.

A smaller iceberg, the size of three buses, detached itself and slid
like a water buffalo into the debris, rising to add to it and become
unrecognisable. But already we had seen things more spectacular.

Along the bank, six young Argentine blokes stood throwing stones
across the water; they were the only others there. We too threw stones
to generate heat, for it was cold, especially after the headlong rush
through the trees. One of them, tall and gangly, wore only shorts,
shirt, boots and a lot of machismo. He was leaping about with manic
energy, making jokes, throwing stones for all he was worth and running
about to find more. His limbs were blue.

"No tienes frio?' Aren't you cold?".

"Cold??" he roared. "COLD??! Look up there. The sun is shining!"

He picked up more stones, turning to shout "C'MON MY BABY!" in
accented English at the glacier as another iceberg fell. We looked at
his friends. Surely he was cold.

"Yes" said one with a shrug. "He is cold."

They were from Buenos Aires with a station wagon full of camping gear.
Soon they produced a case of beer and we all drank it, sitting then
like gulls on the rocks just above the water, chewing the supply of dry
bread and grubby cheese that I had in my oilskin pockets. We talked
about Argentina and football as we watched each collapse and the waves
which tumbled across the water towards us, spending the last of their
energy against the rocks at our feet as if to confirm that the whole
thing wasn't a figment of the imagination. Each fall changed the face
of the glacier and brought more cries of "C'MON MY BABY!" from the Cold
One who still rushed about, refusing to fetch a coat.

And slowly the glacier did come on. Slowly, it grew a feature of
special potential. Slowly, successive falls were leaving in increasing
isolation an enormous tower of ice tilting unnaturally above the main
body, a cliff-face in its own right, a hundred metres wide at the
waterline and as much to the pinnacle. We sucked at the cans and
waited.

But it took a long time. We lit a fire on the rocks and sat coldly
into the afternoon and a second case of beer, and then a third. Over
several hours, we pushed language and football well beyond their useful
limits.

"Manchester United!"

"Ah. Si, si, si .........Rio Plata!!"

"Oh Si, si si .......Tottenham Hotspur"

"Ah Claroooo!!! .........Racing Club!

"Oh Seguroooo!!!.....Plymouth Argyle!!!

"Si..i...(?)......"

The low sun, dropping towards the ridge, was facing us then but it had
no warmth, and with alcohol nearly finished and headaches arriving, we
too would soon go.

But then a cracking sound, not loud but of portentous depth, rent the
air, a wholly unnatural sound in that vast open space. It stilled
conversation and turned all our heads as one.

The ice tower was tipping almost imperceptibly but fascinatingly,
apocalyptically. For just a few seconds, it kept its dignity, held
together by the very strength which had formed it, until with sudden
explosive disintegration, it collapsed in a cataclysmic avalanche which
threw columns of ice and water high into the sky, masking the sun and
filling the valley with uproar.

Then we were on our feet, full of awe and Pilsener, fists raised to
the might of nature, shouting, cheering, the Cold One screaming "OH MY
BABY!!!" in orgasmic descending cadence as the peaks joined the
applause and threw echoes into the turmoil. The whole glacier seemed to
rock with relief at its unburdening as huge waves set off to carry news
of the calving to distant places along the lake, perhaps even to
Calafate itself. We watched them go, still with fists raised in our
emotional draining, as the echoes faded and the spray descended and the
lake assimilated the new and massive displacement.

Only slowly did it register that coming in our direction was a very
large wave indeed. It approached stealthily, without crest or
disturbance, swelling smoothly below the fragmented ice chaos of the
surface. That it was a threat was not apparent until it reached an ice
floe as big as a tennis court and tossed it like a dingy.

Then we were fugitives, scrambling up the rocks, beer sloshing in
bellies, legs and torsos powering for higher ground. The wave hit the
rocks and shot skywards, far into the air, overtaking us, rising over
our heads like a scene in a cartoon, to hang there with studied
deliberance.

We even had time to look up at it.

Then it descended finally and heavily and directly upon us.

And then we were on hands and knees, semi-immersed, coughing, gasping,
clinging on grimly against the back flow. The water was very cold;
momentarily it hit the skin in patches, briefly finding gaps and weak
points in clothing before dismissing all barriers. It gave the Cold One
blanket cover, a lover's cut. "Oh my Baby" he groaned in dismay, rising
finally to look accusingly out at the glacier, holding out his dripping
arms to show what it had done.

It had done enough. The Argentines were hurrying to their station
wagon. Our tents were much further. Already it was beginning to freeze.
We, too, began to hurry.