My legs being a bit touchy from our glacier hike, I was a little wary of the 14km hike that awaited us the next day. In fact, when we arrived back at our lodge from hiking the glacier, I feverishly texted my track-coach dad for some sore muscle relief tips. Thankfully, the hot bath did the trick, and I packed up, ready to roll the next day. With ma sunglasses + hat look because that glacial glare was fierce.

The trek of the day was to a historic ranch called Estancia Cristina, but to get there, we had a bit of another type of trek: an early morning bus pickup from our hotel, Eolo, followed by a 3+ hour boat ride up the left hand side of lake, Lago Argentina. 

I'll write more about the striking hike and day at the ranch in the next post, but for now, just wanted to share the beautiful structures of icebergs and glacial waters we saw on the way there and back. About half of the trip, maybe 5 or 6 hours that day, was this boat ride, so it truly was its own destination.

Our third boat in three days was also the most crowded, and we weren't quite sure we'd find a seat. Here is my happy face that we did, and next to two very nice Swiss gentleman who entertained us the whole ride.

Our route would take us to the second most famous glacier in the area, the Upsala glacier. These architectural pieces floating by had calved, or broken, off of it.

I alternated between sweating inside on the old fabric seats, or braving the gusts outside. One of the Swiss men encouraged me to 'feel alive' by going outside. You can guess how alive that made me feel. 

I stood outside for a few moments before being pulled back into the warm cocoon of the boat. 

We didn't approach it too closely, but did manage to see the Upsala glacier's approach into the lake from a distance.

We met some others who did this same hike another day who said their exact same boat ride was quite rough, so it seems our serene glacial drive-by was good luck.

It's really hard to show the scale since there is nothing nearby for context, but they were the size of houses to large office buildings.

And up above, the source of all the ice, the mountaintops thick with snow.

If this isn't obvious by now, I really don't have much more to say about the glaciers and icebergs because the point was to enjoy the colors and structure of the ice itself.

One of the surprising things to me, though, was the water color and how drastically it changed in different lighting. It was nearly turtle green at times!

About two and a half hours of iceberg sightings later, we saw our destination, Estancia Cristina, in the distance. Our hike would be up into the hills and valleys beyond. 

The hike blew us away (literally and figuratively), and I'll share more in a bit, but we sure were happy to see our boat waiting for us 6 hours later. Our afternoon homeward bound journey was a bit more expedited from the morning, with more scenery of the shapes of the mountains themselves, equally stunning.

and still the odd little iceberg.

I can't think of a lake boat trip that felt as much like the ocean as Lago Argentina did with tall waves, brilliant colors and an intense freshness.