... that's what I felt like when, having moved on to the (equally beautiful and 'touristy') town of El Calafate, I ventured to see one of its main 'draws' - the Perito Moreno Glacier....
Some fifty photographs (from the water facing it and from the organised viewpoints above it) cannot capture its magnitude, all shades of white and blue shimmering in the sunshine...
It is as large as the whole surface area of Buenos Aires and is "in equilibrium" (ie the amount of ice breaking off at its end - and I witnessed that several times - is equal to the amount of snow replenishing it day by day.)
It travels some 2 meters every day and, as often happens, has "cut off" one side of the vast Lago Argentina lake so that the water level one side is some 3 meters higher than the other. In time the natural forces will find a way to redress this inbalance and the sheer force of water will eventually cause the glacier to "rupture" - with great force and terriffic noise.
(The relatively small sections of ice I saw dislodge, did so with what sounded like the equivalent of a powerful, muted explosion.)
In blazing sun and meditative isolation (this tour company arranges the tour so that you end your day at the glaciar, when most of the larger tour groups have been earlier) I was able to ponder this powerful natural phenomenon...
In silence I looked on this vast jagged wall of icy peaks, a total of some 3km in length, as - suddenly - one heard an unearthly screech, like chalk being dragged along a blackboard or there was a strange splitting of the air, as if the planks of a secret ship were moving in a storm...
No words can come close to summing up this meeting - the magnitude, the magnificence and the enormous potential power all spoke to me...
Driving back the 85km to El Calafate, I found myself (once again) reflecting upon the awesome, fathomless mystery of the God we will all worship....
[Once again, gazing at Perito Moreno Glaciar, I heard that "still small voice"...]
Ultimately, when we try to sum up the grace, beauty, justice and mercy of our mighty Creator, loving Saviour and peaceful Counsellor of our triune God, we run out of words but somehow on facing that glacier I came close to the mysterious power who is God and who invites us all to wait in wonder and worship...
May that be God's gift to us all tomorrow...
Thank-you, Stuart. It sounds wonderful.
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