I’ve never experienced anything that can quite compare with the Perito Moreno glacier in the Patagonia region in Argentina. On our trip through Patagonia we had been seeing beautiful glaciers on these amazing hikes we were taking, and I was blown away by the beauty of these glaciers in the mountains even from far away. Viewing the Perito Moreno Glacier though … it is right there in front of you … this gigantic mass of ice, electric blue in spots, sky blue or crystal white in others depending on how much oxygen it has been exposed to. This glacier covers a total of 100 square miles, is 3 miles wide, rises an average of 55 meters (about 180 feet) above the surface of the water (that’s the average! Up to 78 meters or 255 feet at its highest), and descends around 120 meters below the surface! This thing is massive!
It wasn’t just the size and colors that had me in awe, however; the sounds of the Perito Moreno are out of this world. This is one of the few glaciers of the world that are still advancing, and as it advances big chunks of ice splinter off and splash into the water. Keeping in mind how large this glacier is, you can imagine these chunks are so huge that when they hit the water it makes a sound something like thunder. In addition to that you can hear cracks and moans and see little spits of ice coming off. It is truly spectacular. Sometimes you would hear the “thunder” knowing a piece broke off in the distance where we weren’t able to see, and we would watch and wait and hope to get to see it happen close to us.
This is the part where God taught me a lesson. Our group, which was a total of 14 people, stood there in one spot staring at this glacier for what must have been quite a long time. All of us were pretty much silent … whispering when we did speak, and that was only to point out something we heard or saw. No one wanted to look away. We definitely didn’t want to walk away. We might miss something! We just knew we would get to see one of those big pieces fall. And we did, by the way, and then we kept watching and waiting for more.
This is the way it should be with our God … our Creator. He is huge and powerful and always moving and working. We should be so tuned in to Him, watching and waiting with expectation of miraculous power and wonder … listening so closely as to not miss where He’s moving. We have to quiet ourselves and our worlds around us.
At Perito Moreno when our guide did give us the Dad-announcement of “Okay guys, just a few more minutes, then we need to move on,” our conversations started back up as we moved along, and even though we could still see the glacier, we weren’t experiencing it in the same way anymore.
In this crazy time in our world right now there seems to be a lot of “noise” in every direction. Maybe being forced to slow down with all the closures of places worldwide is a perfect opportunity to quiet some of that noise, to be still. Three words Jesus said to His disciples keep coming to my mind, “Watch and pray.” Let’s tune into our Father, watching, praying, and listening for where He’s moving. I for one don’t want to miss it.
Thank you to Yay God Adventures (along with Wilderness Travel) for organizing this amazing Patagonia experience. Check out this post about Yay God Adventures and this one on everything Patagonia!
