Well Hello Hielo

As a child I was always fascinated with icy things. Pop-out ice cube trays, frozen puddles, Flinstones push pops (I just threw that in because I really was obsessed with those), and icicles. Especially icicles. I was the kid who could spend hours outside stomping on frozen ice hoping to release the air bubbles (and be dumped into freezing water, little kids have no brains). Or running back and forth in a poor attempt at ice-skating, because constantly falling on your face is the epitome of graceful (remember, brains are not fully developed yet). When we got a snow-cone maker in middle school it was like winning the lottery and buying an ice cream parlor in place of our old freezer. The main point is seeing Perito Moreno, one of the largest glaciers in South America, brought back that sense of child-like wonder and awe. It was like I was seven again and fascinated that if I left juice in the freezer and returned an hour later I would find popsicles. Pure magic...

In the case of this unbelievably blue, unbelievably huge glacier, it was not magic that came to mind at all. Hellllllllo, maravillosa Mama Tierra, you’ve outdone yourself once again. As if looking at a huge snowflake, only the minutely etched crystallic patterns are huge cracks and contours of a giant glacier face, so blue that staring at it makes one even forget other colors even exist. Blue, blue, blue. Fresh pure blue, as high as a 15 story building, it’s a marvel that something so powerful is at the same time so delicate. This transient mountain of frozen water, is one of our most valuable resources and one of those we are least able to protect from disappearing. Standing before the massive glacier listening to all the pops and cracks of the ice expanding and moving, it seemed unimaginable that if I returned in 40 years later with my children it’s more probable they would find a completely different than the one I was so enchanted with right now. If I could live in a snow globe as perfect as the moment was right now, I could live every day feasting on the wonder surrounding me.