El Calafate

Another short-ish (5 hour) bus ride took us back into Argentina, to the windswept town of El Calafate. The town is set on Lake Argentino and is a typical tourist town made up mostly of hotels and restaurants. Not too much to love, in our opinion.
The main function is to serve as a base to the gateway to Glaciers National Park and the famous Perito Merino Glacier. We’d considered doing a hike on the glacier, but were deterred when we learned the cost is nearly $300 USD/person for 90 minutes on the ice and the group sizes are huge with up to 20 people. The longer ice hike was even more expensive and John was restricted from participation because he’s now over 50! Shocker!
Instead, we opted to take a bus to the section of the national park where you can get very close to the face of the glacier. There’s an extensive network of walkways and viewing platforms along the front of the glacier – it’s incredibly well done. We spent a few hours walking up and down the walkways, watching and waiting for some calving action. There were lots of small icefalls and one big one that we managed to catch on video. Very interesting experience.Read more