Once the plane starts its descent into El Calafate, Southern Patagonia, you already get a taste of the area’s striking landscape of what is generally known as The End of the World. You literally touch down next to the beautiful turquoise lake of Lago Argentino and once you get off the plane, you see snow-capped mountains in the distance surrounded by arid stretches of land.
The town of El Calafate, from which you can visit the main attraction of the area, National Glacier Park, is really booming with tourism, but there is really only one major road where you can find plenty of travel agencies, shops specialized in outdoor gear (although the brand Patagonia is not sold anywhere as store owners told me it’s too expensive), restaurants, and even a casino that seems to be built in the shape of a glacier (really tacky).
There are plenty of hotels for each budget and they all provide lunch boxes for your day trips to the National Park. Restaurants even have signs for lunch box specials (especially empanadas) to take on your adventures.
The must-do activity in El Calafate is the “Big Ice Excursion” which is organized by the company Hielo y Aventura. Keep in mind that you can’t book directly with this company, but you have to either go through your hotel or a travel agency to book the excursion, which is really annoying to organize from abroad and in advance.
The Big Ice Excursion gives you one of the most unique life-time experiences, so it’s worth the hassle. Experienced guides take you for a 4-hour walk on the famous Perito Moreno glacier with crampons on your feet, a harness, and a backpack stuffed with your lunch on your back. Once you get to the National Park, you have time to go the viewpoints from which you have a spectacular view of the glacier and then you board a boat to cross Lago Argentino, where you start off with a swift uphill hike to the point where you receive your harness and your crampons. Then you carry those metal shoes in your backpack for another long hike to where you finally set foot on the majestic ice landscape. It’s tiring, but once you sit down for lunch in the middle of a moving glacier and you see nothing but glowing ice, snow-capped mountains and blue sky around you, you forget about the pain in your knees or the long walk back.
Needless to say, everything in El Calafate is geared towards glacier tourism, but you can also go horse-riding, drive a 4x4 vehicle, take a boat tour of all the different glaciers in the National Park or you can make your way by bus to the hiker’s and climber’s capital of El Chalten, which is about 3 hours north from El Calafate. I took a comfortable bus and arrived in a windy El Chalten. Windy and empty is the best way to describe this town. There is nothing but hiking trails, people who look like they climb a mountain every weekend, and very few places to eat and spend the night. You go to El Chalten to see or climb the famous peaks of Fitz Roy and the other peaks in the area. The weather goes through the 4 seasons in about half an hour so this is not really a nice little walk in the woods. You have to be prepared when you go there. At some point I was almost blown off my feet because of the strong wind gusts and I was told it wasn’t even a windy day!
Unfortunately, Fitz Roy was not visible from the viewing point when I arrived, but I had some bonding time with fellow hikers who were also eagerly waiting for the clouds to move out…we came close to seeing blue sky, but then the weather changed on us again and we all went our separate ways. I ended up buying the postcard, which required much less effort.
I learned that climbing Fitz Roy is actually harder than Mount Everest due to the treacherous weather in the area and because of its sheer granite faces. Climbing Fitz Roy is apparently the “ultimate” experience for a climber. I can’t even imagine what it would be like, and I am not trying to find out. I will just stick to sipping my submarino, a cup of hot milk with a bar of chocolate submerged in it, and just take in the views of the breathtaking Patagonian landscape from the bus.
The town of El Calafate, from which you can visit the main attraction of the area, National Glacier Park, is really booming with tourism, but there is really only one major road where you can find plenty of travel agencies, shops specialized in outdoor gear (although the brand Patagonia is not sold anywhere as store owners told me it’s too expensive), restaurants, and even a casino that seems to be built in the shape of a glacier (really tacky).
There are plenty of hotels for each budget and they all provide lunch boxes for your day trips to the National Park. Restaurants even have signs for lunch box specials (especially empanadas) to take on your adventures.
The must-do activity in El Calafate is the “Big Ice Excursion” which is organized by the company Hielo y Aventura. Keep in mind that you can’t book directly with this company, but you have to either go through your hotel or a travel agency to book the excursion, which is really annoying to organize from abroad and in advance.
The Big Ice Excursion gives you one of the most unique life-time experiences, so it’s worth the hassle. Experienced guides take you for a 4-hour walk on the famous Perito Moreno glacier with crampons on your feet, a harness, and a backpack stuffed with your lunch on your back. Once you get to the National Park, you have time to go the viewpoints from which you have a spectacular view of the glacier and then you board a boat to cross Lago Argentino, where you start off with a swift uphill hike to the point where you receive your harness and your crampons. Then you carry those metal shoes in your backpack for another long hike to where you finally set foot on the majestic ice landscape. It’s tiring, but once you sit down for lunch in the middle of a moving glacier and you see nothing but glowing ice, snow-capped mountains and blue sky around you, you forget about the pain in your knees or the long walk back.
Needless to say, everything in El Calafate is geared towards glacier tourism, but you can also go horse-riding, drive a 4x4 vehicle, take a boat tour of all the different glaciers in the National Park or you can make your way by bus to the hiker’s and climber’s capital of El Chalten, which is about 3 hours north from El Calafate. I took a comfortable bus and arrived in a windy El Chalten. Windy and empty is the best way to describe this town. There is nothing but hiking trails, people who look like they climb a mountain every weekend, and very few places to eat and spend the night. You go to El Chalten to see or climb the famous peaks of Fitz Roy and the other peaks in the area. The weather goes through the 4 seasons in about half an hour so this is not really a nice little walk in the woods. You have to be prepared when you go there. At some point I was almost blown off my feet because of the strong wind gusts and I was told it wasn’t even a windy day!
Unfortunately, Fitz Roy was not visible from the viewing point when I arrived, but I had some bonding time with fellow hikers who were also eagerly waiting for the clouds to move out…we came close to seeing blue sky, but then the weather changed on us again and we all went our separate ways. I ended up buying the postcard, which required much less effort.
I learned that climbing Fitz Roy is actually harder than Mount Everest due to the treacherous weather in the area and because of its sheer granite faces. Climbing Fitz Roy is apparently the “ultimate” experience for a climber. I can’t even imagine what it would be like, and I am not trying to find out. I will just stick to sipping my submarino, a cup of hot milk with a bar of chocolate submerged in it, and just take in the views of the breathtaking Patagonian landscape from the bus.
