Our highlights of El Calafate
We have just spent five nights in El Calafate and whilst we have thoroughly enjoyed our time here, we are definitely ready to move on to our next destination.
We purposely built in a few extra days to have some down time but you really only need two (max three) days here to see the best that’s on offer which ultimately is the Glaciers!
This is a great location to then move on to El Chalten or Torres del Paines for hiking or to go further south to Ushuaia.
We would recommend booking a tour to get the most out of the area. We booked ours in advance from the UK and did regret this once we arrived in El Calafate as there’s loads of tour operators based here and this gives you the opportunity to see the ample tours on offer and find a tour that best suits you.
Top Tip: Watch out for the National Park entrance fees!! These are 500 pesos per person and are an additional cost to the tour price quoted, payable every time you enter the national park. The ticket is valid for only 1 day so if your tour includes 2 national park visits on different days then you pay this twice!
We were booked on two tours – Perito Moreno Glacier National Park and Rios de Hielo.
Perito Moreno – this tour took us to the National Park where there are raised walkways and viewing platforms around the glacier which you can explore at your own leisure without a guide. This tour offered an optional hour boat tour but at another additional cost of 500 pesos per person. Fear of missing out, we opted for the boat trip but in hindsight would only have done this if we weren’t doing any other tours. The advantage is getting closer to the Perito Moreno glacier face, but we are not convinced it was value for money as we got much closer to a different glacier on the Rios de Hielo tour the day after.
Rios de Hielo – this was a five hour boat trip to see two other glaciers – Upsala and Spegazzini. This was an awesome experience and provided an opportunity to learn more about the formation of glaciers as well as getting up close to the glaciers and the icebergs that have broken off from them (but still all from the distance of the boat). The biggest issue with this tour is the number of people on the boat, which means the viewing decks get busy and you have to jostle to get a good view and a good picture! This inspired our blog in the Jungle of Photographers (check it out on our blog)!
Our recommendation is to only do one of these tours and combine it with a mini-trekking glacier tour which we would have booked if we had our time again!
Food recommendations: Given how cold it is in this region and the early starts of the tours, it was inevitable that we reached for carb-heavy comfort food. Whilst not culinary masterpieces, our favourite restaurants for good hearty food were:
Mako – all the dishes looked so so good but definitely head here for their tasty cheese and bacon beef burger and homemade chips!They also have good wifi, which is a rarity in this area!
La Lechuza – for Pizza or Pasta and a bottle of Red at a reasonable price (under 600 pesos for two people). We would recommend the Lasgana with the Bolognese sauce as our favourite dish to try. (Wifi doesn’t work though).
The main high street is also full of coffee shops overflowing with good coffee, delicious pastries, sandwiches and handmade chocolates.
Don Luis – this was our favourite coffee shop. It had good wifi, good coffee and mouth-watering cakes and stocked well priced sandwiches which we bought to take on our tours.
There are a number of pubs for a good beer and also a couple of ice bars (although we didn’t try these as a little gimmicky and over priced). Our favourite:
Librobar – we frequented this bar most evenings for a mandatory two pints of the blonde draught beer. This was just delicious sat in the sunshine at the end of the day on their roof terrace area.
