Activity Summary
Saturday 16th December - Day 438 (continued)
Bus to El Calafate
Sunday 17th December - Day 439
Perito Moreno glacier
Glacier walkways
Boat tour to glacier
Monday 18th December - Day 440
Coffee at Calafate Coffee Roasters
Lunch at Buenos Cruces Pasta Bar
Travel to Puerto Natales, Chile
Summary
El Calafate
The centre of town is quite nice and Luke really enjoyed Calafate Coffee Roasters. We have killed time in many a place on our travels and this probably tops the list.
Perito Moreno glacier
This glacier slaps. Easy to get to and really impressive. Expensive but it’s well worth it.
Transport
El Calafate
Walk to bus terminal
Bus from El Chalten to El Calafate
Walk to hostel
Accommodation
El Calafate - Nakel Yenu Hostel
Number of nights - 2
Price per night per person - £15
Positives:
Nice hostel
Super comfy pillows
Decent kitchen
Close enough to town and the bus terminal
Pretty decent shared bathrooms
Negatives:
Sadly we got burned by the 50% devaluation of the Peso and our agreed USD price meant we were charged double the initial expected price. But it was still cheaper to keep the booking rather than cancel and find another.
Recommend?
Yes
Diary
Saturday 16th December - Day 438 (continued)
3 hour buses are now the easiest things in the world.
At the El Calafate bus terminal we immediately secured tickets to the Perito Moreno glacier the next day and then walked to the hostel. It was a strange side of El Calafate, large open roads with so much space but also really desolate. Town itself was quite nice but first impressions from this part weren’t great.
Checking into our hostel confirmed the fears about our accomodation costs doubling. Little could be done about it and compared to Chile, it still wasn’t very expensive. Nice place though.
We had a wander into town and because of our lavish spending decided we’d begin cooking again.
Sunday 17th December - Day 439
Our Marga Taqsa bus to the Perito Moreno glacier left at 9am and took 1.5hrs. As far as glacier access goes, this was super easy.
For once on the Argentinian side, the National Park required an entry fee. At £10 this was deemed a little dear but in retrospect the well maintained walkways and viewpoints definitely justified it, unlike all the CONAF NPs…
The bus unloaded us near the docks, we immediately bought glacier boat tour tickets (£26 each) and jumped on the free shuttle to the top of the walkways. The 1pm boat tour was appropriately timed to give us plenty of opportunity to walk around, get on the boat and have the bus pick us up for 2.30pm.
The walkways were very well maintained and offered great views all over the glacier.
The glacier itself was an absolute behemoth.
It was unreal how large it was, about 70m thick and apparently had been in a steady state for 100 years. It has been in retreat since 2020.
For over an hour we walked around the glacier boardwalks, reading the well placed and entertaining information boards.
There were some kayakers down below which put the mahussive floating bergs into size perspective.
Over winter the glacier creates an ice dam that blocks the two massive lakes either side of the glacier. This bridge wasn’t there by the time we were but the huge ice carvings around the pinch point were interesting.
The glacier walkways were quality and Perito Moreno wins the always for gnarliest glacier on our travels.
At 1pm we got the boat tour to get views of the glacier from the water. It's an absolute giant.
The floating icebergs were monsters and had really interesting colours and surfaces.
It was entertaining but not really worth the cost. The views from the walkways are better and plenty enough.
The bus took us back to town at 2.30pm where we had a short walk through and cooked dinner from the hostel.
Monday 11th December - Day 440
The bus schedules around here weren’t stellar and Luke had a whale of a time trying to fit our schedule in around the black hole that was Mondays. Our bus left town at 4.30pm for Puerto Natales and so we had a day to kill.
El Calafate was pretty nice to do so though. The cafe Calafate Coffee Roasters was super comfortable and meant we could make a good stab at Nicola’s tax return.
Lunch at Buenos Cruces Pasta Bar was less impressive, returning for a coffee at the cafe before walking over to our bus to Puerto Natales, Chile.
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