El Calafate (Perito Moreno Glacier)

There is nothing nicer than having a whole dorm to yourself having only booked 2 beds, and that is what we have tonight!

I am writing this blog post (again offline) from our cosy little chalet room in El Calafate, having just had and all you can eat bbq and salad buffet plus free bottle of Malbec wine at the hostel! Heaven! We sat having food and wine for three hours with 3 Belgian girls, after a long but lovely day at the glacier poreto moreno.

We arrived in El Calafate yesterday after a long, and extremely turbulent flight – (to the point where I thought it might be our last flight). We caught a shuttle bus to our hostel which is just fantastic – a big log chalet with underfloor heating, wooden walls and ceilings, BBQ every night and very friendly staff. Today we took a day trip to the glacier which is the main attraction of El Calafate and the second main natural wonder in Argentina after Igazu falls. It is one of the last remaining advancing glaciers in the world and words or photos DO NOT do it justice! It is absolutely enormous and you can hear it cracking and large chunks of ice keep falling off it and thundering into the freezing waters below.

We caught a coach there, which broke down for about an hour, but drove through some stunning mountain scenery and stopped on the way for us to take pictures of the glacier from afar. When it got there, we had 2 hours to walk to all of the different viewing points. It was out of this world. At first it was quite cloudy and cold but then the sun came out and you could see the blue parts of the glacier where the ice was still de-oxygenated. It stretches back for miles and we took a boat out to it to get a closer look. We had made ourselves a little packed lunch of tuna salad baguettes and had them on the platform as we watched large chunks of ice fall into the water.

Oh I forgot to mention that the breakfast in the hostel is: hot chocolate, chocolate cake and toast with dulce de leche. Perfect to set you up for a day in the snow! We were so tired after a days trekking that we both fell asleep the whole way on the coach back. We love it so much at this hostel that we have decided to stay here an extra day tomorrow just chilling and sorting out banking etc (my prepaid card has been frozen and I need to unlock it). Then we plan to head to el Chaleten which is a big national park near by with free entry but it has some stunning scenery that we hope to see (including Fitz Roy). We (I) had also wanted to go to Torres del Pain in Chile, but after looking at our budget and timescale we do not think it is feasible and the views aT Chaleten are meant to be just as great so we will head there before going on to Bariloche.

Our dorm

The hostel as seen from the top balcony level

More photos of El Calafate HERE