"El Calafate - glaciers and steppe " a El Calafate Travel Page by vtveen

The town of El Calafate is situated in the far south of Argentina. By far the most people will arrive by plane and travelling on that way we had some great views to the Andes Mountains and the turquoise coloured Lago Argentino (try to get a seat at the right-hand side of the plane for the best views).

El Calafate is THE (only) starting point to the glaciers of 'Los Glaciares National Park', a Worlds Natural Heritage site. I think at least '90%' of the population is working in the tourist industry and know they do have a monopoly for visiting this beautiful piece of Argentina. And this monopoly does make (tourist) life a lot more expensive than in other parts of the country. It does mean you do have to pay more for lodging, eating and tours.

But there is more to explore than the glaciers. El Calafate is also situated along Lago Argentino and the dry and vast Patagonian steppe, stretching along the Andes Mountains into the mainland of Argentina. This is a complete different landscape and we loved visiting this wilderness so close to El Calafate.

Avenida del Libertador is the name of the main street in El Calafate with a lot of shops, some of them offer very interesting souvenirs, (side walk) café’s, restaurants, travel agencies, rental car- bank- and post offices. Strolling along this road it felt a little bit like we were walking through an Austrian village in the winter, with lots of wooden buildings and young or at least sporty people coming from or going to the glaciers.

Of course we could ‘enjoy’ the Patagonian climate, varying in a couple off days (late November) between beautiful sunny weather and having a coffee on a sidewalk café, till a little bit of snow the other day.
But be prepared on wind, wind and wind. The most important garment for El Calafate is a WINDPROOF jacket.