"El Calafate - the town" Top 5 Page for this destination El Calafate Things to Do Tip by vtveen

El Calafate has about 17.000 thousands inhabitants and is located in the far south of the province of Santa Cruz. Avenida Libertador is the main street in El Calafate and together with some side streets you will find shops, café's, restaurants, travel agencies, post office, banks, supermarket, phone- and internet café’s and so on. Between the main street and the central bus station, one block away, are some open shopping malls with a lot of very interesting souvenir shops and a kind of market with locals artisans.

El Calafate has its own charm and with a lot of wooden buildings it seems a little bit like a Austrian or Swiss mountain village. Specially the tree lined Av. Libertador is a busy street with people coming or going on a day trip to the glaciers or the steppe.

El Calafate got its name from a bush with blue berries (Berberis buxifolia - calafate), which can be found everywhere in Patagonia. You can buy 'calafate jam', liquor or choclate and we had once a very nice 'calafate ice cream'.

Off course you can find a lot of information on VT or in a travel book, but if you want to find out more about El Calafate, take look at one of the sites:
www.turismo.elcalafate.gov.ar
www.santacruz.gov.ar
www.epatagonia.gov.ar/english/el_calafate.php

www.elcalafate.com.ar
www.calafate.com
www.losglaciares.com