Day 18 - 19: El Calafate - Majestic Glacier

August 31- September 1, 2015

​​We arrived 20 mins late. First off the plane but last off the luggage belt, thus missing the last spot for the bus into town and had to wait another hour for the next bus. The town is small so the A$100 bus ticket sent us directly to our hostel.

El Calafate is the nearest town to the Perito Moreno Glacier named after explorer Francisco Moreno. But is also a key transition point to El Chalten's Cerro Torre and Mount Fitz Roy. Unable to fit all of that in (also by choice), we opted to skip El Chalten. Our focus was ultimately to head to Torres del Paine National Park in Chile.

Glacier Perito Moreno Hostel is a rather new, clean and spacious place, but is a good 20 min walk to the bus station in the town centre. With a clean kitchen and pretty good WiFi (there were really few people in the low season), US$33 per double room places it rather affordable, but they have mostly dorm rooms, don't provide towels nor breakfast. We didn't enjoy the fact that we were worried about getting a bus ticket to Puerto Natales for the next day, yet they made us wait before telling us at 545pm that we had to go to the bus station and get our tickets ourselves. So 25 mins later we realised that only "Cootra" (and not Zaahj which was taking a winter break) had available buses and only ran on Mon, Wed and Fri. We thus made the decision on the spot to change our plans, bought the one way tickets (A$480pp incl. tax) for Wed, and also bought return tickets (A$400pp) to Perito Moreno Glacier from "Red Patagonia" for the next day. Dinner at Mi Rancho (thanks for the awesome recommendation, Sam!) was an incredibly satisfying osso bucco with yellow risotto (A$160), lamb stew (A$150), and a glass of red wine (A$45) which the waitress helped split into 2 glasses for us! We even had some free dessert. Total cost was just A$382 = ~SG$35 for something that would easily cost SG$100 in Singapore. They truly deserve the #1 spot on TripAdvisor for El Calafate. Or even the whole of Argentina!

The majestic glacier

Perito Moreno Glacier was jaw dropping. The massive ice shelf stood out amongst the greenery around it, making it rather out of place but yet so impressive. It is constantly being formed far inland in the mountains and advances slowly as it grows. It takes thousands of years for it to advance but global warming has caused the glacier end which we see today to also recede as it grows, with sounds of ice cracks and views of huge ice chunks with thunderous splashes falling off once in a while.. We kept trying to wait to film down the falling chunks but to no avail (the act was complete before Vik even had his GoPro out). A truly amazing nat geo experience despite the steep entry fee (A$260).

A closer look

We headed back after a stopover at the supermarket and cooked dinner for ourselves. Onwards to Torres del Paine for our first proper trek! TIPS: - Be the first few to get a bus ticket once out of the luggage belts, otherwise it's ann 1 hour wait for the next shuttle bus

- Don't book the Glacier tour with any tour agency, just book straight from the bus station. Heard that it's much cheaper

- Pack some snacks/lunch for your day trip to the Glacier. There is only one cafe up there with limited choices of food, and expectedly, the food isn't fantastic. The hot choc is quite nice though!

- Mi Rancho is a must for dinner. And they are only open for dinner

- Buy a one way ticket to Puerto Natales as the return ticket is cheaper from Chile