El Calafate is in the Patagonia area of Argentina, which is known for its world-famous glaciers. From Buenos Aires, a group of us took a side trip there from Buenos Aires, and it was definitely worthwhile. Calafate was beautiful and reminded me much of Alaska. The town was a rural mountain town, much like Tahoe City in California. People were friendly but it was a bit more difficult to get around in my broken Spanish as there were far less English speakers, which is to be expected.
Highlights of the trip: mini-trekking tour of the Monte Perito glacier, hanging out in the town, taking a hike by the lake, and just enjoying being a tourista. Mike and I were on a mission to find some golden trout (truta) at a restaurant, and we eventually found some called Restaurante La Vaca Atada, on Av. Libertador 1176 in El Calafate. It was prepared in four different ways: lemon sauce, grilled, camarones sauce, and another cream sauce that no one order. I ordered the camarones (shrimp) version, which was most excellent! One major bonus was that we ran into Zia and Anita both on the tour and for dinner.
Mini-trekking is a must do if you ever make it to Patagonia and El Calafate. El Calafate is right on the border between Chile and Argentina, where the Andes Mountains separate the Pacific Ocean from the Atlantic Ocean. The wind and pressure create a perfect compression in the mountains to form the ice for the glaciers. You get to take a boat across the frozen lake to a small dock near where the glacier meets the land. A short hike takes groups of English-speaking and Spanish-speaking groups of 20 people to the glacier, where you put in crampon spikes on the bottom of your shoes or boots. Our one and a half hour hike was breathtaking, and we got to see some very interesting blue ice formations, crevasses, and some pools of crystal-clear, ice-cold water that form on the tops of the glacier. After the hike, we ate empanadas that were packed in our sack lunches back in town, and after a short break we were back on the boat to tour the front of the glaciers by water. The last leg of the tour was on land, where there is a site-seeing set of platforms and stairs that allows a top-down view of the glaciers. We got to see a number of large and small ice chunks break off the glacier, which sound like a gunshot with the echo in the mountains and walls of ice.
Mini-trekking in El Calafate:
Here’s a Korean Sadhu that was found on the side of the glacier:
In summary, Calafate was a fantastically great side trip. I’m really glad I did it, and it was great to see a part of Argentina that is closest to Antartica as you can get in South America.
From Calafate, we headed back to Buenos Aires for one last night before heading back to the US. I met up for business with some software engineers on my team down here in South America, and we met on an Estancia, which is “ranch” in Spanish. Argentines are proud of their ranching and cowboy heritage, and the Estancia was nothing like I thought it was going to be. There was a castle on the grounds, along with polo grounds, soccer or futbol field, horse back riding, a lodge, an airplane, and a really nice garden. My local friends there said that Estancias are used for special events, like honeymoons, wedding parties and coming of age parties (15 years old) for girls. We worked a bit of course, but we had some of the freshest steak I’ve ever had along with some traditional Argentine foods. After a long day, it was back to the airport for the ride home.
Here’s a picture of a castle on the Estancia:
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