The gap between booking and leaving for Antarctica was a perfect opportunity to head north to Los Glaciers National Park. We flew from Ushuaia to El Calafate on New Year’s Eve and visited Glacier Perito Moreno on New Year’s Day. It seems to be a common theme in Patagonia that photos do not do the scenery justice, and I think the glacier is one of the biggest examples of this. The glacier is constantly rumbling and creaking, and occasionally huge chunks of ice break off and fall into the water. Photos obviously don’t convey this or how imposing the structure is.
After a couple of nights in El Calafate, we took a three hour bus to El Chalten, a cute little hiking down at the base of Cerro Torre and Mt Fitz Roy.
Even after travelling through Patagonia and Ushuaia, we found El Chalten to be quite expensive. Only formed in 1985, it is solely a base for climbers and trekkers who have no choice but to pay ridiculous prices for groceries and camping supplies. We thankfully took the advice given to us in El Calafate to get money out there instead of in El Chalten, as lines for the ATM in El Chalten are always long and it often runs out of cash. This can result in headaches for travellers as most places accept cash only.
Bad weather followed us here as it had throughout Patagonia, but we had luckily allowed for this and booked an extra few nights to complete the two major day walks around El Chalten. The decision paid off and the boring rainy days at the hostel were totally worth waiting for these views:
Erin
dred 