Blogs from Perito Moreno Glacier, Santa Cruz, Argentina, South America - page 5

We arrived just after lunchtime into El Calafate and with time not on our side we decided to visit the Perito Moreno Glacier in the afternoon. After checking into our hostel we realised that we had missed the last tourist bus for the day so we ended up hiring a cab which actually saved us a few pesos. That was until we had to pay the entrance fee...its hard in Patagonia to stop churning through the money but you just to cough it up sometimes and I wasn't going to miss this. It was freezing cold and windy when we reached the glacier...what an awesome site. We walked around on a few of the viewing platforms to get a different view but whichever way you looked it was still enormous. We didn't take a boat ride, ... read more

I had a nice surprise on the bus from Chalten to Calafate, Die Hard 4 was the chosen film, and it was in English. This led to it being one of my favourite bus rides so far. I had no desire to stay in El Calafate longer than what was required to go and visit the Perito Moreno glacier. It's a hugely touristy, expensive, and not very pleasant city. The advantage of travelling with Israelis is that they always seem to know the tricks of how to save money. In this case, the guys I was with had heard that its possible to rent a car in Calafate, and drive early in the morning to the glacier, thus avoiding paying the 60 pesos entrance fee. Therefore, upon arriving in town, we found a hostel, rented the ... read more

South of El Chalten by about four hours is the town of El Calafate, which is the base for a visit to Glaciar Perito Moreno. More about that in a moment, first the town. While pleasant enough, it's not the kind of place that you want to spend more time than necessary: get in, make a trip out to see the glacier, get out again. You certainly wouldn't want to get stuck there for days as our good friends Annah and Andy did because they missed a 3:00am bus departure - we felt your pain guys! We did find a quaint place to stay - Hostel de las Manos. Interestingly, the town is named after the Calafate berry. It is red in colour and once eaten, guarantees a return to Patagonia. I guess that we haven't ... read more

We were picked up early for our tour of Perito Merino glacier. Shock, horror, the tour bus is full of annoying old Americans. We talked to an old couple about where we were going and they proceeded to argue for half an hour about which side of Iguazu falls they saw. Perito Morino is full of tourists and tourist buses, but is also very well set up due to the glacier essentially running into a peninsula before peeling off into the giant Lago Argentino, allowing perfect views from boardwalks that are perfectly constructed for lazy old fat Americans to enjoy views normally constricted to those willing to hike and trek their way to glacier edges. We pass on the optional boat tour which we hear is crap and just stick to the boardwalks for several hours ... read more

El Calafate - the town where carrier bags are banned! Adds an extra challenge to carrying your shopping home!! From here though we went on a full day excursion to the Moreno glacier which I have always wanted to see and it did not disappoint. I was very excited and the tour guide built the tension as we rounded the corner in the coach for our first glimpse of the glacier. First we went on a boat tour which took us along the north face of the glacier. It was freezing and very windy but we got up close to the steep jagged face and saw massive chunks fall off. The glacier is connected to a peninsula of land but has two faces at the side of this into lakes. It is 5km wide, 14km long ... read more