Having just spent the past two weeks in sweltering heat, it was so nice to head down to Patagonia for a reprieve. It felt somewhat stupid carrying a puffer jacket with us from Buenos Aires, but were pleased to have it when we arrived in El Calafate. You felt like you were landing in the middle nowhere and there was no town to be seen, just a lake and mountains in the distance.
Again, they tried to leave us at the wrong hotel, due to similar names, but at least this time the transfer guide came in to check at reception and then took us to our correct hotel. We had been using air conditioning so much over the last two weeks that it was odd to walk into heating and we were worried we would be too hot.
El Calafate is a cute wee town, with lots of poplar trees on the edge of a lake and mountains around. You could almost think you were back in New Zealand around Wanaka somewhere. The reason you come to El Calafate is to see the Perito Moreno glacier and is a starting or finishing point when going to Torres del Paine national park.
We did a full day tour up to Perito Moreno glacier, the weather wasn’t great and the wind whipping off the glacier cooled things down even more, but on the advice of a number of people, we took a picnic lunch with us and sat down on the lower balcony drinking Malbec and eating cheese and salami crackers. Some people looked at us as if we were nuts, I think others looked at us wishing they had done the same thing. Even without lunch, you could sit at the lower balcony watching the ice calving from the glacier front and crashing into the water below.
After lunch we did a boat trip out to the glacier to give another perspective, there were also tours to walk to or walk on the glacier, but we were limited on time.
On our return from the glacier it was pouring with rain and absolutely freezing, so we were very thankful for the heating in the hotel room. The rain didn’t last long, so we had a wander around town. It is very much a tourist town, but it had a great wee artisan market with some lovely wee Indian crafts being made in each stall and a massive shop, Arte Indio, with lovely local crafts. There was a great assortment of worry dolls, that you are supposed to tell your worries to at night and the following day they are gone, and I bought a set of three for our travels.
Alfajores are a great Argentinian treat, they are usually a dulce de leche filling sandwiched between two biscuits and covered in chocolate. While in El Calafate, you could also get them with dulce de Calafate, like a thick jam. Calafate is a small, dark blue berry, somewhat like a blueberry, and supposedly if you eat a Calafate berry you will return to Patagonia, so having alfajores with dulce de Calafate could help too. Off the main street we found an artisanal alfajor bakery, Koonek, where you could watch them making them through a large window. We decided a selection of these would be great for hiking in Torres del Paine, another convenient excuse.
Aside from chocolate, alfajores and calafate berry products, we also found some great restaurants. At Mi Ranchito, I had the biggest amount of meat yet, two pieces of fillet steaks with each one individually being bigger than what you would get in New Zealand and both were perfectly cooked. The whole meal for the three of us with wine and a shared dessert cost about $85NZD, which I would suspect just the meat would cost in New Zealand. We also went to La Zaina, which is also described as a wine bar and museum and had lots of estancia related memorabilia around the place. There was live guitar music that you tipped the guy for and it fitted with the atmosphere of the place. The wine list was massive and the food was lovely, but we realised that when you get an Argentinian steak, you really need it to be cooked medium rare at least so that the fat and sinew have melted and crisped.
It would have been great to see the glacier in better weather, but I still managed to take way too many photos, it is such a beautiful place.
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