We cross the border into Argentina, to El Calafate

We make our way into Argentina today. I have booked a “cama” bus, which means that the bus seats completely recline almost to a full bed. We have 6.5hrs of bus to get to El Calafate. It was very comfortable.

The border to Argentina is really close, barely 1hr drive from Puerto Natales. Crossing both borders was easy and quick. It’s well organized.

On a quick note, if you need to use the bathrooms, the Chilean side is much better. 

The landscape is almost entirely flat with endless plains. It’s not particularly interesting to look at and I spend a lot of time dozing off. But when I do look out the window, Alexis and I spotted: a fox, lamas, geese flying in formation, something that looked like an eagle and lots of cattle. There were ostriches as well! We even think we saw flamingo, but I always associated them with warm weather and I will need to check this out.

We arrive early afternoon in El Calafate. We buy our bus tickets for El Chalten since we are already at the station. The town is small but our bags are too heavy, and I am surprise that the taxi seems honest and use the meter. It makes for such a stress-free arrival from the bus station.

The hostel we stay at is quite nice, we are in a bunk room today. There are a lot of common lobby and lounge. We meet Tony, one of the W circuit we had diner with at Camping Frances. We catch up and chit chat. It’s nice to see familiar and friendly faces.

We have this afternoon to figure out the next 2 days. We initially wanted to walk on Perito Moreno Glacier but the tours are completely full for a few weeks out. We had as option two a full day cruise along the various lakes – so we get to see a lot of Glaciers and Perito Moreno too.

We head out to the cruise company head office and manage to snatch the last 2 seats for tomorrow cruise. We are lucky, because from 1st April the prices increase. Due to the fact that inflation is rampant and also the change to low season. 

The day after tomorrow we will take the bus to walk the walkways in from of Perito Moreno Glacier and also visit the Glacier museum. Maxine and Kobus recommended it, and we do love a good museum.

Our first impression of El Calafate is that it’s a nice town and everything is walkable. It’s also a tourist town with a lot of chic and nicely decorated venues. There are a lot of interesting restaurants, cafes and bars. Plenty of souvenir shops are around. It’s a cute town – a very different atmosphere from Puerto Natales which feels a lot shabbier in comparison. El Calafate is also a lot less windy and cold. It’s more pleasant to walk around.

On our check list to taste for these next two days: Calafate ice-cream and Calafate pisco sour. Maxine said that they use this local berry to flavor these and it’s unique to the city.
We get a simcard for the month and eat mediocre Italian food at a restaurant in town. The only good surprise of the restaurant is that wine is almost as expensive as mineral water. And the wine glasses are really generous. We will most certainly drink more wine ! Everywhere is mostly malbec.

Then we just lounge at the hostel common place. We are still figuring out and organizing Ushuaia. As season’s end, many tours stop or have very limited capacity. We have to plan better.

After a few hours at the lounge area, which is terribly hot, we decide to wake up with a short walk in the main street. We walk around and I come across a couple with ice-cream. Alexis calls me the stomach on feet, I try to locate the shop and succeeded in finding an ice-cream parlour. Time to check off the list : Calafate ice-cream !

Honestly speaking, it tastes like forest berries. It’s nice but it will not leave a mark on my mind. A blueberry would be more intense. We will see if in a drink it stands out more.

We are note really hungry for diner, yet we know that if we don’t eat something, we will be starving during the night. Exactly next door to our hostel is Bodegon restaurant. We stop there for a beer and possibly some bar snacks. Tony walks in just as we received our drinks and we spend a great evening chit chatting. He is good fun and great company. The sommelier of the place is quite nice and gave great recommendation too on wine so we end up drinking more as well.

We ended up staying up much later than initially planned and went to bed tired. Our bunk room has two other guests. One is a nice young man who we don’t really exchange with and the other is a paranoid Indian older gentleman who sleeps with his stuff in his bed, locks us in the room when he goes to the shower or toilet. He seems afraid that he will get his stuff stolen… He is a little weird.