A frontier town of only around 10,000 inhabitants on the windy plains of Patagonia in Santa Cruz Province, El Calafate is nevertheless one of the most important tourist destinations in Argentina, due to its close proximity to the Los Glaciares National Park with its imposing glaciers, including the most famous in the world: Perito Moreno. A visit to El Calafate and Los Glaciares will definitely complete all the best tours to Argentina.
Because of the almost 900,000 visitors who come down to visit the park each year, El Calafate has ample choice in hotels and restaurants and is served by its own El Calafate International Airport, some 12 miles outside of the town itself, helping tourists to easily cover the the 1,800 miles separating it from Buenos Aires.
The Los Glaciares national park, created in 1937, is the second largest in Argentina. Its name refers to the giant ice cap that feeds 47 large glaciers. The ice cap is the largest outside of Antarctica. 30% of the park is permanently covered in ice and it can roughly be divided in two parts, centered around the largest lake in Argentina, Lago Argentino in the southern part and the only slightly smaller Lago Viedma in the north. The northern half has fewer glaciers but includes Mount Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre, two mountains that are very popular with both trekkers and serious climbers.
Most visitors however focus their attention on the many huge glaciers around Lago Argentino and in particular the Perito Moreno glacier. One of the few glaciers in the world that is actually growing, at its base it’s almost 3 miles wide with an average height of 240 feet above the lake. Huge blocks of ice break from the glacier wall all the time and fall into the lake below with spectacular noise, making it an unmissable side trip during the best tours to Argentina.
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