Jeff and I arrived in El Calafate early in the evening on Thursday which gave us time to check into our hotel, clean ourselves up, and make our way to downtown El Calafate for dinner. What was for dinner you ask? Oh, just some all-you-can-eat meat. No matter where you end up in Argentina, this is always an option and it never seems to disappoint. Following dinner, a brief exploration of the relatively small downtown area, and a few drinks at one of the local bars, we turned in around midnight knowing that we had an early 6:30am wake up the next morning.

El Calafate sits about 350 miles north of Ushuaia and just south of Lago Argentino, the largest freshwater lake in Argentina. The primary tourist attractions in El Calafate are the massive glaciers on the lake so while the tours in Ushuaia were all about landscapes and hiking, our El Calafate itinerary focused almost exclusively on the glaciers.

Day 1 of our tour package had us in the VIP section of a large catamaran for a tour of Lago Argentino and the Upsala, Onelli, and Perito Moreno glaciers. Being two of the first people on the boat, Jeff joked that VIP stood for “Very Isolated Persons” but eventually it did fill up.

As we departed from the dock, what stood out immediately to me was the green-blue color of the water. The wind whipped up white caps on the surface of the lake but the size of the catamaran made for a very smooth ride. Before long, we were treated to our first glimpses of small ice chunks that had recently broken off from the glaciers.

Sadly due to the rapid recession of the Upsala Glacier, the largest in South America, and the number of icebergs separating our boat from a close up view of Upsala, our captain had to divert from our original course and instead took us to a different section of the lake that provided close up views of the Spegazzini Glacier. During our stop at Spegazzini a member of the catamaran crew broke out a large piece of ice that was supposedly formerly part of the glacier making for a classic tourist photo op for Jeff and me.

When we could get close to the face of the glaciers, the captain would skillfully steer the boat back and forth while passengers would jockey for position along the railings looking to get the best photos possible. The boat would come to a stop for a bit and allow us to hear the cracking and popping sounds the ice makes as it melts. A few times we were lucky to catch a glimpse of large chunks of ice falling from the face of the glacier into the lake.

Day 2 in El Calafate took us off of the boat and directly on to the glacier for some hiking on Perito Moreno. After another early 6:30am wake up, an hour bus ride into the Los Glaciares National Park, and a quick 15 minute boat ride from one shore of Lago Argentino to the other, we were met by our crew of tour guides for the morning.

Our English-speaking tour guide, Cunni, kicked things off with an intro to the region, the glacier, and some educational information about how glaciers are formed. Not being a native-English speaker, Cunni had a humorous verbal tick of saying “yes?” at the end of every sentence but was a genuinely nice guy who ended up helping Jeff find good spots to take photos once we made it onto the glacier. So after some brief safety instructions from Cunni and strapping on our crampons, it was off to the glacier for a 90 minute hike.

Much like the green-blue water of Lago Argentino, I was blown away by some of the colorful blues seen during the hike.

Despite the dirty, brown look of the glacier in spots, the ice and water that melts away is actually quite clean. Jeff stopped for a quick sip of the running water and the group was treated to whiskey chilled by ice chipped directly off the glacier at the end of the hike.

Following the hike, we had a final hour or two to walk along the viewing platforms back on the north face of Perito Moreno and take in the final sites of Patagonia. It was here that we caught the most impressive images (and video!) of ice breaking off the face and into the lake.

Having seen our fill of glaciers and our time in Patagonia having come to a close, it’s back to Buenos Aires for one last day before heading back home.