El Calafate - National Park Los Glaciares

Whenever yo visit a place for the first time you have expectations. Specially when you plan ahead and you get inundated with other people's images on the web [as I did] you set up really high standards of what would be your own experience. Glacier Perito Moreno is the 'must do' stop [at least for me] in any Patagonia journey. The glacier landscape blew me off in a way I was not expecting at all. The name of the town that hosts you before getting into the National Park, El Calafate, is due to a little fruit common in the region. Glacier Perito Moreno is the largest glacier one can visit within the Patagonia national parks circuit.

Glaciers have an interesting structure and an amazing geological history and, as we might know, they serve as a 'thermometer' of what we humans are causing with global warming. I could go on and on about the ecological relevance of these formations but after my visit, they should be preserved, studied and taken care of just because they are insanely beautiful.



El Calafate town, architecture


El Calafate town, sidewalk


El Calafate town, towards the bus station


El Calafate town, nice food next to my hostel


On our way to National Park Los Glaciares


Getting closer to Glacier Perito Moreno @ National Park Los Glaciares


Hiking to the glacier after boat ride


Glacier Perito Moreno


Real landscape and hyper-real landscape


Panoramic of Glacier Perito Moreno


Glacier Perito Moreno


Glacier Perito Moreno


Glacier Perito Moreno


Glacier Perito Moreno hitting ground


Glacier Perito Moreno with watercolor sky


Glacier Perito Moreno


Glacier Perito Moreno


YO, overwhelmed


Chocolate @ bus sation before leaving El Calafate

El Chaltén - One road [awesome] town

El Chaltén was my favorite town in the Patagonia. It is a one-road settlement in the northern side of National Park Los Glaciares. It's one hour and half away from El Calafate, the main stop before hiking into Los Glaciares and the glacier Perito Moreno. El Chaltén it is mostly visited by hikers who want to reach the Fitz Roy peak, within Los Glaciares. Also you'll find a crowd that prefers a less touristy town and remain very active hiking all day all over the place.


El Chaltén


Hikers at El Chaltén


Coffee shop


Recycle everything before you leave


Leaving El Chaltén

Ruta 40 - Driving through the Patagonian landscape - 2 days from Bariloche to El Chaltén

Bariloche / National Park Nahuel Huapi

Bariloche's architecture style


Bariloche's town view from a friend's patio


Bariloche at 5am


Bariloche's lakefront


Perito Moreno, the man who started Patagonia's National Parks formation


Getting to National Park Nahuel Huapi


National Park Nahuel Huapi, Vicotira island


Nahuel Huapi, boat ride at the seven lakes


birds @ Nahuel Huapi


Nahuel Huapi, the face-hill


Nahuel Huapi, trail texture 1


Nahuel Huapi, trail texture 2


Nahuel Huapi, trail texture 3


small cut, the only burden during the trip


View towards National Park Nahuel Huapi


View towards National Park Nahuel Huapi


View towards National Park Nahuel Huapi