Los Glaciares National Park

El Calafate is another one of those picturesque gateway towns. This time the quaint city is the gateway to Los Glaciares National Park; home to the Perito Moreno Glacier. This glacier leaves you speechless. It’s hard to gauge the sheer magnitude of this beast looking at pictures, but it rises 240 feet out of the water. The little chunks of ice we see falling in the lake are actually the size of cars! Every once in a while there is a 10 story building that cracks off the face and crashes into the vibrant blue water.

Hearing the constant cracking and seeing massive pieces of ice plummeting into the lake is an extraordinary thing to experience. For most glaciers this means the ice is receding, which is true for many of the places we have visited on our trip (New Zealand, Iceland, and Chile). Surprisingly, this is not the case with the Perito Moreno Glacier. We learn it accumulates ice at the same rate it loses it, so that means it’s going to be around for a while. Put this on your bucket list.

Perito Moreno

If you want to get up close and personal with this glacier, which is named after a famous Spanish explorer, there are multiple boat tours available. I honestly think this is one of the best ways to appreciate the sheer size of the glacier. The boats looked so tiny from our vantage point, but then when I walked back to the bus I realized they were large ferries. Also, you can book a guided hike that takes you on to the actual glacier. Yup, you strap on your crampons and trek on the ice for an hour and a half. How safe is that? I have no idea.

Meating New Friends

On the bus to Perito Moreno I sit next to a nice Belgium guy named Bart. We end up talking a bit and the three of us decide to grab a drink once back in El Calafate. We choose a micro-brewery on the main street of town that has a happy hour. After a few beers, some stray dogs, and a handful of stories, Bart ends up inviting us to his hostel (most popular in El Calafate) where he describes this amazing never-ending buffet of Argentinian meats. Is this a trap? Who cares! It’s a gorgeous evening and we all walk to his hostel, where we get a table for dinner. The wine starts flowing, new friends show up, and the meat just doesn’t stop. We’re talking plate after plate after plate… and then another plate. Such a memorable night… or was it.

The next morning we are feeling the effects of that alcohol and Kristin is convinced she knows why we feel like death. “It’s because we didn’t have dinner,” she says. My jaw drops. I ask if she is serious … and go on to explain that we had a three hour, meat-heavy dinner accompanied by multiple bottles of wine, surrounded by interesting people from all over the world. There are no pictures to prove this, but I do have the credit card charge and the name of the local band (Armonicas Bien al Sur) that played at the hostel. The fog clears a little and she says, “Oh yeah.”

Cab Ride Confusion

If you want to laugh at us a little more, I got another one for you. Once we leave the hostel, I flag down a cab. Admittedly, we are both beyond tipsy at this point, but our hotel is only a couple miles away. We hop in the cab and I tell the driver where we are staying. We pull up and I ask Kristin for some cash. She was designated as the responsible one to hold the money we took out of the ATM that day. FYI, she is wearing a coat with approximately 67 pockets, so it takes her a couple minutes to find the right one. She locates the cash, hands it over, and I count it out and give it to the driver.

The driver looks at the money and then back at me, and I know something is off. He shakes his head and hands it back and I realize I tried to pay him in Chilean pesos, not Argentinian pesos. Knowing, or maybe hoping, Kristin has the money somewhere on her, I ask again and she starts looking in all her coat packets and rummaging through her purse…. No Argentinian pesos to be found. Uh Oh. Luckily I had paid cash earlier in the day, so I scrounge up enough crumpled bills and pay the driver.

Somehow we locate the cash that next morning, laying on the floor, under a pillow in our hotel room.

Inflation in Argentina

In March of 2019, one US Dollar was the equivalent to 44 Argentine Pesos. Today (May 2021) one US Dollar is equivalent to 94 Argentine Pesos. Over the past year, Argentina has had one of the highest inflation rates in the world. Imagine getting your paycheck and having to immediately spend it all because you are worried about the price of chicken going up 100% AGAIN!

Inflation was why we were limited on the amount of money that we could take out of an ATM. Certain stores in El Calafate also offered discounts for paying in USD, because the currency is much more stable.

El Calafate

I don’t have much else to say about the town, other than it was super cute and had nice doggies.