3 Days in El Calafate

The municipal reserve sits on the lake shore about 1.5 km from the main avenue, an easy 15-minute walk. It's a flat, windy mix of lagoon, steppe and reeds where birds sit a few meters from the path, which makes it the right first stop once you've dropped your bags. Dusk is the best light, so if you arrive late in the day, go then and swap it with the Glaciarium.

A self-guided trail loops through the habitats, a circuit of roughly 1.5 hours, and a small information house, the Casa Verde, rents binoculars. Wear a windproof layer even on a sunny day. It's a gentle introduction to the Patagonian steppe before the ice.

This small museum on Avenida Brown, at the corner of Bonarelli, tells about 100 million years of local history, with dinosaurs, megafauna and the first peoples as the main characters. It sets the glacier you'll see tomorrow against the longer story of this landscape.

It's not a big museum and an hour is plenty. Go if you want context for the region before visiting the glaciers, skip it if the morning is bright and you'd rather stay outside.

The main avenue is a straight stretch of souvenir shops, ATMs and restaurants. The town itself is young: the government founded it in December 1927 as a supply point for the wool that the sheep ranches sent out, and it stayed a small outpost until visitors started coming for the glacier in the 1970s. The boom came after 2000, with the new international airport. Today the avenue is where you'll eat your first empanadas in Patagonia, buy an alfajor for the road and buy the food for tomorrow, because there's almost nowhere to buy lunch on the glacier road.

ATMs often run out of cash or are out of order, so try more than one and withdraw what you'll need for tomorrow.

The glacier museum, about 6 km from town, explains what you're about to see: how ice forms, why the Southern Patagonian Ice Field matters, what the glaciers do and how they're changing. Rooms with scale models and screens lead to a permanent exhibit on climate change and a 3D film about the ice.

It's a good rainy-day, windy-day stop and a useful primer before the boat. Take the free hourly shuttle from the center (it leaves from Avenida del Libertador, check the pickup point and last return with your hotel) and go early enough to be back before it stops.

The ice bar inside the Glaciarium is kept at about -10°C and everything in it, the bar, the seats, the glasses, is made of ice. You get a poncho and gloves at the door and a drink served in an ice glass.

It's a gimmick and everyone knows it, but it's a fun 20 minutes if you're traveling with kids or in the mood for a photo. The drink is included, so you'd be paying mostly for the cold.

Patagonian lamb, cordero patagónico, is the dish of the region, and La Tablita, at Coronel Rosales 28, is the place locals name first and is described as the city's oldest grill. Patagonian lamb is cooked slowly over a wood fire, and it's the dish to order here rather than the beef you'd pick in Buenos Aires. Expect it to be one of the pricier tables in town, and reviews are mixed.

Argentines eat late, so a table at 20:00 is on the early side. Mi Viejo on the main avenue, a classic grill that has been in the center for decades, is the backup.

The Perito Moreno is a 250 km² river of ice, about 30 km long, with a front around 5 km wide that stands some 70 m above the water. It's named after the explorer Francisco Moreno, who also worked on Argentina's case in the 1902 border arbitration with Chile.

The old line is that it's the glacier that advances while the rest retreat. That's a myth now: it held steady for decades, but since 2020 its northern front has been retreating. The show is still real, though. Ice calves off the wall all day and the cracking sound carries to the viewpoints, and sometimes the glacier dams a branch of the lake until the water bursts through a tunnel, a cycle that recurs from once a year to less than once a decade.

Hielo y Aventura runs the guided ice treks, with crampons provided. Minitrekking is a boat crossing of the Brazo Rico, a walk through forest and about 1.5 hours on the ice, for ages 8 to 65. Big Ice is a longer day of around four hours on the ice, in small groups, for ages 18 to 50. A longer variant, Minitrekking 2, is listed for ages 12 to 60.

This is the alternative to the walkway day, not an add-on, and the experience to book first. Big Ice is a seasonal tour that sells out in high season, so ask about your dates. The operator can turn people away on the day if they don't meet the physical requirements, so be honest about your fitness. Waterproof boots or laced shoes are required, no heels. The park ticket is extra.

The pasarelas, the viewing walkways, are a network of viewing platforms and easy trails facing the glacier, with several kilometers of routes at different levels. The lower ones put the wall nearly at eye level, the upper ones give you the view across the whole front.

Walk the lower levels first, then climb for the panorama, and keep your eyes on the face: the crack comes before the fall, and a big calving makes the whole platform go quiet. Summer opening is usually about 8:00 to 18:00.

There are benches and sheltered corners along the walkways where you can eat what you brought in town yesterday. The restaurant on site is expensive, and there's almost nowhere else on the road.

A thermos of mate or hot coffee turns a cold, windy afternoon into the best lunch of the trip. Watching the front while you eat is the point.

The Safari Náutico is the boat ride by Hielo y Aventura along the south face of the glacier. From the water you look up at a wall of blue ice and hear it creak, which gives you a sense of scale the walkways can't. It's the end of the walkway day, not an extra for the ice-trek day.

It leaves from the Bajo las Sombras port, and operators list it as running year-round. The ticket is usually sold separately from transport, and Hielo y Aventura's own listing says it can be bought in the park on the day, which lets you decide after seeing the weather.

The All Glaciers cruise starts at Puerto Punta Bandera, west of town on Lago Argentino, and takes 9 to 10 hours with hotel pickup: the boat threads between icebergs toward the glaciers, and some versions include a landing. One operator runs it daily from September to April and every second day in the winter.

The park entrance is paid separately through the port's own portal. The day is long, so bring layers, snacks and a flexible plan for the weather.

The Upsala Glacier is a large valley glacier on the eastern side of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field. Its name comes from the old one-p spelling of Uppsala University in Sweden, which sponsored the first glacier studies here.

It gets far fewer visitors than Perito Moreno because it can only be reached by water or a long overland trip, which is exactly why the boat day is worth the money. It has been retreating since it was first documented in 1810, and the pace picked up sharply from 2008, so expect icebergs in the approach and a front seen from a distance.

Spegazzini is the other glacier on the standard boat route, flowing into the lake on the western arm. With Upsala it's what separates this day from the walkways at Perito Moreno: you see two more fronts, each with its own color and its own icebergs.

Stay on deck as long as you can bear the cold. The photograph you want is an iceberg in the foreground with the wall behind it.

The calm alternative to the boat. An estancia is a Patagonian ranch, and Nibepo Aike near Lago Roca takes day visitors for a countryside tour, a horseback ride and a lamb asado lunch. It's a day for a bad-weather forecast or for people who've had enough of ice.

One operator lists it from mid-September to mid-May. It's a good reality check on what Patagonia actually is: a lot of sheep, a lot of wind and a lot of empty distance.

Don Pichón is a well-reviewed grill on Puerto Deseado street, on the slope above the center (the restaurant has offered a free pickup, ask when you book), a good place to finish the trip with a parrillada, the mixed grill of beef and sausage. Argentine asado means meat cooked over wood or coals, and a grill like this is where to try the full version.

Order a Malbec, take your time and finish the evening with an alfajor or a scoop of dulce de leche ice cream.