Argentina - El Chalten & El Calafate

This is a continuation of our trip that began with a week in Torres Del Paine National Park in Chile following by a couple of days exploring Mendoza wine country before heading down to the southern part of Argentina. Generally speaking we prefer to hike and then drink, not throw the drinking in the middle of the hiking itinerary but covid travel logistics and complications forced us to put it in the middle which ended up working out fine just took a us a little longer to get back into the hiking grove once we arrived in El Chalten. I did a separate post that includes where we stayed in Mendoza and the different wineries and restaurants we enjoyed throughout our stay. So picking up here with leaving Mendoza and heading to Southern Argentina.

Day 11 - Mendoza to El Chalten

After a great few days exploring wine country we had a long travel day ahead of us, we had a long layover in Bariloche. Once arriving in El Calafate we were blown away at the gorgeous blue color of the lake around town and the snow capped mountains and glaciers in the distance. Upon arrival in El Calafate we had a couple of hour car ride to the small hiking town of El Chalten. We saw lots of pretty rolling hills, guanaco animals along the drive. It was pretty cloudy that afternoon so as we got closer to El Chalten we couldn’t see the mountains that you typically can from the car. Once getting checked into our hotel we walk around it is a pretty small town and grabbed stuff to pack for lunch the next day, rented some hiking poles for myself and grabbed dinner at a casual spot in town where we had our first taste of Argentinean empanadas and beer.

Day 12 - cerro torre lookout

We wanted to ease into hiking again after several days of overindulging on food and wine in Mendoza so opted for a shorter hike on the first day. We did the Cerro Torre Lookout hike which has great views of the valley, and peaks of the mountains from various angles. It is a shorter leg of the longer Laguna Torre hike that is also an option. On the shorter leg you don’t get directly up to come of the peaks or anything but it is still full of stunning views and a great way to ease back into hiking after a few days off.

That afternoon we celebrated St. Patty’s day with green beer and empanadas at La Vineria which is an awesome casual spot in town. Great dinner at a spot called La Tapera which is in a cozy little cabin, it does fill up fast and doesn’t take reservations so suggest getting there right when they open.

Day 13 - Fitz Roy

Laguna De Los Tres was the other big hike besides the base of the towers in Chile that we were really looking forward to. We felt pretty confident doing it after having already done the base of the towers hike. So we were up early and ready to conquer the hike and see Fitz Roy!!

Wow this hike was incredible. Probably my favorite hike I’ve ever done, definitely in my top 5 but probably my #1. It was tough especially the final push at the end, it starts out with some good uphill that will get you warm and your heartrate up but easy terrain to start and you quickly forget about the toughness of the incline because of the gorgeous valley you are overlooking and the teaser views of Fitz Roy you can see pretty early into the hike.

It then levels out a bit as you get to Lake Capri which had gorgeous views and stays pretty flat and enjoyable for a while after that. All in all I would say the first two thirds of this hike were very enjoyable and as you can tell from the photos we had a beautiful day for it.

The last third of the hike is an ass kicker, it gets really steep and technical for the last mile. There is a sign that says you have 1km left so I didn’t think it was going to be all that bad but the sign lies it is much further than 1km and it is tough. There is also a false summit where we were convinced we were almost there only to turn the corner and find another big push. But WOW so worth the tough climb. We had the most incredible views from the top and Fitz Roy was so much better in real life than I could have ever imagined.

We had some food, recovered and took some photos from the top. We were pretty wiped so almost started to head down but watched another group hike up to another lookout spot where Matt was pretty sure you could see another lake from so after a little recovery we decided we had come that far and should push a little further to check it out. Worth the extra little bit of work to see the higher view of the multiple lakes.

The hike down wasn’t too bad, it was crowded in some of the steep technical sections, I was really happy to have poles to help with that section and by the final third of the return trip we were tired and our feet were hurting so it drug on for awhile but all in all an absolutely amazing day.

Once at the bottom we grabbed beers and a snack at the closest bar to the trailhead and hotel because we were so tired and after showering and changing we just grabbed dinner at the restaurant in the hotel so we did have to walk any further haha.

Day 14 - el chalten to El Calafate travel day

Our last day in El Chalten we basically made on our own mini food tour in the morning by hitting up Primo’s, an adorable coffee food truck, la wafleria which was great, and enjoyed some beers before heading out. El Chalten is such a cute and awesome little town, it is rustic, not fancy at all it is dirt roads through the small walkable town mostly consisting of bakeries, hostels, a couple of bars and restaurants. It is a hikers paradise as it has everything you need and trailheads are walkable from the center of town. There isn’t much there if you don’t want to hike and don’t expect to have great cell service or wifi but if you enjoy being outdoors and incredible views it is a can’t miss spot.

We left for El Calafate around 3pm and had a much clearer day for the drive back that the drive there. The views on the drive were so gorgeous we stopped several times along the way in awe of the scenery and so sad to be leaving and that our trip was quickly coming to a close.

View of the National Park on our drive out of El Chalten to El Calafate

Breakfast view from our hotel room in El Calafate

Just based on conversations with our travel agent we weren’t expecting much out of the town of El Calafate but were pleasantly surprised with how cute and fun the town was once arriving that night. Our hotel was very cute, we took a cab into town the first night and enjoyed a beer at a brewery and a great traditional Argentine dinner. We also found what we called Argentina Goose who looked so similar to our dog Goose back home.

Day 15 - El Calafate

Our last full day of the trip was jammed packed with activities, we were up early and headed into Los Glaciares National Park. We walked around the boardwalk checking out the Perito Moreno Glacier early in the morning before heading to our kayaking excursion. Turns out upon arrival at the kayaking spot there were no english speaking guides there that day and the entire tour was going to be in spanish ha. We were both pretty nervous about that considering we know very little spanish, definitely not enough to be able to communicate with guides about kayaking. Luckily there was a really nice guy we met who tried his best to translate for us and we made do alright. While we couldn’t understand much of what the guide was saying the up close views of the glacier from the water were pretty amazing. And incase kayaking around the glacier wasn’t enough, we left that excursion, ate a quick lunch and then jumped on a boat across the river to do a mini trek across part of the glacier. It wasn’t a long hike but you did have to be careful with the spikes, careful on the ice and it was steep at times. This was better than I had anticipated, being that up close to the glacier, seeing the big cracks and the different colors that light up and the shear magnitude of it up close was incredible and a great way to wrap up an amazing view weeks exploring that insane part of the world.

Day 16 - The Journey Home

We topped our amazing trip off with a rather stressful travel day, we weren’t feeling great and were worried about testing positive for covid on the journey back to the US. It was a long travel day starting in El Calafate, flying up to Buenos Aires where we had to transfer between the domestic and international airport. We did test negative so were able to continue on back to the US but was a long and stressful travel day.

Overall we loved our time in Argentina, Mendoza, El Chalten and El Calafate were all great! We hate that we didn’t have time to also explore Buenos Aires while there and will definitely fit that into the itinerary when we return. As far as covid travel restrictions go Argentina was much more relaxed than Chile, while that was nice to have fewer travel logistics to work through we did end up getting covid on the way home. Doing both Chile and Argentina in two weeks was a lot to fit in, it was a ton of fun but also exhausting. At the end of the day we were happy we fit in both knowing it will likely be awhile before we get back down there but when we return we would likely just do one country per trip and not combine the two again.