El Calafate | AllCheapFares

 

El Calafate is the best way to get to the Glaciers that are about an hour dive from the city.  The largest glacier in the area is the Perito Moreno glacier.  Maybe I'm making a big call here, but in my opinion it is one of most impressive natural wonders of the world.  At its face, it is about 5km across and 60m high.  The glacier is constantly moving forward.  As a result, you hear cracking noises from deep within ice fissures and caves.  If you wait around long enough, you will see large chunks of ice fall from the face and create large waves on the surface of its adjoining lake. 

 

El Calafate is an important tourist destination as the hub to visit different parts of the Los Glaciares National Park, including the Perito Moreno Glacier and the Cerro Chaltén and Cerro Torre. The history of El Calafate began in the first decades of the twentieth century. Originally, it was simply a sheltering place for wool traders. The town was officially founded in 1927 by the government of Argentina to promote settlement, but it was the creation of nearby Perito Moreno National Park in 1937 that sparked growth and the building of better road access.