Spreading along the south shore of Lago Argentino, a giant glacial trough fed by meltwater from the Campo de Hielo Sur, fast-growing El Calafate is the poster child for Argentina’s tourism boom. The gateway to Parque Nacional Los Glaciares and its spectacular Moreno Glacier—tourists swamped the town in early 2004, anticipating the glacier’s rupture—El Calafate has few points of interest in itself. Still, it has increasing and improving services, including hotels and restaurants, and it’s southwestern Santa Cruz’s transport hub.

Calafate owes its explosive growth to 1) a new international airport that’s nearly eliminated the overland route from Río Gallegos for long-distance passengers; 2) the competitive Argentine peso; and 3) the fact that Argentine president Néstor Kirchner, a Santa Cruz native, has built a home here and invited high-profile international figures, such as Brazilian president Luis Inácio da Silva (Lula) and former Chilean president Ricardo Lagos, to admire the Moreno Glacier with him.

The boom has had drawbacks, though. As the population has more than doubled in a decade, real-estate prices have skyrocketed. Sadly, a prime downtown location that used to house the old power plant—admittedly a noisy irritation—has become the site of a hideously pharaonic casino.

El Calafate (pop. 6,439) is 320 kilometers northwest of Río Gallegos and 32 kilometers west of northbound RP 40, which leads to the wilder El Chaltén sector of Parque Nacional Los Glaciares and a rugged, rarely used overland route back to Chile. While only about 50 or 60 kilometers from Torres del Paine as the crow flies, El Calafate is 215 kilometers from the Cerro Castillo border crossing and about 305 kilometers from Puerto Natales via Argentine highways RN 40, RP 5, and RP 11, plus a small additional distance on the Chilean side.

Getting There

El Calafate is the transport hub for western Santa Cruz, thanks to its new airport, road connections to Río Gallegos, and improving links north and south along RN 40.

By Air: Aerolíneas Argentinas (9 de Julio 57, tel. 02902/492815), LAN Argentina, and LADE (tel. 02902/491262, ladecalafate [at] cotecal [dot] com [dot] ar) have regular flights to and from El Calafate.

By Bus: El Calafate’s Terminal de Ómnibus overlooks the town from its perch at Avenida Roca 1004; for pedestrians, the easiest approach is a staircase from the corner of Avenida Libertador and 9 de Julio. There are plans to move it to the former airfield terminal just west of the bridge over the arroyo, so that buses would no longer enter town.

Interlagos (tel. 02902/491179) and Taqsa (tel. 02902/491843, www.taqsa.com.ar) shuttle between El Calafate and the Santa Cruz provincial capital of Río Gallegos (US$10, four hours), where there are northbound connections to Buenos Aires and intermediates, and southbound connections to Punta Arenas (Chile). These buses will also drop passengers at the Río Gallegos airport.

Three carriers connect El Calafate with El Chaltén (US$15–17, 4.5 hours) in the Fitz Roy sector of Parque Nacional Los Glaciares: Cal Tur (tel. 02902/491842), Chaltén Travel (tel. 02902/492480), and Taqsa. Most services leave between 7:30 and 8 a.m., though there are sometimes afternoon buses around 5–6 p.m. Winter services are fewer, but normally at least daily among the three companies.