El Calafate

El Calafate has no swimming to speak of. Lago Argentino sits at the edge of town, but it is fed by glaciers and stays bitingly cold even in midsummer, and the steady Patagonian wind rarely makes a lakeshore pleasant to sit on. The Atlantic coast is a long day's drive east. Anyone who wants a swim will find it in a hotel pool.

Eating in El Calafate centres on one dish: Patagonian lamb, split and roasted slowly on iron crosses beside an open fire, served in parrillas along and just off the main avenue. Beef, trout from the lakes, king crab brought from the south and hearty stews round out most menus, and the dark calafate berry turns up in jams, ice cream and liqueurs. Argentine Malbec is easy to find.

Beyond that the scene is modest. Restaurants cater mainly to tour groups returning from the glacier, and the choice narrows quickly once you step outside grilled meat. An estancia lunch in the countryside is often the most memorable meal of a stay.

El Calafate is a young town that grew up to serve the national park, and it has little historic fabric of its own. The main sight is the Glaciarium, an interpretation centre that explains the ice fields well before or after a visit to the real thing. A small regional museum covers Tehuelche life and pioneer sheep farming, and the Walichu caves on the lakeshore hold old rock paintings. Most visitors give these a few hours at most.

Evenings in El Calafate mean a long dinner and perhaps a craft beer or a glass of wine in one of the pubs along the main avenue. There is a small casino and a few bars that stay open past midnight in high summer, but most visitors have an early departure for the glacier or a boat trip and the town empties soon after dinner.

El Calafate exists because of the ice. The Perito Moreno glacier, about 80km away, ends in a wall of blue ice around 70 metres high facing a network of walkways where you can watch and hear blocks break off into the lake. Guided treks on crampons across its surface, boat trips under its face and longer cruises on Lago Argentino to the Upsala and Spegazzini glaciers show the scale of the southern ice field.

Closer to town, the Laguna Nimez reserve has flamingos, black-necked swans and other waterbirds, and estancias offer horse riding across open steppe. The landscape is dry, wind-scoured and enormous, with the Andes on the western horizon. The best trekking is around Mount Fitz Roy near El Chalten, a long journey north, and the season is short: spring to early autumn, with winter cold and many trips reduced.

Almost everything reachable from El Calafate in a day is landscape rather than a place. The real exception is the working sheep estancias of the region, some reached by boat across Lago Argentino, where a visit combines old shearing sheds, pioneer houses and a lamb lunch. El Chalten, the trekking village under Mount Fitz Roy, is about three hours away by road and is better as a stay of its own, and the Chilean side of Patagonia is further still.

El Calafate is small, safe and calm, and the glacier works well for children: the walkways at Perito Moreno are well built and the sight and sound of falling ice holds even young attention. The Glaciarium, birdwatching at Laguna Nimez and an estancia visit with horses and sheep fill other days.

The drawbacks are distance and weather. Most outings involve an hour or more in a bus or car, the wind can be raw even in summer, and glacier treks have minimum age limits. Beyond that there is little designed for children, so a stay with them works best when kept short.

The town itself is easy: hotels, restaurants and shops line one long main avenue and a few streets around it, all on foot. Everything you come for lies well outside it, though. The glacier is over an hour away by road, served by scheduled buses and organised tours, and boat trips leave from a port further along the lake. There is no local transport network to speak of, so most visitors either book excursions or hire a car, which gives more freedom on the long, empty roads but means driving on gravel in strong winds.

Shopping is confined to the main avenue, where outdoor clothing shops sit beside stores selling sheepskin, knitwear, leather, mate gourds and regional chocolate. There is a small crafts market with Patagonian handiwork, and calafate berry jams make easy gifts. It is useful for a forgotten fleece and little more.

El Calafate is one of the more expensive places to visit in Argentina. Everything has to be brought a long way, the season is short and the town lives from tourism, so hotel rooms in summer are priced accordingly. The real weight on a budget falls on the excursions: national park entry, glacier treks and lake cruises add up quickly, and transport to them is rarely cheap. Meals in parrillas and simple guesthouses are more manageable, and hostels exist for those travelling lean.

There is no performing arts life here to plan around. Some restaurants and estancia dinners add a guitarist or a folk singer, and the town hall occasionally hosts local events, but there is no theatre, concert programme or music venue a visitor would seek out.

El Calafate has no bathing tradition, and spa treatments are limited to a handful of lodges and hotels, some with pools, saunas and lake views. Its restorative side is simply the quiet: a small town with wide skies, long summer evenings and little to do once the day's excursion is over. Early starts and long bus rides mean it rarely feels like a place to unwind, though.