El Calafate

Arrived Wednesday at around 3pm, an hour late and no mention of Aerolineas Argentinas tardiness by any of the crew. This time no upgrade, didn’t win the bid and the check in guy talked about charging for excess baggage. He said he wouldn’t and I did thank him and pointed out that out of BA the Aerolineas people had told us there would be no charge for excess if on this same booked trip we had started with business class and 23 kilos. Anyway will see what happens next sector!. Collected our AVIS car hire, which took a while due to the paperwork process. Definitely book ahead as many people were looking to hire a car and none appeared to be available. Pictures below departing Bariloche and arriving El Calafate.

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Almost a Luna landscape, real tundra scenery, with stark mountainous silhouettes and the most stunning light aqua blue almost turquoise lake. A stunning stark scenery. Apparently quite shallow and full of minerals hence the colour. A feeling descends that you are furthest from anywhere else here and most especially home.

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As we have two full days here we decided to book one day with a 6-7 hour boat trip covering many areas of the best known ice areas. Big tip, huge, only book the VIP tickets, or so we have been advised. Also the main organiser appears to be Solo Patagonia, so booking through any other agent you will find that you pay more. The VIP tickets do cost more but you are segregated from the masses and get treated well, or so we have read. You are only likely to do this once so go for it. Our tickets were US$150 each for VIP . Other agents were looking for $200 plus for the same trip. Ours did not include transport as we will make our own way there. We booked when we arrived. It seems few of the overseas travel agents who arrange tours for their clients, book the VIP tours so they seem to be more available but cost 50% more.

Checked out a bar it two in town and had dinner at the hotel

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