El Calafate
El Calafate
Land of Glaciers
INTRODUCTION
At 316 kilometers from Río Gallegos, capital of the province of Santa Cruz, is the city of El Calafate, which takes its name from the small homonymous shrub typical of southern Patagonia from which its fruit is extracted to make different regional products.
Since the year 2000, the city has El Calafate International Airport, which is located 23 kilometers from the city center and is the destination for direct flights arriving from different cities, including Buenos Aires, Ushuaia, Puerto Madryn, Trelew, San Carlos de Bariloche.
El Calafate is today a world destination and an important tourist center that has acquired national and international significance in recent years. Its luxurious hotels and its typical restaurants have managed to position this city as one of the world destinations that deserve to be known.
The breaking of the Perito Moreno glacier, the typical Patagonian lamb that is served in restaurants and the possibility of carrying out the most varied excursions manage to summon thousands of visitors in any season of the year.
PERITO MORENO GLACIER
The Perito Moreno glacier, baptized as the eighth wonder of the world, is located near El Calafate. This town is also an access area to a multitude of ice mountains that make up Los Glaciares National Park, and that make it a privileged site in Argentina and the world. In 1981 the Unesco declared this entire Park “World Heritage”.
Apart from being the most visited because it is the only one that can be seen from the ground, its main attraction is the frequent ruptures, sometimes small pieces of ice detaching, sometimes large walls. These are due to the fact that the front is at a shallow depth, causing the pressure it exerts to advance to oppose the brake it finds at its base.
The Rupture: The phenomenon of the great ruptures is achieved when the front of the glacier reaches to settle on the Magallanes peninsula (below the area of the catwalks); This forms a natural dam, which causes the water from the southern branch of Lake Argentino to generate increasing pressure on the dam, due to the fact that its level rises fed by the melting of ice in that area. At a time when the difference in water levels between both parts of the lake is considerable (between 9 and 30 meters), the dam begins to break, filtering water that gradually undermines it, until it forms a bridge between the glacier and the peninsula that finally collapses. This fact cannot be predicted, since the glacier has not detected any pattern of behavior up to now.
CLIMATE
In El Calafate, the climate is predominantly dry, with an average maximum temperature in summer of 19ºC and an average minimum temperature of -2ºC in winter. The length of the day varies according to the time of year, since in summer the sun rises at 5: 30 and it gets dark only at 11:00 p.m., but in winter the day is shorter and has only 8 hours of light.
ACTIVITY SEASON
The tourist seasons to visit the city are divided into:
• Spring/Summer: which officially begins in the month of August ending in the month of April, during this time people from different parts of the world arrive, even from the most remote places.
• The rest of the year is considered the Autumn/Winter season so it is advisable to check availability in advance specially on regards to accommodation. However, this does not prevent you from enjoying recreational activities, events, excursions to the Perito Moreno Glacier, Upsala, Onelli and other glaciers.
HOW TO GET
BUS
From Buenos Aires: The companies that communicate with our destination will take you to Río Gallegos, where you must combine with local companies to get to El Calafate. The section between Buenos Aires and Río Gallegos takes about 36 hours. approximately
From Río Gallegos: From the Bus Terminal passing through the Río Gallegos International Airport (4 hours).
From the South of Chile: From Puerto Natales there are buses that reach El Calafate in just five hours.
PLANE
El Calafate has, since 2000, an international airport, located 23 km from our city. Flights arrive daily during the summer season from some cities such as Buenos Aires, Ushuaia, Bariloche, Trelew, Córdoba and Rosario.
You can choose between several airlines, the most frequent being Aerolíneas Argentinas.
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