After a three-hour flight from Buenos Aires it takes another twenty minutes to reach to city centre of el Calafate by car from the airport. It is a small and tranquil city where the main activity is tourism.The main avenue Libertador is lined with hotels, cafés, restaurants, shops where you can find everything necessary for your outdoor activities and souvenirs, a nice book store, chocolate shops. If you look for something typical to eat it is the ‘cordero’, the lamb; indeed Patagonia’s...

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At the end of my three hours flight from Buenos Aires to el Calafate, from the window of the plane I see the first images of Patagonia: plain brown mountains with no trees, little lakes formed by melting of the snow, empty vast lands that seem endless, closer to our landing a huge turquoise blue lake that is just at the right handside of the airport.Known as the end of the world, Patagonia is a huge territory with mountains, fjords, lakes, glaciers at the end of the South American continent;...

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When I was looking at the Nordenskjold Lake for the last time I knew that it was the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen in my life. The lake takes its name from the Swedish geographer Nordenskjold, who did not only come here to Patagonia but also spent two years in Antarctica. The Torres del Paine National Park is open to public for about sixty years. It is cited as the eight wonder of the world.If you are not in Chile and you are traveling from Argentina, you will need to make a four hour...

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After Antarctica and Greenland Patagonia is the third place on earth where most of the glaciers are found. They may have been there for thousands of years but the touristic access to them is relatively new. The National Park of Glaciers were founded in 1937. Both Perito Moreno and Upsala, Spagazzini glaciers are inside the frontiers of the park. Most visited one, the Perito Moreno is about 50 kilometres from the city of El Calafate.After an hour drive from the city you reach to the entrance...

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Apart from Perito Moreno there are two other glaciers that are included in organised touristic tours; Upsala and Spagazzini are also located inside the Glacier Park and can be reached by boat. We start the boat trip on the Argentinian Lake, it takes a 4-5 hour trip to go and come back. These are comfortable tourist boats with both open and closed areas. As we pass the Devil’s throat and take the left turn we start seeing the little particles of icebergs on the water, we then reach to the...

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Everything seems lonely here in Patagonia: lakes, mountains, people, even the birds. Here is a sightseeing point at the town centre itself, the Laguna Nimez bird reserve is located in El Calafate, downtown.If you walk on the main avenue Libertador and reach the corner where the park is (Intendencia Parque Nacional los Glaciares), and then take the road towards the lake and continue walking for about fifteen minutes you reach another avenue Calle 2 and there is the gate of the Laguna Nimez...

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