El Calafate Hotels on TripAdvisor: Find 3,400 traveler reviews, 3,800 candid photos, and prices for 69 hotels in El Calafate, Argentina CALAFATE: located in the south coast of the Argentino lake 320 kilometers to the northwest of Río Gallegos in the Santa Cruz province. If the tourist comes traveling north-south by the national route #3 passing Piedra Buena by 40 kilometers (approx.) he can take the provincial route #9 toward the west (no asphalt), to cross the steppe and to be saved several kilometers to arrive to El Calafate. It is a village with 3,500 inhabitants divided in two by the stream of the same name. It was a place frequented by the villagers that transported the wool from the estancias (ranchs) of the area and in December 7 1927 El Calafate commune was created. Today the main activity is the benefit of tourist services and there are hotels and hostels of very good level, diverse types of nautical trips that takes the tourist to the base of the glaciers, cavalcades by spectacular paths, estancias visits, fishing in the rivers and lakes of the surroundings, etc.. El Calafate is called the capital of the glaciers given its vicinity to the National park Los Glaciares that was created in 1937 and declared by the United Nations in 1981 ‘World Patrimony of the Humanity’. This Glaciers National Park embraces 450,000 hectares where 13 glaciers descend in the lakes Viedma and Argentino. All are beautiful but that of an extraordinary and imposing beauty is without doubts the glacier Perito Moreno located in the arm Rico of the Argentino lake wich presents a wall of ice 60 meters high. Traveling the North arm of the same lake you can visit one another the glaciers Upsala, Onelli and Spegazzini, going by the lagoon of the floes. El Calafate, Patagonia Argentina. One of the biggest tourist attractiveness in the planet. Located 80 kilometers to the west of the city, by the provincial route #11 inside the National Park ‘Los Glaciares’, on the lake Argentino. The road travels several patagonic estancias (country properties) and during the itinerary the hills ‘Comisión’ and ‘Frías’ are observed where there are natural posts of gumps. But one of the most exciting places in the journey is the curve of the sighs, from where it is obtained a front view of the glacier and its beautiful environment. The walk finishes in the mirador of the Perito Moreno glacier where the tourists usually spend hours observing that imposing mass of ice 65 meters high with floes floating around. The show that offers the nature in that place is so majestic that it moves people that witness it. This trip can also be carried out embarked, traveling the arm ‘Rico’ (the south arm of the lake Argentino) until coming closer to the glacier among the floes that come off of the same one, being able to admire the height of the walls of ice from the level of the lake.