Calafate was only a three hour bus ride south of El Chalten. Beatrice joint us to El Calafate where we wanted to see the famous Perito Moreno Glacier – one of the few glaciers that are growing. There were a lot of options for seeing the glacier and we decided for a full-day boat tour which was cruising Lago Argentina and also went to other glaciers. Evidently that was 
something that not a lot of backpackers wanted to do (it wasn't the cheapest option to see the glacier either) and there weren't many young people on board. I guess, the average age of all passengers was around 60. 
From the harbor the view of the mountains and the lake at sunrise were a good start. First we sailed to the Upsala Glacier to see icebergs. The boat couldn't sail nearer than 15 km away from the foot of the glacier, since there are too many icebergs. And really, there were a lot of icebergs. In different colors and all sizes. Unfortunately it is difficult to judge the size of the icebergs. I would have loved to kayak around the ice to get up close for a better feel of the size. Well, next time.
Next stop on the tour was the Spegazzini Glacier which is over 100 m high. Cruising in front of this big wall of ice felt like being really close to the glacier. But the boat still was 300 m away from it.
After that we finally sailed to the Perito Moreno 
Glacier – 60 m high (above water) and 4 km wide. Quite impressive. Again, it was difficult to appreciate the dimensions without anything to compare. We stayed close to the glacier for quite a while. I saw a few smaller pieces of ice breaking off but didn't see a big chunk falling off.
Since I always liked snow and ice, I really enjoyed this tour to the glaciers. Besides the glacier tour we didn't do much in El Calafate - went for coffee / hot chocolate in a chocolate factory and ate a lot of good food. Rudi – DANKE fuers taegliche kochen!! Sehr lecker.
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