What TO DO in EL CALAFATE (Aside from Visiting Glaciers!) | Ice Bar + Dinosaur Museum + Flamingoes ?

Today we’re going to be showing you around the town of El Calafate. In the previous episodes we shared some of the most popular excursions you can do from town - we spent the day at an estancia, we toured the glaciers by boat, and we hiked in Los Glaciares National Park - however, today, we wanted to show you what you can do around town when you’re craving a more relaxed day. So, in this episode, we’ll be walking around a lagoon filled with flamingoes, coming face to face with dinosaurs at a local museum, and hitting up an ice bar while still visiting a few different restaurants. Here a list of the places we'll be visiting in El Calafate:

LAGUNA NIMEZ // Our first stop was Laguna Nimez, which is a nature reserve and bird sanctuary that sits on the shores of Lago Argentino just north of town. It’s a really nice place to enjoy a leisurely stroll, even more so if you’re a bird enthusiast.

HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION CENTRE OF EL CALAFATE // This is a very cool museum that traces the natural history of Southern Patagonia, featuring everything from dinosaur fossils to human artifacts. We really enjoyed learning about the megatherium - a giant sloth that roamed these lands at the same time as humankind.

MI RANCHO // One of our favourite restaurants in El Calafate was Mi Rancho. I ordered the braised ossobuco cooked in the clay oven with a yellow risotto that was a real delight. Meanwhile, Sam ordered the lamb with mushroom risotto and a sweet Calafate berry sauce which was also very good. For dessert, we tried the dulce de leche volcano with chocolate ice cream and wild forest berries. Needless to say, we ate very well in El Calafate!

MI COCINA // What drew us to La Cocina was their pasta tasting menu, which allowed us to try 3 dishes per person. I ordered the tagliatelle with forest mushroom sauce, gnocchi with lamb ragout, and spinach ravioli with a cream sauce featuring ham and chicken. Meanwhile, Sam got the green noodles with a bacon cream sauce, potato and spinach ravioli with Bolognese meat sauce, and squash ravioli with a leek sauce. Overall a great meal!

GLACIARIUM + ICE BAR // Inside the Patagonian Ice Museum we saw a model of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field which is where the glaciers in this area originate, and we also learned about the life of the famous Argentine explorer Francisco Pascasio Moreno. At the end of our visit, we went down to the ice bar which is located at basement level. The walls were covered in ice, the glasses the drinks were served in were also made of ice, and there were even some ice sculptures - a great photo op.

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