Almost 300km from Puerto Natales to El Calafate, the bus journey takes around 6 hours including the border crossing.
Day 10, our bus departed 8am from the bus terminal in Puerto Natales.
Just a short time later we approached the land border. The process of crossing was fairly easy and straightforward. The same bus would wait for everybody to get back on board before continuing the journey.
We arrived El Calafate around 3pm, at which point we purchased our return tickets with CalTur bus company for El Calafate to El Chaltén, costing 900 pesos per person. The walk from the bus terminal to Calafate Hostel was less than 10 minutes. After dropping our luggage we headed out and tried to find an agent to book the Perito Moreno Glacier Tour with Mini trekking. All tour prices offered by many different agencies are exactly the same and so you won’t be able to negotiate at all. This tour is relatively popular but don’t worry about the space as you shouldn’t have a problem.
The price list for all tours that El Calafate can offer, all tour operators are offering the exact same price…
Most tour agencies only accept cash and most tours in the region cost so much pesos, there are very few ATMs in town and there is a limit to the amount of cash you can withdraw plus you are charged a percentage typically on each transaction of around 6% plus any fees from your card issuer (This is current economic situation in Argentina, getting cash is hard in the country.)
We booked our trip with one of the tour agency and paid total of 4800 pesos.
In town centre, there are tonnes of souvenir shops which are very colourful and easy to immerse yourself.
