One thing I noticed while driving through the countryside from Punta Arenas to El Calafate was just how vast and how empty it was. My sense of space became warped. My brain had a hard time processing distances. I would look out the window and it felt like I could touch the clouds or reach out and pet the animals. But they were miles away. It became more obvious when I tried to take a picture. My camera could only see a speck no matter how much I enlarged it. There were no billboards, there were no houses, just fences and a few animals from time to time. Otherwise, about 450 miles of open space.

We had a quick bathroom stop at a cafe, shop, small hotel all in one literally in the middle of nowhere. Ranches all around. The sign on the door said: “Hotel Posada Rio Rubens. Here, we open when we get here and we close when we leave. If you arrive and we are not here, then you won’t find us. Thank you.”

From Torres del Paine we drove to Cerro Castillo on the Chile/Argentine border. That took us all morning. We had lunch at a restaurant that catered mostly to tour busses. There wasn’t much else around. There was one tourist shop that we actually visited twice – once going into the park and once leaving it.

Across the border we picked up National Highway 40 that runs from the Bolivian border to the southern tip of Argentina. It was 200 miles from Cerro Castillo to El Calafate and there was one “town” between the two. Its name was Esperanza – Hope. The road was pretty good. We were glad to be on paved roads after the dirt bumpy roads of Torres del Paine. We arrived in El Calafate late in the afternoon.

Our hotel was an old converted ranch house with plenty of charm. The building was surrounded by lavender plants and lovely gardens.

El Calafate is on the shore of Lake Argentino, the largest fresh water lake in Argentina at 546 square miles. It is within the Glaciers National Park and its water flows to the Atlantic Ocean via the Santa Cruz river. The town has about 6500 residents and caters to tourists. Lots of touristy, artsy shops, restaurants and bars. It is also home to the Glaciarium Museum dedicated to educating people about ice and glaciers. It has an Ice Bar in it where they serve cold drinks. It is said to be the only bar in the world constructed from glacial ice.

The main attraction, of course, was the Glaciers National Park and the Perito Moreno Glacier. This glacier is special because it is the only one in the world that is easily accessible to humans. It is easy to get to and to get close to. Good or bad? Not sure. But it was definitely something to see.