Map of El Calafate:

After his visit to the El Calafate Historical Interpretation Center, The Wandelgek walked to the Avenida Libertador, which is El Calafate’s main shopping street, and visited the Juan and Eva Peron Memorial at the crossing of Avenida Libertador and P. de Agostini.

Juan and Eva Peron Memorial

The memorial is in a small place at the street corner and it shows to bustes of Juan Peron and his wife Eva. Statues of the Peron’s, together, or seperate are quite common in Argentina, where their impact on politics as well as on history has been immense. Perón’s work in the Labour Department witnessed the passage of a broad range of progressive social reforms designed to improve working conditions, and led to an alliance with the socialist and syndicalist movements in the Argentine labour unions, which increased his power, influence and popularity with the working classes.

In Europe both have become well known because of the visits of Eva Peron to Italy, Spain and England and of course because of the musical Evita, written by Andrew Lloydd Webber and Tim Rice. On top of that came the Hollywood movie of that same musical in which Madonna played and sang the starring role of Evita.

The Wandelgek however, was the proud owner of a very old vinyl record of the original musical, which concentrates on the life of Argentine political leader Eva Perón, the second wife of Argentine president Juan Perón. The story follows Evita’s early life, rise to power, charity work, and death.

The musical began as a rock opera concept album released in 1976. Its success led to productions in London’s West End in 1978, winning the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Musical, and on Broadway a year later, where it was the first British musical to receive the Tony Award for Best Musical.

This has been followed by a string of professional tours and worldwide productions and numerous cast albums, as well as a 1996 film adaptation. The musical was revived in London in 2006, and on Broadway in 2012, and toured the UK again in 2013–14 before running for 55 West End performances at the Dominion Theatre in September–October 2014.

Although the story is quite romanticized and not completely historically true, it is not completely fantasized either and does depict the political and social problems of that period in Argentina’s past quite well.

La Herradura 2

Then The Wandelgek moved on and revisited the little delishop of La Herradura again.

This time to buy some more delicasies which he could take with him in a plane to The Netherlands. This again meant that the meat products of Guanaco had to be in sealed packages….

The Wandelgek also wanted to make some pics of the shop’s interior…

The shop was a little heaven on Earth, which reminded him of a now closed shop in his own hometown of Deventer, named De 3 ridders. Not completely similar, but both shops breathed the same pleasant vibe…

This would be his last visit though because he was about to leave the Southern Lake District.

Next The Wandelgek crossed the Avenida Libertado and walked towards Lake Argentino which was in the background, and visited the Malvinas Statue on the large square…

Piazoleta Heroes de los Malvinas

The Malvinas is the Argentine name for what we in Europe know as The Falckland Islands. Again, Malvinas statues are a very common thing in Argentina. The Wandelgek wanted to visit the statue and had been reading a lot about the conflict over these islands between Argentina and the United Kingdom.

The conflict comes down to this: The islands are very near to Argentina and very far from the UK, but they have been colonized by the UK a few centuries ago. Thus the population is British. During the reign of Margareth Thatcher, prime minister of the UK, Argentina conquered the islands but they were subsequently reconquered by the UK. The monument commemorates these events and the victims of the war.

This monument commemorates the about 650 Argentinean soldiers that perished fighting the Brits in the Falklands(Malvinas) war of 1982. The place is located by Avenida del Libertador, the main street of El Calafate, a bit away from the city center. The monument shows a map of the islands and in front of that a young woman holding a spear and a book, who directs her attention towards the skies or heaven.

Some plaques are attached to its base…

Avenida Libertador

The Wandelgek had one more shopping errant before he could go for some food and drinks to bring this wonderfull day and his long visit to the Southern Lake District to a closure. Ha had lost his cap to the fierce Patagonian wind in Chile a couple of days before and was in dire need of a replacement before travelling even more south. Although El Calafate is one of the remotest towns in Argentina, luckily it was visited by a growing number of travellers, backpackers, hikers and tourists and thus had an array of shops that were focussed on these visitors. That meant there were several Out door shops in El Calafate too and The Wandelgek, walking towards the city center on the Avenida Libertador, quickly found a shop that could help him get a new warm cap to defy the eternal wind…

At Finisterre Patagonia he found what he was looking for…

In front of the shop was a signpost directing towards many local places The Wandelgek had been visiting, like the Perito Moreno Glacier, El Chalten, the Ruta 40 highway and Buenos Aires.

It even directed to Antarctica and to his next destination: The most southern city in the world: Ushuaia, also known as the port gateway to Antarctica.

It was lowly becoming twil8ght and timecfor diner and some drinks. The Wandelgek decided to go to the La Zorra taproom which had been a great place to end a day (in El Chaltén as well as in El Calafate), but it was friday, start of the weekend and The Wandelgek was not the only one wanting to go there. It was very crowdy. A good vibe, but too crowdy to have diner overthere, sovThe Wandelgek left in search for another less crowdy place and he found one just accross the Avenida Libertador at Oveja Negra.

Oveja Negra

Although I love La Zorra, I have to admit that Oveja Negra is an excellent alternative on a friday. The food is really good and the beers too. There were quite some guests but it was not as crowded as La Zorra which is clearly a lot more popular.

The iterior is really beautiful with colorful art like designs on the wall.

The Wandelgek ordered some pints of beer and the peanuts were complimentary…

… and a sturdy diner of roasted meat, mushrooms and vegetables…

Rare juicy meat… The Argentinians know how to grill or roast that to perfection…

After a few hours at Oveja Negra, where The Wandelgek prepared for the next stage of this awesome journey by reading travel books and blogsites, he finally left and walked towards his hotelroom.

A warm Christmas

It was a warm late Spring night and his thoughts were far from his previous journeys to Greenland, Lapland and from the approaching Christmas, because yes, it was Spring, but yes it was also December. As a northern hemisphere inhabitant, you would almost forget about the approaching Christmas when your absorbed by the every day warmer weather of late Spring on the southern hemisphere. But Christmas is approaching and The Wandelgek walked towards his hotelroom passing by this shopping window and he was subtily reminded of that memory gap…

A bit further was another very colorful showroom with all sorts of Argentine Football Team stuff which was clearly for the many supporters of the team. At that moment the Argentine and also the Dutch teams were still in the race for the Worl Championship title.

Then The Wandelgek returned to his hotelroom at the Kalenshen Hotel, to prepare for the next morning when he was finally leaving the Southern Lake District to travel even further south…