Just as Puerto Natales, El Calafate itself doesn’t have much to offer, it’s just the place you head off to see the glacier Perito Moreno, but that doesn’t mean that there is nothing to see at all. I was recommended Hospedaje Mariana, a good place to stay and close to it there is a little park with a circuit that you can walk in about an hour. It’s a swamp and therefore there are many birds including Flamingos. It was really entertaining, one of the birds started to fly very close to me. I don’t know if it was trying to defend its territory or if it was so used to humans that it started to play with them, I assume it was the later one. There was a strong wind and the bird was very fast. It came diving down on me and just in the last moment it pulled up and soared by close over my head, one time it even touched me in flight. It moved just like a fighter plane when it attacks a target on the ground. I played a while with it and tried to shoot some pictures, I didn’t think they’d come out in focus but I was lucky so I have some great pictures of that bird in flight.
Besides that park, a walk on the dried out portion of the lake is also pretty special.