El Calafate has no shortage of hotels with glacier views. Montano Suites is not one of them, and does not try to be. It is an urban boutique hotel some 700 metres from the town centre, with 28 rooms on two floors, and what sets it apart is not where it stands but how it receives its guests.
Every evening around six, guests gather for a glass of wine in the living room, whose wide window looks out over the town and the hills. For about an hour someone explains what is being poured, and what starts as a courtesy becomes the moment when travellers get to know one another. The other ritual is mate, prepared in the breakfast room and in the rooms, with an explanation of how it is put together and how hot the water should be: the detail that gives the hotel most of its local character. Each room welcomes its guests with a tea blend and chocolates made with calafate berries.
The rooms come in four categories that differ only in size; the furniture and amenities are the same in all of them. Breakfast is served from seven to eleven.
For the planner
Montano Suites suits independent travellers, couples and people travelling alone who prefer a small hotel with personal attention to a chain, and who want a sense of place without staying out of town. The two floors are connected by stairs and there is no lift, so it is not the right choice for travellers with reduced mobility. The hotel does not prepare box lunches, which matters on full days at the glacier or on the lake, and it closes in June, July and August.
