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Nina & Phil's Awesome Argentina

By : Philip Dorfman
Trip Begins March 13, 2010
Trip Ends March 20, 2010

Our Awesome Argentina trip (Buenos Aires to Ushuaia to El Calafate) was truly awesome. World class capital, amazing scenery & penguins at the end of the world, a once in a lifetime glacier walk. Great guides, interesting people, wonderful food.
See my photos : Nina & Phil's Awesome Argentina

Want to go? Awesome Argentina

I went to: Argentina, Patagonia, Ushuaia, El Calafate, Buenos Aires, Perito Moreno Glacier
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March 13, 2010
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Beginnings

Buenos Aires, Argentina

We arrived at the Buenos Aires International Airport on Sat. around 11:30 am, after our overnight non-stop flight from NYC. By the time we arrived at the Reino Del Plata Hotel by taxi, we had traveled for 18 hours. The Reino Del Plata a small, European style, basic hotel, very close to the Presidential Palace, Florida Street pedestrian shopping area, downtown attractions and many restaurants. Nina and I booked the standard 'Awesome Argentina' tour, with guided tours, transfers, lodging, internal flights and some meals. We were the only ones booked on this tour, since a party of 3 had canceled. We were on our own the first day. It was a beautiful late summer day, around 85°F. We spent this afternoon exploring the downtown area on foot, starting on Florida Street with many shops, street vendors, street dancers and musicians. The Buenos Aires boulevards may be wider than those in Paris, but some sidewalks here are in a state of disrepair. We bought some leather goods at OK prices. We stopped at the Cathedral D line subway station for pictures. (I grew up riding the NYC D train.) We enjoyed our first meal of Argentine beef at Burger King This BK restaurant, in a 110 year old mansion, made the Travel Channel Top 10 Fast Food list, world-wide. It's worth climbing grand stairs and taking pictures of the incredible carved ceilings and stained glass. We walked to the Obelisk monument. We didn't realize you can walk up this structure, similar to the Washington Monument. We walked past the famous150 year old Cafe Tortoni a few blocks away from the hotel. Our last stop was a small grocery store near the hotel for some juice, fruit and snacks. We then rested for a few hours at the hotel. We ventured out for an early dinner at the well known El Palacio de la Papa Frita on Lavelle, a couple of blocks off Florida St. (Restaurants in Argentina are empty at 8, and start filling up at 9 and later.) We ordered the price fixed steak dinner with wine, bottled water, salad, famous puffy fries and pear in wine sauce dessert for $25 for two!

March 14, 2010
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Summer in the City

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Breakfast at the Reino Del Plata is a fairly elaborate buffet, with very strong coffee. Andrea, our guide, met us in the hotel lobby at 9, for a great private 4 hour city tour of various Buenos Aires neighborhoods. Julio drove the large sedan. It was a beautiful late summer day. The first stop was the busy Sunday morning San Telmo neighborhood flea market. The next stop was La Boca, a colorful tourist neighborhood. Tango was invented here. We walked around La Boca, stopping at shops and for pictures. Houses here display the flag and colors of the immensely popular Boca Juniors soccer team. On the way to our next stop, we passed by the Boca Junior soccer stadium. Julio took a slight detour to show us the elegant mansions of the Chico Palermo neighborhood. The final stop of the tour was Recoleta, a very busy upscale neighborhood. Here, Andrea seemed to know people, from all walks of life, from the elderly artisan woman selling her linen crafts at the flea market to the honorable and distinguished Elisa 'Lilita' Carrio', a popular politician who finished 2nd in the last presidential election. People strolled the park-like cemetery behind the church this Sunday afternoon. The cemetery has neatly laid out streets, filled entirely with upper class family mausoleums. We paid our respects at the Duarte family tomb, where Eva Peron has been securely buried for the past 24 years. (The whereabouts of Eva Peron’s corpse for the prior 24 years would fill a book.) At end of tour we chose to remain in Recoleta. We walked around the flea market and we sampled great street food - baked beef empanadas, purchased from a street vendor for about $1.25 each. We walked to the nearby National Museum of Fine Arts. This free and outstanding museum houses world class paintings, drawings and sculptures by impressionists and other well known artists. After about 90 minutes in the museum, we took a taxi back to the presidential palace area for pictures. Then we we walked down into the Peru St subway station, near the hotel, looking for the 100 year old wooden cars that are still running. We saw only a modern train with graffiti. We rested at the hotel for a few hours before being picked up by the Esquina Carlos Gardel bus for their tango dinner show. There were around 200 tourists at the tango show. We sat with a couple from Holland and a couple from Brazil. We had a very nice 3 course steak dinner, with wine. We enjoyed the 1.5 hour professional tango show with several intricate dance numbers, accompanied by a 7 piece orchestra. We got back to the hotel around midnight for a few hours of sleep.

March 15, 2010
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It's the End of the World

Ushuaia, Argentina

Yikes - our alarm clock went off at 5:00 am. At 5:45 am Andrea arrived with a driver, to take us to the Buenos Aires domestic airport for the 7:15 -11:30 am flight to Ushuaia, the world's southernmost city. Since we left the hotel without eating, we enjoyed the ever popular medialunas (croissants) and coffee, served on the plane. When the plane parked at the gate area, we noticed a group of soldiers by the plane next to ours. We just missed President Cristina Kirchner arriving in Ushuaia for a computer assembly plant opening. (They need jobs down here, as the economy has tanked in recent years.) After picking up our luggage we were greeted by the very friendly and personable Augustine, one of the great bi-lingual guides from the Canal tour company in Ushuaia. Augustine drove us the short distance to the Hosteria Linares. The Linares is a quaint guest house, with very basic small rooms. It's up on a hill, above one end of the downtown area. The Linares has a very nice common sitting area / library. From the picture window is a great view of the town, the Beagle Channel and ice covered mountains. We were on our own the rest of the day to explore downtown Ushuaia. It was cool and windy, around 45°F. We walked down Maipu, the street by the channel. We had a nice lunch at Ramos Generales - El Almacen. It's a 100 year old general store, operated as a cafe, coffee house and bakery by a French couple. After lunch we walked to the pier, where a ship was being prepared for an Antarctic cruise. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering into various shops on San Martin. Ushuaia has grown to a population of over 60,000, with a decent downtown. Since we already had enough beef for a week, dinner was salads, chicken entrees and wine at the very popular Tanta Nina, at the other end of town. Each night in Ushuaia, Canal sent an email to the Linares with our pick up time for the next day.

March 16, 2010
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Stuck in the Mud Somewhere in the Forest of Tierra del Fuego

Ushuaia, Argentina

After the continental breakfast, we were picked up at 8:30 am, by a small bus. Valentine was our guide for activities at Tierra Del Fuego National Park, about 30 minutes away. The other members of our group this day were Nicholas from Australia, Senia from Russia, 3 women traveling from Barcelona and a father and daughter from Argentina. We arrived at the very scenic park, on the Beagle Channel, with the snow covered mountains of Chile in the distance. The Yamani (aka Fuegian) indigenous people thrived on this land for 7000 years. The English discovered the Beagle Channel and landed in Ushuaia in 1828, on the first of two Fitzroy voyages. The entire native population of about 3000 disappeared by 1900, victims of the English colonization. We began the 4 mile hike in bright sunshine, no wind and very pleasant 50°F temperature. We hiked along shoreline and hilly forest trails. We saw wild horses. We stopped to take pictures of a falcon, just a few feet away form us, on the rocks by the shoreline. At the first rest stop, Valentine served a nice mid-morning snack of homemade muffins and a hot beverage. I tried the national drink - hot (yerba) matte, an herbal tea. (Valentine carried two thermos' with hot water in his backpack.) Late morning a light rain began falling. On the steep forest trail we encountered lots of mud in the middle of the trail. We hit the low point of our trip when Nina sank knee deep into a mud hole. With one leg stuck in the mud, Nina had to be pulled out. Between the mud and rain, we welcomed the lunch break. A large picnic table in a tent awaited the group. We were served cold appetizers, salad, barbecued chicken, wine and homemade brownies. A German tour group of 10 occupied a 2nd picnic table. After lunch, we were outfitted with waterproof overalls and boots for a 1.5 hour canoe trip through the park, in the rain and wind. These were rather large rubber canoes, holding 6 or 7 adults. I was appointed ‘captain’ of one canoe since I was the only one experienced in steering a canoe. Since the others in our canoe had never paddled before, it was slow going. At one point, the two canoes with the Germans passed us by. They were paddling in perfect unison, singing “We are the Champions’. After the canoe trip we stopped near the park exit to see the landmark 'End of the Pan American Highway' sign. We then proceeded to the nearby path to a scenic waterfall. When we got back to the Linares late that afternoon, a shower and dry clothes never felt better. The Linares sent our muddy pants and socks to a laundry, for just $8. We had dinner at the highly rated and very reasonable Bodegon Fueguino, a few blocks from the Linares, on San Martin. We enjoyed homemade soup and two different and unusual lamb entrees, from an extensive list of lamb entrees.

March 17, 2010
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Wish You Were Here

Ushuaia, Argentina

After breakfast, Augustine picked us up in an SUV, for activities at the remote Harberton Ranch and 2 islands in the Beagle Channel. We wished Augustine a Happy St. Patrick’s Day, but the holiday is barely recognized down here. Augustine proceeded to pick up Senia, the Russian woman on our tour the previous day, Nora from Italy, a man from Seattle and couple from NC, a German couple, and an Argentine couple. At the Canal garage, we transferred to a more spacious small bus, with the driver and the valiant Valentine already on board. English speakers sat toward the front, with Augustine as our guide. Valentine was the guide for the few Spanish speakers, towards the back of the bus. This morning was cold with showers and a few snow flurries. The 1.5 hour trip to the Harberton Ranch was on paved and gravel roads. The Harberton Ranch, the first ranch in Tierra del Fuego, and 8 islands in the Beagle Channel were given to the English Bridges family by the Argentine government over 100 years ago. The third generation of the Bridges family currently operates the ranch. The morning activity was either paddling on the Beagle Channel or a guided tour of the (unheated) natural history museum on the ranch. Given the poor weather and our 1.5 hour of paddling the day before, Nina and I chose the museum tour, along with Nora. The tour included the foul smelling out-building, where recently obtained animal specimens are cleaned. After the museum tour, we walked to the nearby boat launch, joining the rest of our group, boarding a covered zodiac. The boat sped us to Isla Martillo, a rocky, barren, wind blown, deserted island in the middle of the Beagle Channel. We spent 20 freezing minutes viewing the Magellan and Gentoo penguin colonies. Back on the zodiac, the next stop was the uninhabited but very scenic Gable Island. By this time, the group was very hungry for lunch. The cold appetizers, roast beef sandwiches, wine and homemade brownies really hit the spot. We ate at a large table in an old shack, warmed by a fire blazing from a home made wood burning stove. After lunch, we hiked for about 2 hours, across this lush island, over rolling hills and shore line. The sun was out, the wind had died down and it was very comfortable. Canadian beavers, imported to this area many years ago, have built dams and cut down many trees. The zodiac was waiting for us on the other side of the island, for the trip back to the ranch. After disembarking the zodiac, we walked about 1.5 miles to what was once the ranch's landing field for planes. The bus was parked on the former air field. On the way back to Ushuaia, classic rock music played in the background. Augustine sang all the words to Pink Floyd's - ‘Wish You Were Here’. We later learned Augustine is such a huge fan of the group, he named his dog Floyd. We got back to the Linares around 6 pm for a couple of hours rest. Due to the cold, rainy weather, we headed to the closest restaurant, Azul (on San Martin), for dinner. Azul is very clean, with modern decorations. We highly recommend Azul, based on the large shared salad with a very nicely arranged assortment of fresh vegetables and two outstanding seafood entrees, at extremely reasonable prices.

March 18, 2010
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Going Up the Country

El Calafate, Argentina

We were scheduled for a mid-day, 1.5 hour internal flight to El Calafate, in the Andes. We spent the morning looking for souvenirs in various Ushuaia shops. At one of the cafes at the far end of San Martin we had a 2nd, late morning substantial breakfast, to get us through the rest of the day. One of the other bi-lingual guides from Canal, picked us up at the Linares at noon, for the short ride to the airport. We had a smooth flight to El Calafate. After picking up our bags, we found our taxi driver. The drive to El Galpon Del Glaciar was 40 minutes, passing downtown El Calafate and around the unpopulated shore of Argentino Lake, the largest lake in Argentina. We can’t say enough about El Galpon Del Glaciar, an awesome sheep ranch. The setting is absolutely beautiful, with the lake and the surrounding snow covered Andes mountains. Although the area is known for fierce winds, we experienced only light winds.The staff is friendly, accommodating and well versed in English. Upon arrival, Frederick, the host, covered the activities with us. Our tour voucher entitled us to a welcome drink, 1 hour of horseback riding (unexpected), box lunches for the next day’s excursion and an invitation to join the outside guests coming to the evening program at 6 pm and dinner the next evening. The rustic rooms are nicely decorated and contain either a separate sitting area in the front or an extra tiny bedroom. Our room had the 2nd bedroom. We were the only guests staying over at the ranch the first night. The wonderful evening program consisted of an English Tea, with generous cake, cookie and pastry items, followed by a guided bi-lingual 2 mile hike to the lake and back, a sheep herding demonstration, sheep shearing in the shed, a 3 course Patagonian barbeque dinner and a Tango show. The others partaking in the evening activities were an older British-Argentine woman and two native Argentine couples who spoke no English. Luckily, Nina speaks some Spanish and was able to converse with the guests. And, The British lady helped translate.

March 19, 2010
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Cold as Ice

Perito Moreno Glacier, Argentina

We rushed out of El Galpon Del Glaciar at 7:40 am with our backpacks and box lunches since the van taking us to the Perito Moreno glacier was a few minutes early. In the late 1800’s, Perito (‘Specialist’) Francisco Moreno explored this still wildness region. The Perito Moreno, non-retreating, glacier is in the huge Glacier National Park, an hour away. The guide on the van covered the history and facts of the park and the glacier, entirely in Spanish. The guide asked us for payment for the park entrance in Spanish and she told us to bring our litter back with us. (Understanding Spanish would be a definite plus.) The weather this day was absolutely perfect, 45-60°F with bright sunshine and no wind all day. After a picture stop we arrived at the ferry for the first of the day, 15 minute ride across Argentino Lake. Our English speaking group included a man from Atlanta, a Korean couple and 20 French folks. We left our backpacks and box lunches in a cubby space provided in a cabin. We put on our wind pants over our pants and walked half a mile, over a rocky path, to the crampon station. The guides attached crampons to our boots. We received instructions on how to walk on the glacier, by our lead guide, Rolando. Lucas, the side guide, made sure everyone was OK while walking on the glacier. Rolando and Lucas used ice axes to smooth the ice and carve steps. We proceeded single file onto the glacier. For the next 90+ minutes we walked very carefully on the glacier, with several rest stops along the way for pictures. The views of the ice formations were incredible. We were very warm at near 50F temperature, with bright sunshine. We toasted the end of a great activity with Old Grouse scotch on the rocks, served by Rolando. After coming off the glacier we returned the crampons and reversed our steps back to the boat landing area. We had our lunch at the outdoor picnic area. At 1:15 pm we boarded the boat to catch our bus parked on the other side of the lake. The bus took us to the park visitor’s area for 90 minutes. There were multi-level platforms to view the glacier and take pictures. We met several interesting people including a retiree from the same large company I work for. We were greeted with hugs from Norma and Ricardo, one of the Argentine couples we had dinner with the night before. We got back to the estancia late afternoon. We watched a travel video on Argentina while we enjoyed our welcome drink, a day late. We were the only guests for dinner this night in the estancia’s dining room. From the limited menu, the appetizers, lamb stew and dessert were fair.

March 20, 2010
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Running on Empty

Buenos Aires, Argentina

This was sadly our last day in Argentina. At breakfast we met the friendly Montana veterinarians on their way to the glacier. They were a threesome on the Adventure Life - End of the World tour. After enjoying the nice breakfast buffet, we saddled up for a beautiful 45 minute, South American style horseback ride to the lake and back. We were led by Frederick, with 3 of the dogs out in front. The horses are rather tame and slow. During the ride, we saw pink flamingos swimming in the ice cold lake. After the ride we packed up for home. A taxi picked us up at 11:30 am for the start of our 22 hour return trip. Our internal flight landed in the Buenos Aires domestic airport on time. Four hours was plenty of time to get to the international airport for our overnight flight home. The taxi ride was 45 minutes, with a strange stop close to the airport. The taxi driver pulled off the highway into a gas station, opened the hood and ushered us out of the vehicle. At the time, we didn’t understand why the hood was opened and why we had to exit the vehicle. It turned out the taxi needed a fill up of compressed natural gas, via a connection under the hood. (We later learned most Buenos Aires taxis run on alternative fuel. We’re still not sure why we had to get out of the vehicle.) We got through all the steps at the international airport, including American Airlines security, by far the most thorough security check we encountered in Argentina. Our 10 hour flight to JFK left on time, at 8:15 pm. Don't cry for us Argentina; the truth is we'll be back.

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