Chile and Argentina

bringitdown

Hi all

Hopefully travelling to Santiago and then overland to Buenos Aires in late September.

Any suggested iteneraries and general advice for the overland route would be welcome. Have roughly 2 to 3 weeks maximum.

TIA
S/bid

PunyHuman

Hey,

I went that route travelling Santiago -> Mendoza -> Cordoba -> Buenos Aires. You might want to go Santiago -> Valparaiso -> Santiago before heading east, as Valparaiso is pretty nice by all accounts.

There are some nice bodegas around Mendoza, and Alta Gracia outside Cordoba is a nice sleepy place; the fantastic Jesuit estancia and Che Guevara's childhood home (now a museum) are the main attractions there.

I would advise getting the day coach to Mendoza; the views over the Andes are incredible. Don't forget an inflatable neck rest and earplugs, if you want to get any sleep on the endless bus journeys.

If you've only got three weeks, maybe four days Santiago, three days Valparaiso, three days Mendoza, three days Cordoba and then a full week in Buenos Aires - the city deserves it.

Enjoy! I'd love to be going back. Let me know if you want more detailed information. BTW I hope you're not a vegetarian...

bringitdown

Cheers, vegetarian ... not a chance.

Sound like a plan, was thinking about heading south but that may be tough in 3 weeks.

PunyHuman

Yeah, with three weeks I'd forget about the south. Each city along the way deserves at least three or four days, and Buenos Aires a bit more.

bringitdown

/drags up old thread.

Just an addendum .. if we wanna book an internal flight is it best to book early here or get a better deal locally?

kraggy

is it really that difficult being a vegetarian in Argentina?

and how expensive is it as a country?

thanks

PunyHuman

@bringitdown

Not sure really, probably depends on how flexible you are, and what your budget is. I bought two internal one-way flights (BsAs -> Iguazu and Asuncion -> BsAs) a couple of days before I took them, and they were about $80 each, so it's not very dear. You might get them cheaper online but then you might want to change them later.

@kraggy

Of course, there are vegetables available for human consumption in Argentina. It's just that they're always served as a side dish to vast lumps of meat. There were very few vegetarian main-course options on any of the menus I looked at in two months. Your choices will be limited.

In terms of costs, Argentina's cheap relative to other South American countries. I stayed in a three-star hotel for about €20 a night. Three-course steak dinner with wine for under €10.

kraggy

thanks puny,

not as cheap as i thought. i thought it would be along the lines of thailand cheap.

still worth a visit by all accounts though...:)

PunyHuman

Well if you're on a tight budget you can live a lot cheaper. I can't remember how much the few hostels I stayed in cost, but they were no more than a fiver a night, and I could get a grand feed in the cheaper restaurants for about three quid. The steak and wine were hard to resist though ...

kraggy

damned carnivores...lol

thanks puny.

bringitdown

Cheers Puny, it would seem to be cheaper waiting to book till we get there, the prices on Aerolineas Argentina are expensive when you 'log-in' as a gringo, go in as a local and they are cheap ... so I think we'll run the risk and book em there.

Diaspora

A quirky twist could be to head North to Antofagasta and the Atacama Desert at the very cool and laid back San Pedro de Atacama before doing the salt plains and re-entering in Northern Argentina via Southern Bolivia.


Thing about SA is that internal flights are very cheap c$80-100 so distance is not as large as it looks. I'd say that anything less than 20 days is extemely marginal for this unless you are returning from NZ on the Auckland Santiago flight and would have been nailed with a NZ to IE flight anyway.