Argentina

Hrududu

So a slow day in work has me planning where I want to go travelling. Currently top of my list is South America, ideally Argentina or Chile. My ideal trip would be a week or so seeing the sights, poking some penguins, looking at glaciers etc. The 2nd week I'd like to spend on various beaches, doing beachy watersporty type things. I would probably only get 2 weeks for this. I've been looking up stuff online and found an Irish website that specialise in various tours etc over there www.beaconsouthamerica.com. I was wondering if anybody had any experience with them, or others of a similar nature.

Really any tips about a trip over there at all would be appreciated. I'm only in the early stages but would hope to get away either early next year or later on in the winter months.

damoz

I spent a few months in South America and only saw a fraction of it. So the first word of caution would be to make sure you dont try to do too much in 2 weeks ! Any chance you could take longer (unpaid leave etc) My favourite place in South America was Boliva and i would recommed a trip there to anybody (although you always need to keep an eye on the news as they tend to protest, blockade and at the moment riot!)

Argentina is also huge. If you flew in to BA, then getting down south and back in 2 weeks will leave you with alot of distance to cover. I only spent time in BA - great city. When i go back, i want to cover the southern cone, so let me know how you get on !

Meathlass

damoz wrote: »

I spent a few months in South America and only saw a fraction of it. So the first word of caution would be to make sure you dont try to do too much in 2 weeks ! Any chance you could take longer (unpaid leave etc) My favourite place in South America was Boliva and i would recommed a trip there to anybody (although you always need to keep an eye on the news as they tend to protest, blockade and at the moment riot!)

Argentina is also huge. If you flew in to BA, then getting down south and back in 2 weeks will leave you with alot of distance to cover. I only spent time in BA - great city. When i go back, i want to cover the southern cone, so let me know how you get on !

Agree, Argentina is huge, you will never cover it all. I was there for 2 months and missed lots of stuff. The distances to be covered are massive, I have memories of 24 hours on a bus and barely moving up the map. I'm not sure that it's a great country for beach based water sports, the beaches tend to get very croweded in the winter months as it is their summer holidays. You could go south to Ushuaia, El Calafate and Torres Del Paine National Park in Chile for glaciers, you can see penguins in Puerto Madryn (nothing compares to seeing them in Antartica though; my cruise was on that boat that sank last week and loved it, want to go back) Along the Andes in the west of teh country there are lots of adventure sports like rafting etc. Chile would also be a good country but alot more expensive than Argentina. In 2 weeks you could fly into Buenos Aires and travel overland to Rio in Brazil and fly out of there. Along the way you could see Iquazu Falls, Pantanal, water sports in Uruguay. It would be hectic but worth it.

damoz

Just so you have some idea of scale - Iguazu falls to Rio took me 32 hours on a bus. We did get stopped four times by customs to search the entire bus (took about an hour each time) because of all the smugglers from Paraguay on board. The buses are first class - full recling seat/bed, hot meals and even whiskey !

Meathlass

damoz wrote: »

The buses are first class - full recling seat/bed, hot meals and even whiskey !

They're still just buses though. Bus travel is expensive as well becuase of the large distances to be covered. You should definately fly if you can. On one of my trips from Puerto Madryn to Mendoza, after we'd all had our food the guy handed out bingo cards and we played bingo over the bus speakers. I won a bottle of wine!!

If you only have 2 weeks you are better off just staying around the Buenos Aires area, maybe flying to someone on the Andes like Barlioche or San Martin to do adventure stuff or El Calafate to see glaciers. Anything else and you'll be exhausted.