Rare Adventures

Tag: buenos aires

  • 10 things I didn’t expect to find in Argentina.

    10 things I didn’t expect to find in Argentina.

    After 2 weeks travelling the length and breadth of Argentina, we discovered a few things we didn’t expect, here is a quick summary for those planning a visit.

    1. Buenos Aires is an amazingly beautiful city. It would be one of the most attractive capitals if it was in Europe. Big French and Italian influence come through loud in clear as you move around. I am sure that the grid system was great when it was first installed, now it is a well-established gridlock. The suburbs of La Boca and Palermo Soho are not to be missed.
    2. Italian influence.  Speaking Spanish I was fully expecting it a lot of Spanish culture, but it is much more Italian. All over the country the local’s area speaking Spanish with an Italian accent, it is very noticeable when they speak English as well.
    3. British music – wherever you go in Argentina, you will find 80s and 90s Britpop playing. The thing that is weird is that it all the songs are cover versions of the tunes by alternative singers, I suspect this may be to get around music licensing laws.
    4. Lovely People – happy, friendly and lots speak enough English to get by. In fact, there is a lot more British influence than they realise. They also don’t like using shower gel, it is clearly a big luxury in that part of the world.
    5. Stunning scenery – we have also concluded once you have seen one mountain you have seen them all, even if it is in mystical Patagonia. We have some really beautiful places, but it is also rugged and wild, the Argentinian side of the Andes is barren desert as the mountains take the rain. Unlike Europe, there are no foothills that build up to the range, it goes from flat desert to mountains very suddenly.
    6. Vaping – basically they don’t, there are still a few smokers around, but vaping is non-existent.
    7. Cash and credit cards – getting cash out of the ATMs is really expensive, minimum £8 service charge and often a lot more. I also found using credit cards online is hard work as UK cards seemed to assume I was a fraudster.
    8. Internal Flights – the country is huge, so air travel is essential, but it is expensive and more unreliable than we were expecting.  We had a very bad start with FlyBondi, but after that most flights were at least on the same day, but always late.
    9. Cost of living – it is pretty much the same prices as the UK, steak and Malbec is a bit cheaper but not massive. All their menus are digital as the prices are always rising.
    10. Homosexuality – Argentina is one of the most permissive countries from that perspective, they were the first to have same sex marriage, we even saw a gay pride march in Ushuaia, they all looked a bit nippy.  
  • Destination Argentina

    Destination Argentina

    Patagonia and Ushuaia here we come

    Nearly time to pack our rucksacks for the next adventure. This is a big one on our bucket list and has taken a lot of planning over the last few months.

    Anyone in their right minds would be using a travel agent, but that is too easy for us. It would hardly be Rare Adventures if we had someone organising us, just think of the things that could go wrong.

    This idea first came up from the BBC series “Race across the world“, when they travelled the length of South America. The scenery was so remote and beautiful that we decided we had to see Patagonia and the most southerly point at Ushuaia.

    In an ideal world we would like to have been doing more by road to enjoy the scenery, but the distances are so vast we will be using internal flights as our main form of transport. Wooksie has put a 1 month limit on the trip and we had to be home for Christmas, which apparently starts on the 1st December in her world, the schedule was a bit of a challenge,

    It is quite difficult to filter though the information on the internet, there is so much to trawl through and evaluate, but eventually we came up with this route. Driving or train would have been more fun but would have constrained us too much, and by using flights we can spend more time as the destinations.

    Image of the Lonely Planet guide to Argentina

    After all these years, and with all the online information, we still end up buying a copy of the “Lonely Planet” as a simple point of reference.

    Argentinian itinerary

    Here is our plan, or maybe more of a list of things that might happen!

    • 29th October fly from Bristol to Rio– with a change in Amsterdam with KLM, we spend 3 days enjoying the Copacabana and Ipanema beaches, bars and having a look at Christ the Redeemer and Sugarloaf Mountain.
    • 2nd Nov we fly to Iguazu Falls – for trekking, 4×4 offroading and speed boating around the spectacular falls, it’s going to be a spectacular day.
    • 4th Nov we fly to Bariloche via Buenos Aires – this could be a bit tricky as it’s not a through flight but with a bit of luck we will arrive in the northern part of Patagonia and the Argentinian Lake District in the early evening. Trekking and adventures at altitude await us.
    • 9th Nov we fly to Buenos Aires – we then have 3 or 4 days getting to know the place and popping over to Montevideo in Uruguay.
    • 13th Nov we fly to El Calafate to spend 4 days trekking around the glaciers and mountains in the southern part of Patagonia.
    • 16th Nov we fly to Ushuaia to head to the most southerly point in South America and cruise around the Beagle Channel, unfortunately Wooksie didn’t fancy a cruise to Antarctica which is a disappointment.
    • 20th Nov we start our trip home with more stop overs in Buenos Aires and Rio before getting back for the end of November.

    We have lots of adventures and and scenery to explore d and will be posting regular updates on what has happened – onwards and upwards.