One month travelling across Argentina in the peak of Argentine summer, what a trip to experience!
Argentina has such a vast amount of different natural wonders, from tropical north with the most beautiful waterfalls, through barren colourful mountains, salt planes in high altitude, Switzerland like lake district, desert turned wine country, and even glaciers. Argentina has it all, and I was beyond excited to see and experience all those over period of one month, number of those I have never seen before which made it even more exciting.
After not a smooth beginning of the journey…with flights being cancelled and delayed to the point we ended up missing our connection, got stranded in Amsterdam for a few days and finally making it to Buenos Aires FIVE days late! …I can confirm the rest of our travel (which I was actually worried about the most – especially the local low cost airlines that don’t necessarily have the best rep) was incredibly smooth and enjoyable, without any (or perhaps many is more accurate) issues.
Just to give a brief outline before digging deeper into each destination. Our journey was (initially starting in Buenos Aires which we had to skip due to the delays) starting in Iguazu. This ended up being a very brief stop but I cannot stress enough how glad I am that we decided to book new flight (after missing the initial), pressing the ‘Buy’ button as we were taking off from Amsterdam, on the direct flight to Buenos Aires, to be 100% sure we will not miss it again. We were considering skipping Iguazu, after all there was only one main attraction that we could probably do without…but let me tell you, after visiting the waterfalls I can confirm it is NOT one to miss if you’re in Argentina!
After Iguazu we continued to Salta to visit the rainbow mountains and most importantly the salt planes. Something I have never seen before and without actually experiencing it I don’t think any photos can properly translate how surreal the vastness of these planes is.
Next was Mendoza, one of my favourite cities, home of the best Argentine wine. The wine country built on the desert (needs must). We spent Christmas here, in a very simple style as it felt nothing like Christmas to us being in a hot country. Unfortunately we were also nursing bad tummies, which actually turned out to also be the best timing since a lot of places were not operating due to the holidays. It obviously didn’t stop us from going on a wine tasting tour, and also a mountain biking trip!
Just before the New Year we packed our bags and moved to Bariloche, the Argentina lake district. With it’s Route of the Seven Lakes, nazi footprints, the gaucho experience and also a very cute Alpine style architecture, this is the place where locals go to holiday and I can totally understand why.
Celebrating New Years day with the coldest morning dip in Nahuel Huapi, it was time for our next destination, which was El Chalten. Another of our personal favourite, for completely different reasons to the previous places. El Chalten itself is very simple little place, that was built purely for the purpose of hiking the surrounding peaks. El Calafate, where we went to next became inconveniently far for hiking day trips and so the demand for tourist accommodation in El Chalten grew. If you’re into nature and hiking, this place is definitely NOT to be missed!
El Calafate was our next stop, easy access to the glacier and also one of the best restaurants we visited happened to be here. To be honest, finding a good food places was a real challenge for Europeans whose bed time is the prime time dinner in Argentina.
Next was our second to last destination, Ushuaia, which somehow did not meet my personal expectations. El Chalten set a very high standard when it comes to hiking, and trails down here were so much busier which took away the enjoyment of taking it the nature around us, despite how beautiful it was. However my personal highlight was going on a small group boat trip and a little dingy to watch penguins in their natural habitat. This was an experience of a lifetime, my favourite animal encounter to date!
Last but not least, we finally made it to Buenos Aires, our very last stop. Going back to a big city after having a lot of nature time was a bit of a shock to the system, I must admit. Sadly our sightseeing felt a little rushed because our 7 days in Buenos Aires (4 at the start and 3 to finish with) got reduced to just 3, but we tried making the most out of it despite the time constrains.
