Recap on my Argentina Vacation

Amazing, amazing, amazing. And might I say, it ended up being a very well-designed and reasonable trip. Nothing is reasonable when you’re doing the vacation lifestyle for 10 whole days. But we had a great exchange rate for the majority of our trip (3.3 pesos to the dollar) and we made some modest choices to balance out our splurges!

The Itinerary:

Buenos Aires: Stayed in the trendy Palermo Soho neighborhood in a tiny boutique hotel and did tons of sight-seeing (Recoleta Cemetery with all of the Evita memorabilia, Puerto Madero and San Telmo antique markets, shopping in Palermo). Great food and fun nightlife, but this was in essence, sort of like being in New York, in South America. It was just a really cool big city with all of the cool big city perks and oddities you’d expect. All of the European influences are right on, and I could understand all of the BA nicknames
Highlight: a Boca Juniors futbol match – sitting on the first row, absolutely free. Courtesy of a hook-up from a friend’s company.

Mendoza: Stayed in the Park Hyatt for one night – WOW – this was our little splurge. For the remainder of the time, stayed in a little stone lodge in the middle of the countryside, cheap and absolutely charming. Visited wineries all day for two days, and then hiking and rappelling near the base of the Andes. This was our absolute favorite part of the trip. Mendoza’s little plazas and quaint streets and restaurants seemed somehow more authentically Argentinian. We got a real sense of the place and the people as we visited the wineries, talking to their owners or our taxi drivers. The famous “pride” of Argentinians didn’t seem like bravado as much as it did in BA, just a contented “of course” kind of sensibility about their lifestyle. Hiking was rather strenuous (glad we added some weight training into our workout routine beforehand) but full of incredible views. Our guides with the Argentina Rafting Company were excellent, and I enjoyed hearing about their travels and lifestyle about as much as anything.
Highlight: a dinner we had in an old winery in the suburbs of Mendoza – a restaurant called “1884” – this was the best meal of our lives, and the character of this place, so romantic and as old world as you get, will be a memory for a long, long time.

Iguazu: Right on the border between Brazil and Argentina are the most breathtaking falls and the only subtropical rainforest I’ve ever frequented. The wildlife and the falls were absolutely beautiful but the port of Iguazu itself was pretty much a deserted tourist town so we only stayed one night and booked it back to Buenos Aires before we left.
Highlight: Seeing a wild toucan fly up to us on the path headed to the falls.

Taxis and food (despite being cheap) added up and were what most of our money went to on the trip… I bought very few souvenirs (mostly wine), but all in all was still over budget by $237. Oops. Still, for the value we got out of the trip, I was VERY happy!