Trip report: San Pedro de Atacama (part 2)

Posted on September 7, 2010 by jen

Our vacation from a vacation from a vacation in San Pedro continues – here’s what we did days 3 and 4, as well as our thoughts on a few restaurants and hotels in San Pedro. (P.S. Day 4 includes the most incredible natural landscape we’ve ever seen . . . and we get around.) If you missed it, you can read Part 1 of our trip review here.

TOURS/EXCURSIONS

Day 3: Lagunas Cejar and Tebenquiche

Tour company: Layana

Price: CLP10,000/person (~US$20)

Time: Afternoon trip leaving San Pedro at 3pm (~4 hours)

What we did: The big attraction for this tour is going out to Laguna Cejar, where the water is so salty that you float. A lot. This sounded cool, so we signed up. What we didn’t hear before we went was that the water is cold. Really, really cold. We had been looking forward to relaxing in the water, given that it was a hot, sunny day, but all that changed when our toes touched the laguna. Ryan ended up getting in (briefly) and verified that you do, in fact, float more than in regular water.

Ryan's the crazy one who floated in the freezing cold water

Then, we hopped back in our tour bus and headed nearby to Laguna Tebenquiche for sunset. This place is really cool because you can get some incredible reflections of the volcanoes in the laguna – Ryan really liked this and took a lot of pictures.

Us at Laguna Tebenquiche

A nice touch by the tour company was that they brought along snacks and pisco sours – yum! Some of our tour-mates skipped the sunset photo op and instead focused on taking pictures of themselves in various poses with the pisco sour bottle . . .

Verdict: This was a chill, relaxing afternoon activity – nothing spectacular (actually, the sunset was pretty incredible) but it was something fun to do close to town that didn’t mean being on a bus all day long. One strange thing with this tour was that the guide didn’t speak English at all during the tour. Not that he couldn’t speak English (he busted out some English with us later) but just that he didn’t bother asking if anyone on the tour wanted English. With other tours we were on, the guides always said everything in both English and Spanish. We didn’t say anything because we’d already heard enough about the volcanoes and lagoons on the other tours, but seemed strange to us that this was the approach.

See the rest of our pics from this trip here: Lagunas Cejar and Tebenquiche.

Day 4: Lagunas Altiplanicas

Tour company: Cosmo Andino

Price: CLP35,000/person (~US$70)

Time: Full day trip leaving San Pedro at 7am (~11 hours)

What we did: This was a day that involved a lot of sitting in the van, as many of the places we visited were really far away. We started at the Laguna Chaxa, which is in the middle of a massive salt flat – actually the 3rd largest in the world (after Bolivia and apparently Utah – who knew?). This was different than the salt flat we visited near Salta, Argentina, in that it’s an incredibly rugged landscape that looks more like rocks than the smooth white field we saw in Argentina.

Yep, that crinkly, rocky looking stuff is salt

The big attraction here for most people is the flamingos that hang out in the lagoon. They were cool, but really, really far away – see?

Those are flamingos

Luckily, we have a really good zoom on our camera.

They look just like the yard decorations in Florida!

We’d been to the (very good) zoo in Santiago the week before and seen flamingos from about 5 feet away, so we were less impressed than others in our group.

After breakfast at the first stop, we hopped in the van for a ~2 hour ride to 2 big lagoons at really high altitude. They were kind of pretty but (in my opinion) not worth the hours in the car. And, this was essentially just a photo stop – when we got there, we walked along a set path, then got back in the van. Not exactly adventure travel.

Please do not stray from the path

The stop that made this trip worthwhile, though, was at the Salar de Talar (Talar salt flat). Apparently Cosmo Andino is the only tour company that goes there – we arrived and were the only sign of civilization anywhere around. And this place was pretty incredible – the most spectacular thing we saw on the entire trip.

It really looked like that - like somebody airbrushed an entire mountain

The colors that existed here were absolutely amazing.

Seriously, you should check out our album - this place was incredible

We hopped out of the van and walked for a good 40 minutes along the edge of the lagoon – it was cold and windy but worth it because the view was so amazing. Check out our panoramic video and listen to the wind:

After the lagoons, we stopped in 2 small towns to walk around a bit. The second one, Toconao, was really charming – enjoying sodas in the main square before heading back to San Pedro was a great end to the day.

Such a cute town square!

Verdict: This tour was worth it for the special stop at Salar de Talar – this was one of the most spectacular things we’ve ever seen in nature. After seeing it, we don’t understand why this isn’t the main attraction on the tour and the other tour companies don’t even go there at all. Cosmo Andino was a little more expensive than other tour companies but totally worth it. Also, our guide was great – Oscar was born of Chilean parents in London so speaks perfect English and Spanish . . . although we weren’t expecting the Cockney accent from a big Chilean dude, so took us a minute to adjust. He was great and made the tour really relaxed and fun.

See the rest of the pics from our trip here: Lagunas Altiplanicas.

RESTAURANTS

La Estaka

This place is AH-MAZ-ING. Better than pretty much anywhere we’ve eaten in Santiago. It’s 2 long rooms (indoors, which is important during cold desert nights – some of the other places are outside), both with fireplaces that give it a cozy atmosphere.

Cozy inside La Estaka when it's freezing outside

They usually play lounge music, and one night we were treated to an (actually very good) quartet playing traditional local music. The food here is really, really good – over the 4 out of 5 nights of our trip that we ate here, we tried both salmons on the menu (one served with an incredible, cheesy quinoa risotto), the chicken curry and the steak. There were some mix-ups in the service – on two separate nights, we tried to order the salmon with risotto and instead were served the other salmon. Not quite sure how or why this happened, but the serving staff handled it really well and recovered nicely, comping us drinks to make up for it (we like drinks). Aside than this, the service was fabulous – very attentive, very friendly and generally made us feel welcome. By our last night there, the manager knew us, knew how we liked our salmon cooked and knew we’d want extra pebre with our bread (it’s so good!!!). This place is on the more expensive end for San Pedro (mains CLP8,900/US$17), but well worth it in our opinion.

We LOVE this place!!

Adobe

We think this place is owned by the same company as our beloved La Estaka. They’re known for the fire pit they have in the middle of the dining area where people hang out at the end of their long day tours. We had lunch here but avoided it for dinner – the fire pit is awesome, but it’s outside, and we were cold enough when we sat INSIDE!! We had a salad and a pizza here, and both were good but not out of this world.

Blanco

What an embarrassment of a restaurant. This is a swanky-looking place in all white right on the main drag. It’s trying really hard to be sleek and modern, but just not getting it done. We’re fine with basic food when we’re traveling, especially when we’re in the middle of a desert. We just don’t like when a place pretends to be high end, charges really high prices, serves bad food and has a wait staff with an attitude. Our waiter here was probably the worst we’ve ever had. He completely forgot about our drinks and looked perturbed when we asked about them 15 minutes later, took our order wrong and then argued with us when we asked him to correct it when our food was delivered. The chicken was raw in the middle and, when it came back from the kitchen the second time, was overdone and crunchy. We came really close to walking out but ended up staying because we had a just-opened bottle of wine on the table. It was this experience that sent us back to La Estaka for the remainder of our trip.

Tierra Todo Natural

We stopped in to this cool little open-air cafe for coffee (real espresso, not Nescafe) one afternoon and again for lunch another day. The espresso was good, the sandwich I had for lunch was fresh but a little bland and the tacos Ryan had were really good. We were a little confused by the taco menu at first (they have one that’s a “guacamole taco” which consists of just a tortilla and guac . . . hmmm), but the meat tacos were really tasty, especially with cheese added. Service is a little slow but friendly – we’d go back.

WHERE WE STAYED

San Pedro has a handful of really high-end places to stay (think US$300-600/night) and a bunch of simple hotels and hostals; we opted for the latter. We made a reservation in advance to stay at the Takha Takha and then moved to the Hostal Katarpe after our first night.

Takha Takha Hotel

This is located right at the end of the main road running through town. We arrived late at night and we happy that they had our reservation. It was freezing, so we decided to upgrade to a room with heat, which cost CLP47,000 (~US$95). The room was pretty, done in adobe. But we were less-than-thrilled with the king bed (actually, 2 twins pushed together with a giant bump in the middle; could feel the individual springs when we laid down; one half of the bed (mine, lucky me) had a plastic potty guard mattress pad that crinkled any time we moved) and the bathroom that had 2 thin-as-paper closet doors. The next morning, we saw that the compound was under construction and had building materials strewn everywhere – not that pretty.

The construction area was right outside our room

Also, no wifi – not a necessity, but nice to have. For what we were getting, we thought the place was significantly overpriced, so we found another place the next morning and moved.

Hostal Katarpe

We found this place after wandering in to ~10 different hotels/hostals near the main street.

See - isn't it cute?

At most of the places we checked, prices were pretty consistent, but this place was a great value! Our room was set near the back of the property (quiet!!), was very simple and clean and HAD HEAT and wifi!!! All this for CLP30,000/night (~US$60); note – we opted for the no-breakfast option for CLP5,000 less since so many of the tours leave first thing in the morning and include breakfast. The place also has a central patio that was great for relaxing and taking in a bit of late-afternoon sun. The woman who runs the place is very friendly and helpful, and we really enjoyed staying here!

Ryan chilling at the patio after the crazy geyser tour

OVERALL

This was a great trip, and we’re so glad we were able to fit it in while we’re here. It was really relaxing (other than the 4am geyser trip) and as different from Santiago as is possible. We got a ton of amazing pictures (see them here), at least a few of them will end up framed on the wall (someday, when we have a wall to call our own again). Yay travel!

Trip report: San Pedro de Atacama (part 1)

Posted on September 6, 2010 by jen

We decided to take a trip to get out of the Santiago smog for a few days and quickly decided on San Pedro because (1) it’s the only major attraction that’s to the north, and it’s still too cold to go south and (2) it’s really neat. San Pedro is a small town in the middle of the Atacama desert in northern Chile, the driest desert in the world. We learned while we were there that there are actually places in the desert where rain has never, ever fallen. Whoa.

The desert is beautiful shades of pink and orange that go on forever with some really funky rock formations, lagoons, lots of volcanoes and a giant sand dune we got to run down (without having to walk up it first – key benefit to the tour we took; see below). This was such a great, chill getaway from Santiago (our vacation from vacation from vacation), and we’re really glad we went. We went for 5 days and had an awesome time, and here’s what we did that made it awesome. This post covers our first two days there – details on our last 2 days coming soon! (Note: Lots and lots of travel details below for those of you planning trips to San Pedro; for the rest of you, focus on the pictures.)

TOURS/EXCURSIONS

There are a ton of tour companies lining the streets of San Pedro, pretty much all of them offering trips to the same attractions. We’d done some research beforehand and heard horror stories about a few of them (e.g., they’d cancel your trip then not give you your money back and just wait until your flight or bus left and there was nothing you could do about it) and noted a few that had consistently good reviews on Tripadvisor. Our first morning there, we went around and talked to a few of them and booked our excursions for the next few days – some have discounts if you book multiple tours with them or pay in cash (but you have to ask; they’re not just going to offer it up). Here’s what we decided to do:

Day 1: Valle de la Muerte and Valle de la Luna

Tour company: Cactus

Price: CLP10,000/person (~US$20)

Time: Afternoon trip leaving San Pedro at 3pm (~4 hours)

What we did: We did this tour our first afternoon in San Pedro. It’s the closest to town and seems to be the most common tour – pretty much everybody does this one. We received a recommendation to go with Cactus Tours because they’re a bit more active than the others, and we really liked this. Our guide (Pablo) was really cool, made the trip fun and relaxed. We first drove out to Valle de la Muerte and walked for ~40 minutes across the desert.

Pretty crazy landscape!

We ended up at the top of this massive sand dune where people were sandboarding. We then had a lot of fun running down it.

Those people had to walk up first - ha ha HA!!!

And the landscapes were amazing. Besides the really cool sand dune, there were also these crazy pointy rocks – how did they get that way????

Crazy landscape (along with the obligatory volcano)

Then we headed over to Valle de la Luna (so named because the landscapes are so strange it feels like you’re on the moon) and saw another really big sand dune, along with the Three Marias, which are 3 natural rock columns that somebody thought looked like Maria. Except that now there are only 2 – some tourist knocked one of them over. We ended the afternoon watching sunset over the valley.

Sunset in the desert is beautiful

Verdict: This was one of our favorite trips, for the combination of actually getting out and doing some walking (many trips involve sitting on a bus for hours and then getting out and taking pictures of things, then getting back on the bus), the great guide that we had and the beautiful sunset. Not to mention that it didn’t involve getting up before the sun was up (you’ll see what I mean in a minute).

See the rest of our pics from this trip here: Valle de la Luna photos.

Day 2: Geysers de Tatio and hot springs

Tour company: Cosmo Andino

Price: CLP25,000/person (~US$50)

Time: Brutally early morning trip leaving San Pedro at 4am (~8 hours)

What we did: This is a really popular tour in San Pedro, and most people would say it’s a can’t-miss, so we signed up and did it our second day in town. First, we set our alarm for 3:45am and waited outside our hostal for the bus in the dark at 4am. The drive up to the geysers takes about 1.5 hours, and we arrived while it was still dark. The geysers are at 13,700 feet, so it’s REALLY cold up there. We were bundled up in all the clothes we had (and some more we’d borrowed from friends in Santiago) and were still freezing. And not just the “I’m uncomfortable” type of freezing; this was more of the “I can’t feel my hands and am somewhat concerned my toes may need to be amputated” type of freezing. I grew up in Alaska and I’ve never been this cold.

Once we arrived, we had a cold breakfast and Nescafe outside the van as the pitch black was turning to morning dusk.

Breakfast in the dark and freezing cold

Our guide then took us around and told us a bit about the geysers and then gave us some time to walk around on our own. The geysers were kind of cool – lots of steam coming up from the ground, and one or two that would occasionally blow water up into the air. But we couldn’t really figure out why we had to be there so early in the morning. The explanation we got was that you couldn’t see the steam as well as it warmed up. But to us, it seemed like the geysers looked just as cool (and maybe better) when we left around 8am (after the sun had finally come up).

That's a fake smile (if you couldn't tell) - I was just pretending to have fun

We then drove out to a hot springs. Cosmo Andino goes to a different hot springs than most of the other tours, so we were the only ones there. It was basically a stream at the bottom of a hill filled with really warm water (actually boiling in some places – we didn’t go in to those places). It was nice, but it was still very cold, so the idea of stripping down to our skivvies was less-than-enticing for us and we ended up only dipping our feet in.

Pretty neat, but too cold to strip down

On our way back to San Pedro, we stopped seemingly in the middle of nowhere, where our guide (Oscar) showed us a bunch of endangered cacti (including one that was ~200 years old!) and then led us to a hidden waterfall around the side of a hill. It had finally warmed up, so we were able to enjoy the waterfall and a little bit of sunshine along with the waterfall.

It turned out that hugging the cactus was a bad idea

Verdict: For me, this tour was not worth getting up at 4 in the morning and nearly freezing to death for; if we had it to do again, I would skip it (or at the very least hire a private guide who would take us a few hours later). The geysers were ok, but we just can’t see why the 4am start is necessary. And I was so uncomfortably cold for at least the first 4 hours of the tour that for me it wasn’t worth the pain.

See the rest of our pics from this trip here: Geysers de Tatio.

Day 2: Astronomy adventure

Tour company: Space Star Tours

Price: CLP15,000/person (~US$30)

Time: Evening trip leaving San Pedro at 8pm (~2.5 hours)

What we did: While we were there, we learned that the Atacama desert is one of the best places for astronomy in the world, due to the high altitude and 350+ clear days per year. What’s going to be the largest observatory in the world (ALMA) is actually being built not far from San Pedro. A group of astronomers have set up an outdoor observatory where they basically give a tour of the night sky. We were picked up in town around 8pm and driven to the observatory, around 15 minutes away. We started in a round room lit by a single candle with a glass ceiling so you could see the stars. Our host for the evening, a Canadian astronomer (I think named Les) who lives in San Pedro, was incredible. He started by giving us a basic introduction to astronomy (really interesting, not dry at all), where we learned for one thing that Pluto is no longer considered a planet – who knew?

Then we went outside, near the 10 massive telescopes they have set up essentially in the front yard. Les had the coolest laser pointer we’ve ever seen – crazy green and looked like it was actually reaching all the way to the stars. He used this to point out the Southern Cross, Milky Way, Venus (we saw planets!!), Mars (more planets!) and even Jupiter which could all easily be seen with the naked eye, all the while explaining really fascinating historical discoveries. He then introduced us to what was on each of the telescopes, and then we had time to walk around and look in each of them. We saw 4 of Jupiter’s moons!!! And we saw a star formation that looks like a butterfly. And lots of other cool things. We ended the evening by heading back into the candlelit room for hot chocolate and Q&A with Les. He was really fascinating to talk to, had very thoughtful and detailed answers for all the questions but also had a skill for making it easy to understand.

Sadly our camera does not have a long enough exposure time to take good pictures of the stars... they were spectacular

Verdict: This was definitely our favorite “tour” of the trip. It’s definitely different from the other tours that are offered, and it’s like nothing we’ve ever done. I hadn’t expected seeing the stars and planets to be so interesting, but this was really a fabulous experience!!! Our camera is not good at night, so check out the Space Star Tours website for cool photos and more info – this is a must-do trip if you are in the area.

To be continued . . .

See how much fun we had in San Pedro? Be sure to check back for Part 2 tomorrow – including the coolest landscape we’ve ever seen!!

Update: Part 2 is posted: Trip Report: San Pedro de Atacama (part 2)

Wine tasting at Concha y Toro

Posted on August 22, 2010 by jen

Ryan and I had a day free of networking meetings this past week, so we decided to get out of the city and visit Concha y Toro winery for the afternoon. We were psyched to find out we could get almost all the way there using public transit: hop the subway one block from our apartment in Bellas Artes, make one change, ride it to the end, then a 10 minute cab ride out to the winery.

Even if it doesn’t ring a bell, you’re probably familiar with Concha y Toro – recognize any of these labels?

We've seen Casillero del Diablo in the grocery stores and Como Sur in Trader Joe's in CA

Concha y Toro is the largest winery in Latin America (and the 8th largest in the world) and exports ~80% of their wines – lots of them end up in the US. They also seem to be the biggest winery tour attraction (at least that we’ve ever seen). We learned from our guide that during the low season (like now, middle of winter), they give tours to ~300 visitors per day. In the high season (December/January), they have up to 900 guests per day. To us, it seemed crazy busy – can’t imagine what it’s like during high season.

We had called ahead and made reservations for the English tour. We arrived a bit early and wandered through the store, trying to avoid the group of 40 Venezuelans (who clearly were not at their first stop of the day). Our tour ended up being just us and 6 retired Australians, and it went a little something like this:

Watch cheezy corporate video about the history of the winery in a fancy theater room
Walk across the winery grounds to see the original house that the owner built – beautiful yellow and white mansion with lots of cool statues and fountains and a view over the vineyards and their own private pond
The house and the grounds surrounding it are gorgeous, even on a grey winter day
Look at some dormant vines (we’ve taken to visiting wineries in the dead of winter; not recommended) and wait for Australian tourmates to finish asking the guide question about her year mopping floors in an Australian mine
Taste a splash of something white in our fancy dancy branded glasses (that we got to take home!)
Wait for the group of 40 tipsy Venezuelans to leave the cellar (the Casillero del Diablo) so we can go down and check it out. The story goes that long ago, the original owner noticed that bottles of his private stash of wines had gone missing from the cellar, so he spread a rumor that the devil dwelled in his cellar . . . and never lost another bottle again. As we were leaving the cellar, the lights went out (it was really dark) and a recorded voice began telling the story of the devil in the cellar
Pop back above-ground and taste a splash of something red before being shuttled into the restaurant and store

While this wasn’t exactly the best wine tour we’ve been on, it was interesting to see Chile’s largest wine tourist attraction. And the free glasses were a bonus (especially since we broke one in our short-term apartment and had to replace it – shhh, don’t tell our landlord). The Concha y Toro wine tour was something different and easy to do from the city of Santiago for an afternoon, but very different that the high-end wine tasting tour we did in Mendoza. We learned that large corporate wineries aren’t really our gig, but we still like their wines!

Trip report: Wine tasting in Mendoza, Argentina

Posted on July 25, 2010 by jen

We decided to use Ashley’s visit as an excuse to go wine tasting in Mendoza (the top wine-producing region in Argentina, especially known for its malbecs). We only had 2 1/2 days there before heading to Santiago, but we really enjoyed it – here’s a quick trip report:

Wine tasting: Choices, choices, choices!

There are several different wine valleys within an hour or so of Mendoza, the closest of which is Lujan de Cuyo. Wineries aren’t the same as in California, where you can just show up and do a tasting – here you have to make an appt. in order for the guard at the gate to let you in, and you usually have to go on a tour of the winery before you get to the tasting. As for how to get there, there are a couple of options:

Bike to the wineries: Basically rent a bike and cycle around to various wineries. This is the cheapest option, but not the safest: people have been mugged, and we’ve also heard of traffic accidents since bikers share the road with everybody else.
Private driver: Hire somebody to drive you around for the day, but you make all the appointments, so you have to know where you want to go–this is harder than it sounds, there are ~1300 wineries in the area!!
Private guide: Same as the above, but the driver makes the appointments and supposedly knows a lot about wine and has contacts at the wineries. There are a dozen of these on Trip Advisor, all highly recommended (usually by people making their first post), and at least 4 of them are named Javier.
Small group tour: Tours arranged by a private company, usually with a max of 6 people per tour.
Large group tour: Think tour bus.

We ended up going with the small group tour – we’d heard great things from several friends who had gone, as well as numerous positive reviews on Trip Advisor. We chose Trout and Wine, one of two main companies running such tours from Mendoza, and it was awesome (the other is Ampora which we also heard good things about)! Our guide was Michelle, an American who studied abroad in Mendoza during college. She was great – very friendly, knew a lot about the area and the wineries and great to spend the day with. It was very cold the day we went, which made the vineyard tours a little less comfortable, but it was still awesome. We visited 4 wineries, including lunch at one:

Kaiken: Just started giving tours and tastings about 4 months ago. This was our first stop of the day and was freezing cold when we started the tour out in the vineyards – seriously, we could see ice on the ground.
Cold but beautiful - how often do you get to visit wineries with the snow-capped Andes looming in the background?

After a tour of the vineyards and facilities, we went to the tasting room to try their two high-end reds. Unfortunately, the tasting room wasn’t much warmer than outside – the wines were too cold to really taste them, so our host suggested we warm them up with our hands . . . not that our hands were any warmer than the wine after half an hour out in the freezing cold! We think the wine was good, but again, it was hard to tell.
Sottano: This was our favorite of the day, due at least part in to our awesome host, Diego. He greeted us all with a glass of rose sparkling wine then gave us a quick (~10 min) tour/history of the winery before moving us into the (heated!!!!) tasting room. The tasting room has a glass floor that looks into the barrel room below – very cool. We tasted 4 different wines here, which were all very good, and had a great time chatting with Diego throughout the tasting – very casual, very fun.

Ryan and Ashley in the tasting room at Sottano - note the barrel room below

Club Tapiz: We did a 5-course lunch at Club Tapiz in the second floor of the restaurant, overlooking the vineyards. Wines were paired with each course (and poured generously) – this was a bit less of a tasting (without a lot of description of each wine as it was served) and more just drinking. Food was not out of this world but definitely good and went well with the wines – we like having steak for lunch.
Beautiful dining room at Club Tapiz overlooking the surrounding vineyards

After lunch, we headed downstairs to do an olive oil tasting (they also have olive trees at the winery), but the olive oil was frozen solid in the tasting room . . . upon discovering it was frozen, they told us that this is the sign of a high-quality olive oil which is either an interesting fun fact, or an impressive bit of improvisational olive oil salesmanship–we are equally appreciative either way.
They eventually found us some olive oil that wasn't frozen to taste
Alta Vista: Our last stop of the day, this is a classic winery for tasting in Mendoza. We did a quick tour of the winery, including seeing the old concrete tanks (something they use just in Mendoza) and the owners’ personal stash.
Hmmm, wonder how we could get a key to that? There were bottles over 50 years old in there!

Our tasting upstairs was great fun – the host was super friendly and poured great wines (we brought one to Santiago with us, will make sure it’s still good when we haven’t been drinking for 6 hours). We also tried the Alto wine, their top wine – great way to end the day!

This wine was phenomenal! 95 points means it's important

At most Mendoza wineries, you’re typically expected to go on a tour before the tasting. We’ve done a number of winery tours (especially while living near Napa and Sonoma) and weren’t really excited about going on a tour at every winery and hearing the exact same thing, but we were pleasantly surprised by our experience in Mendoza. The tours were very informative and we definitely learned new things – for example, at Kaiken we learned that you can graft branches for one type of grape onto the rootstalk of another in order to shorten the time from planting to production – we saw malbec vines grown from a chardonnay root base (didn’t know you could do that!).

Old chardonnay rootstock grafted to malbec branches - produces malbec grapes faster than planting new vines and waiting for them to mature

The wineries also did a nice job of not all telling us the exact same thing (we suspect this was thanks to Trout & Wine), and we only did a full vineyard tour at one winery, while the others focused on different parts of the production process or showing us what was unique about their wines/facilities. We definitely came away with new knowledge about the winemaking process.

Overall, we were impressed with our experience with Trout and Wine. It’s expensive relative to other options (we paid US$125/person during low season; high season rate is $150), but it was worth it. High-quality transportation (mini-bus), great guide, tastes of reserve/high-end wines and a very customized experience – we were the only people there at every winery we visited. Also, when you consider the base costs for wine tasting on your own, this wasn’t much more. Average tasting fees are around US$10 (just for the basic wines, not the higher end ones we tasted with Trout & Wine), and the winery lunches are typically ~US$45, so that’s US$85 for 4 wineries, even before transportation. And they sent a bottle of wine to our hotel before the tour as well – nice touch!

On day 2, we took a taxi to Clos de Chacras winery which was about 20 minutes away and did a tour/tasting there. The tour was pretty good, but the tasting was somewhat mediocre (though possibly we had destroyed our palates and livers the previous day). While it was relatively easy to do a tasting here (just had the hotel call and make a reservation and then hailed a cab), the seemingly lower quality tasting and more generic tour made us appreciate our experience with Trout and Wine all the more.

Where there’s wine, there’s food!

The Mendoza food scene isn’t exactly Buenos Aires, but we did find a few great places to eat. Dinner the first night was at Azafran – we’d read online that you go into the cellar with the sommelier to choose your wine. In reality, it wasn’t quite as cool as it sounded, but they do have a wine room in the front of the restaurant (with a window out to the street – wonder how that works for preserving the wine?). We also went to Francesco, a fancy-ish Italian/pasta place off of Plaza Independencia – really good pasta but expensive for Argentina. And check out what we walked past on our way to the restaurant:

At first we thought this was a massive leftover Christmas decoration hanging over Plaza Independencia, but apparently not. Definitely . . . weird.

We also visited the much-acclaimed Vines of Mendoza wine bar. Lesson 1: not open on Monday (when we tried to go, of course). When we went back on Wed., we were impressed with the wine selection and the knowledge of the bar staff, but annoyed that we couldn’t buy a bottle to share amongst the 3 of us. Apparently, they only sell by the glass and wouldn’t sell us a bottle . . . The place was freezing, and people kept coming in and out of the tasting room every minute or two the whole time we were there, usually leaving the door wide open behind them. Might be better in summer, but we don’t really get all the hype about this place after visiting. They’ve got a good website with info about stuff to do in Mendoza though . . . and they have a good cheese plate.

Where to stay? No easy answer

We learned through planning this trip that Mendoza doesn’t exactly have a plethora of great places to stay that are affordable. The market is roughly divided into super-expensive top end hotels, guesthouses/B&Bs with mediocre reviews, business hotels and hostels. We had originally wanted to stay in a cute B&B, but even the top rated ones on Trip Advisor had some pretty bad (and consistent) reviews.

We decided to stay in the Hotel Aconcagua, a business hotel located about 3 blocks from Plaza Independencia, which was super convenient. We booked a triple room online and they ended up giving us two adjoining rooms, which was great. The rooms were clean and quiet, breakfast was included and the staff was very friendly and helpful.

Nothing fancy but perfectly nice - clean, quiet room and great location ~2 blocks from Plaza Independencia

The only problem we had were the obnoxious children running (yes, literally running) through the lobby while we were downstairs using the wireless. For example, these 6 children ran to and fro through the lobby for a good 2 hours, at one point playing on the luggage dolly and slamming it into a glass dividing wall, at other times jumping over the reception counter to take pens out of the hands of the front desk staff – seriously, we saw this happen. Keep in mind the parents were sitting chatting in a corner of the lobby and made no effort to control or discipline their children at any point over the 2 hours nor were they at all concerned by our very explicit gestures of displeasure. We’ve noticed similar, ahem, behavior, throughout our time in Argentina – have we just had bad luck, or have others noticed this phenomenon? Anybody have an explanation for what’s going on?

En fin

We definitely recommend Mendoza for wine if it’s in your budget – from what we know thus far, the wine’s better there than in Chile. We had been considering skipping Mendoza during our time in Argentina since we weren’t impressed with the wine tasting experience in Cafayate, but we’re very glad we did it – the experience is completely different and really worth the trip (and we found it to be unique and worthwhile even compared to our frequent trips to Napa/Sonoma). There are a bunch of outdoors things to do as well, but we unfortunately weren’t there at the right time of year. Overall, great trip – we just wish it had been warmer!!

Here’s the full album of pics from our trip if you want to see more: Our Mendoza pictures

Resources

We used several different resources for planning our trip. If you’re doing the same, these might be useful:

Trip Advisor: Particularly the forum (for info on different wine tasting options) and the hotel reviews
A Gringo in Buenos Aires: Good post on Argentine wine
Globetrotters travel blog: Detailed Mendoza trip report
Other travel blog: Detailed Mendoza trip report

Review of Anuva Wine tasting in Buenos Aires: Do it, you’ll thank us

Posted on July 22, 2010 by jen

You don’t have to go all the way to Mendoza to taste great Argentine wines!!!

We’d heard good reviews from friends who’d done tastings of Argentine wines here in Buenos Aires with Anuva Wines and had been meaning to do it for months. When Ryan’s sister came to visit and we thought we wouldn’t have time to visit Mendoza, we decided to book a tasting with them ($40 per person when we did it). Due to Ryan’s sister’s obsession with Argentine malbecs, we requested to do a malbec-only tasting, and Sarah from Anuva ordered in a few special wines for us from Mendoza.

Logistics:

Anuva’s tastings used to be held in owner’s home in Las Canitas, but they recently moved them to a trendy new hotel in Palermo Hollywood (the Rendez-voux Hotel) because the neighbors were starting to wonder at all the random people coming to the building every evening and leaving drunk and happy. We were a little disappointed when we first found out that they’d moved, because we’d planned to go to dinner in one of the many great restaurants in the Las Canitas neighborhood afterwards, but we ended up loving the location in Palermo (and Palermo’s not exactly short on great places to eat). The hotel looks brand new and is decorated in a cool modern design. The tasting was held in the the hotel’s lounge/cafe area, with bright orange upholstery – sounds weird, but it worked – see?

So many glasses, so little time

It might have been strange if hotel guests were using the lounge area, but for our tasting it was just us so worked great. We arrived at the hotel and were greeted by Sarah, who I’d emailed with beforehand and who was hosting our private tasting. Sarah had the table beautifully laid with an assortment of Anuva-branded tasting glasses at every seat (we like seeing lots of wine glasses waiting for us . . . means lots of wine).

The wine tasting experience:

We started with a tasting of a sparkling wine (the only non-malbec of the night), paired with a green apple/Roquefort cheese bruschetta (may sound weird, but it was really good!!). Our next wine was a malbec rose, followed by 4 traditional red malbecs. It was a great selection of wines – all with their own distinct personalities, all from different boutique Argentine wineries that we had never come across. The wines were paired with quite a plate of munchies – as I recall, a massive carne empanada, several different cheeses, a cheese and quince-paste spread, several sausages and 2 different types of chocolate – yum. I didn’t exactly realize they were each meant to be paired with a specific wine so started digging in when Sarah brought them to us . . . oops. It was really cool when Sarah led us through each wine with its paired food–despite many, many trips to wineries in California (we are lushes) we had never really had a great food pairing experience like this–it really does make a difference.

Our favorite wine of the night was the San Gimignano 2007 Malbec – despite the name, it’s actually located in Mendoza. It’s possible that Sarah skewed our opinions by telling us this was her favorite before we’d even tasted it . . . Who cares, it was awesome.

This isn't our picture because we were too tipsy to remember to take one, so we got this one from Anuva. That's the wine we loved on the right!

The company (Anuva wines):

Through the tasting, we peppered Sarah with questions, especially as we had since decided to add in a trip to Mendoza and wanted to know all the right wineries to visit, her favorite restaurants and any other pointers she had. She was very knowledgeable and at the same time just fun to spend the evening with – we really enjoyed our time with her. At the end of the ~2 hour tasting, we decided to take 2 bottles home with us – Anuva has a cellar there at the hotel, so we walked out the door with our bottles that night. And – this is awesome – we didn’t have to worry about bringing the right amount of cash as Anuva accepts both Paypal and credit cards – Sarah just billed us for the balance of our tasting and the bottles we took home. If you haven’t spent much time in Argentina, I can’t tell you how (1) uncommon and (2) appreciated this is! Anuva also has a business shipping wine to the US, so we bought enough to last us through the rest of our time here, knowing we could get more once we got back to the US (and decent prices too – lots of stuff under US$20).

Anuva wine tasting in Buenos Aires 3 image

The aftermath - a very happy Jen and Ashley with our host, Sarah (right)

The Verdict:

Overall, we’re big fans of the Anuva wine tasting. We tasted wines from really special, unique wineries (that we didn’t come across during our time in Mendoza – definitely not on the standard tasting tour route). Their willingness to do a custom malbec-only tasting as well as Sarah’s wine knowledge and personality made this a great evening and money well spent. We don’t normally post ads for places we’ve reviewed (in fact, we have never done it before), but we really liked this, so if you’re going to do the tasting with Anuva, book it through us and help us fund our South American wine research – thanks!!

Bottom Line: Argentina makes some of the best wines in the world, so if you’re coming to Buenos Aires and you like wine even a little bit, it would be crazy not to do a tasting with Anuva! And when you do, please remember to click through from this ad–that way, we can avoid getting jobs just a little longer 🙂 Enjoy!!

Avuna private wine tasting Buenos Aires booking image

Click here to book with Anuva!

p.s. Anyone that does a tasting with them, please let us know what you think!

p.p.s For those of you not planning to be in Buenos Aires any time soon; Anuva distributes wine in the US as well. Click on the link above and you can see what they have on offer–everything they have is hand picked, great Argentine wine and for the most part quite affordable. Some of you have asked what Argentine wines to try at home–buy a few through Anuva or join their wine club and we’re sure you’ll be quite pleased; maybe start with the San Gimignano 2007 Malbec, it’s awesome) We will definitely be buying wine from them after we go back to the US.

The Buenos Aires City Zoo is full of surprises

Posted on July 9, 2010 by ryan

Either they have been doing some extreme experiments in genetic engineering down here, or South American animals are just very different. To be fair, the zoo did not seem all that well maintained, so it’s very possible that the animals are escaping frequently and doing some of their own ‘genetic engineering’ if you know what I mean.

In reality, there are at least 2 reasons why this zoo is worth checking out:

1) The crazy, crazy animals

2) The fact that many of the crazy, crazy animals roam free throughout the grounds rather than being confined to a cage

Let’s start with a few of the crazy animals (which also happen to be roaming free):

Exhibit A: Duck + Turkey = Durkey?

Duck? Turkey? Durkey?? And no, this is not a one-off weird looking duck, there are tons of these running around and they all look the same

Exhibit B: Beaver/Gopher/Hedgehog = BeapherHog?

This is kind of like a giant hedgehog...

Buenos Aires City Zoo Gopher thing image

...except that it has webbed feet in the back, bright orange teeth and an attitude.

Exhibit C: Our personal favorite, the Rabbit/Deer = Dabbit?

Buenos Aires City Zoo: Rabbit/Deer Image

What are you???

Buenos Aires City Zoo: Rabbit/Deer 2 image

They are decently big and they run free all over the zoo. They seem a little skittish, but friendly. And very, very weird.

The above three animals (Durkeys, BeapherHogs and Dabbits) are all over the zoo, just kind of hanging out. Other animal hybrid creations apparently are less friendly and need to be kept in cages. For instance…

Exhibit D: The Tapir

Tapir = cross between anteater and wild boar? He looks sad--it might be because he's so weird looking.

Seriously, what are you???

Exhibit E: These guys

No idea... kind of like the rabbit/deer things crossed with the giant hedgehog things. You may recognize the guy in the front as the actor that played Mr. Beaver in The Chronicles of Narnia movie

Exhibit F: Anteater thing

Buenos Aires City Zoo: Anteater thing Image

I think you are an anteater, but I have no idea. What I do know is that you could very easily wear a traffic cone as a helmet.

Buenos Aires City Zoo: Anteater thing 2 Image

Nice piece of tail

Exhibit G: Satan goat

Do not mess with this goat, it will haunt your dreams

Exhibit H: These guys

Buenos Aires City Zoo: Baboon things Image

And on the seventh day, god had some extra spray paint to get rid of...

In addition to having animals that you’re unlikely to have ever seen before, there are some animals that would be normal-ish except that they seem to have gone a bit crazy. For example:

Exhibit I: Smiling Llama

Buenos Aires City Zoo: Smiling Llama Image

He has lots of personality...

Buenos Aires City Zoo: Smiling Llama 2 Image

...or possibly is just unable to close his mouth due his abnormally large lower teeth

Exhibit J: Flaccid Camel

Buenos Aires City Zoo: Flaccid Camel Image

I swear, this has never happened before...

Exhibit K: Acro Elephant

Hard to capture in a photo, but this elephant attempted to perform a head stand for a good 3 minutes. He almost fell down a few times. Then he started running around his pen erratically (often backwards). Could have had to do with the roaring lion that was next door, or he is just crazy.

There were lots of other more normal animals as well of course like lions and tigers and birds and stuff. You can check out the rest of our photos in our photo gallery: Buenos Aires City Zoo Photos

Just because the lemurs and the baby hippo were particularly entertaining we took a couple of videos:
Lemur fight:

Hippo teeth:

Logistics

The Buenos Aires City Zoo is located in Palermo right next to the Botanical Garden–The main entrance is right next to Plaza Italia and it costs AR$15/ticket for a general entrance or a little more if you want to go into the special attractions (which didn’t seem to be worth it). It’s fully outdoors, so probably not fun in the rain.

Also, they have a pretty crazy website with more info, lots of pics/videos and annoying music: http://www.zoobuenosaires.com.ar/index.php

Verdict

It’s cheap, it’s centrally located and it has most of the craziest animals we’ve ever seen. It’s always a bit depressing to see caged animals and some of these animals looked pretty unhappy, but overall we enjoyed the zoo far more than we thought we would. It shouldn’t be on the top of your list of things to do on a short vacation here, but it’s a fun way to spend a few hours and we’d highly recommend it.

Anyone out there have any idea what some of those animals are?

Fuerza Bruta: WTF???

Posted on July 8, 2010 by ryan

We went to see the show Fuerza Bruta tonight at the Recoleta Cultural Center. This is a show by the same company that did De La Guarda several years ago in New York and many other cities. Fuerza Bruta is also playing in several other cities around the world, so you too can have the unforgettable experience that we had…

Before I describe it in any detail, here are some quotes from Jen and my sister on their experience this evening:

“This show challenged every sense of personal safety and self preservation I have both as a patron and a physician”

and

“That is probably the most uncomfortable hour I’ve ever spent”

-Ashley

“Ummm, what the f#*%?”

-Jen

This show is very, very strange and unless you are looking to go to a rave, but can’t find one nearby, we’d suggest you stay away. It’s possible that we were simply not drunk enough to enjoy the show appropriately, but I’m fairly certain it would take quite a bit more than mere alcohol to adequately prepare yourself.

What is it?

Not a simple question to answer. We had heard lots of hype about this show and many people had told us how much we would love it. The most frequent description was “it’s like Blue Man Group meets Cirque de Soleil.” No it’s not. I can understand why people might say that–all 3 shows are very difficult to describe, but where Cirque de Soleil has unbelievably talented acrobats performing crazy feats of athleticism and grace and Blue Man Group provides comedy, weirdness and fun, Fuerza Bruta is more like an interactive modern art exhibit with the intention of being provocative for the sake of being provocative. There were parts of it that were cool, but mostly it was just uncomfortable and felt like being at an overly intense dance club–except that we weren’t really in the mood to be at a dance club since we thought we had gone to a show.

Another way to describe it would be like this: A theater special effects guy came out with a few cool live effects and said “Hey, that would make an awesome show.” So, they took their 5 effects, added a heavy trance back-beat, made the audience stand up the whole time and moved massive set pieces in and out of the middle of the audience, pushing them up against each other and into walls; threw in some very intense jumping around with non-stop strobe lights and occasionally pulled people out of the audience to break foam ceiling tiles over their heads. Oh yeah, also they hosed down sections of the audience at times and there was a weird water sequence that resembled soft-core porn. Sound awesome? We saw at least one audience member that had to be carried out, and it’s hard to imagine how more people don’t get hurt on a nightly basis (incidentally, there were no safety warnings at all–if you are epileptic, you may be in danger just being in the same city where this show is playing).

But, seriously, what is it?

It’s kind of like Blue Man Group meets Cirque de Soleil… Just kidding, it’s nothing like that. Anyone that tells you that is just trying to see if they can trick you into going. It’s ~60 minutes long, and can be broken down into the following 5 parts:

1) Guy running on tread mill, occasionally being shot and occasionally jumping through boxes full of confetti

If only you could have heard the music...

2) A couple of girls jumping around against a crazy wall from harnesses with strobe lights (this was actually pretty cool)

3) A bunch of people jumping around crazily for a very long time and breaking stuff; then smashing ceiling tiles over the heads of each other and audience members for another very long time.

4) A very see-through plastic pool lowered from the ceiling with scantily clad women running and jumping around in the water above the heads of the audience. This went on forever. Then it seemed to stop and people clapped. Then it started again and went on forever again. Jen thought this was kind of like soft-core porn as the girls were not wearing many clothes, the clothes they were wearing were largely transparent due to the water and the audience was encouraged to grope them through the bottom of the pool.

It did not look this cool during the show

5) Back to the guy on the treadmill jumping through some more boxes. Then a bunch of people came out and bowed (apparently the ‘actors’?). We thought that meant it was over, but then they cranked the music again and started hosing down a section of the audience from above. We were near the doors, so we left. The rest of the audience was right behind us.

That’s about it. They were all pretty cool effects for the first few minutes, but most of them went on WAY longer than necessary and the level of intensity, threat of forced participation and general feeling that several people (including you) were highly likely to get hurt at any moment made it such that it wasn’t fun–if there was some sort of warm-up to get you energized and a higher level of trust that you wouldn’t have a table dropped on you, it might work. Unfortunately, it starts with crazy intensity right from the beginning, and I think unless you are expecting to be at a rave, it would be hard to really get into it (though, to be fair, some in the audience clearly seemed to have been better prepared than us).

Here in Buenos Aires, tickets were only ~US$15 each, so if you’re looking for something crazy, this is it. That said, I’d recommend just going to a dance club instead–far less likely that anyone will break anything over your head or attack you with a hose (unless that’s your thing).

Anyone else seen this? Did we miss something?

Feria de Mataderos — You’re not in San Telmo anymore…

Posted on June 22, 2010 by ryan

Interested in something unique to do in Buenos Aires? Read on…

“Feria” is the word they use down here to refer to an open air market. Most sell various arts and crafts as well as clothing, food and antiques. There are several of them in varying shapes and sizes all over the city (and country). Some are every day, some are only on certain days of the week. Probably the most common one for tourists to check out is the Feria de San Telmo which is every Sunday and stretches from the center of the San Telmo neighborhood all the way to Plaza de Mayo across streets that are closed weekly for the occasion. It’s usually pretty full of tourists, but we enjoy the San Telmo market… despite being quite crowded, it somehow manages to maintain a laid back vibe; this is much assisted by the fact that the vendors are super chill and I’ve never seen anything even remotely resembling an aggressive sales pitch–on the contrary, they are usually just hanging out and enjoying the day. San Telmo is roughly a 10 minute cab ride away for us, or a 30-45 minute walk. This is obviously far too convenient, so in our continued desire to get off the beaten path and find more stuff to do here in BA, yesterday we decided to go to the exact opposite side of the city of Buenos Aires to check out a different Feria: Feria de Mataderos (Fair warning: I’ve encountered very few Argentine websites that don’t begin with an annoying animated intro that includes music that plays automatically–this site is no exception)

For context, we live in the top right corner and the city is ~80 Sq. Miles; so this is a bit further than 'off the beaten path'

Why we went:

We were looking to do something a bit more adventurous than normal and see a different side of the city (literally), and this delivered. There are several ways that you can get there by bus as detailed on their website, but we decided to splurge and take a cab. The cab took nearly 30 minutes (I told you it was far), but still only cost about ~US$10. It was pretty cool driving through so many different parts of the city that we hadn’t seen before. It definitely changes as you get further out–still quite pretty, but the lower buildings and wider streets give it a more tranquil feel (at least as viewed through a car window, it’s entirely possible that some of these neighborhoods are somewhat unsafe).

Jen had heard at school that Feria de Mataderos was more traditional/authentic, far less touristy and would include lots of gaucho (~cowboy) type stuff, good food and maybe even some live shows.

For context: According to Google images, these are "gaucho pants" -- apparently Argentine cowboys wore heels

Did it deliver?

The quick answer is Yes.

There was a main stage area where they did dancing shows and other stuff that seemed exciting which was kind of cool.

If that's not a live show, I don't know what is

And of course lots and lots of booths selling all kinds of stuff

One of many streets full of vendors

Much of the stuff on sale was similar to the stuff you’d find at other ferias in the city, but this stuff seemed higher quality and more authentic on average (and was cheaper).

Feria de Mataderos booths with Argentina flags image

Argentina will never be accused of lacking patriotism

It also felt far more neighborhood-ie if that makes any sense. While I’m sure we weren’t the only tourists there, it felt like the majority of the people there were from the neighborhood and turned out every Sunday which gave it a cool vibe.

Also, unlike San Telmo and many of the other ferias in the city, at Feria de Mataderos, there is lots of food!

That, my friend, is Choripan... Grilled chorizo cut down the middle, smothered in Chimichurri and served on bread; it's obviously very healthy

Feria de Mataderos Choripan with Jen Image

...Doesn't she look healthy?

You’re probably wondering where we found that Choripan…

Some people say "where there's smoke there's fire," in Argentina it's more appropriate to say "where there's smoke, there's meat; lots of it"

Aside from lots and lots of meat (the above is only one of the multiple meat venues), there were also several booths with traditional foods from all over the country such as humitas and tamales, locro, empanadas and more.

This locro/empanada/tamale/other stuff booth had a very long line

This being Argentina and all, there were also tons of sweets–lots of fried pastries and some very fat women sitting behind freshly baked cakes that looked quite tasty (we wanted to get a picture of this, but were afraid of the aforementioned very fat women–we figured we could outrun them, but they seemed to have lots of friends). Also, there were some candy type things:

This was some sort of fruit candy with popcorn--looked really cool, but we didn't eat it; also possible that someone just spilled a bucket of popcorn on their candied fruit

We had also heard that there would be animals. We had heard right.

For instance: We were greeted by this rather smug looking and well dressed llama

Later he showed us how he really felt about us; disgusting, yet entertaining--both the event itself and Jen's excited desire to capture it on camera

In addition to our Llama friend, there were lots and lots of miniature ponies.

Of all of the ponies, this one definitely had the coolest hairstyle. If you're into punk ponies that is. (I am)

Aside from the animals wandering around, one of the highlights of this market is said to be the Gaucho shows on horseback. Apparently the Gauchos perform various cowboy skills and other feats of strength/prowess while on horseback. We did see the gauchos and the horses, but I think they must just have been warming up because not much was happening. That said, plenty of people were waiting around expectantly, so I’m sure the shows do happen.

Or... it's possible that the gaucho feat of strength is just sitting still on a horse for a long time... if so, the show was awesome!

In Summary

We had a great time and while the Feria de Mataderos is unlikely to rock your world, it is sure to be an enjoyable Sunday afternoon and will allow you to get a much more authentic glimpse into Argentine culture and tradition as well as allowing you to see a different side of the city. A perfect 3-4 hour outing off the beaten path.

Quick tip: Be sure that you have a way to get home arranged before you go–we found it to be quite difficult to flag down a taxi as this is quite far away from the city center and cabs are a bit rare (also, apparently the neighborhood is a bit iffy safety-wise if you stray too far away from the market). Either know the right bus to get you home or bring a phone and call for a cab to pick you up (which we keep hearing we should be doing all the time anyway, but we continue to tempt fate with flagging down cabs on the street).

Enjoy!

Kayaking in Tigre on the Parana Delta with El Dorado Kayak

Posted on June 6, 2010 by ryan

This post is WAY overdue. Thank you for the reminders!

Almost 2 months ago we went on a day trip to the Tigre Delta to go Kayaking. Our spanish school (Vamos!) recommended a tour company to us called El Dorado Kayak. A day of kayaking outside of the city sounded great, so we signed up for a Sunday. We’ve been here in Argentina for just about 3 months in total now and I would have to say that the day we spent in Tigre with these guys probably ranks as one of the best days we’ve had, and El Dorado Kayak is by far the best tour company we’ve worked with. I wrote a review about them on Trip Advisor here awhile ago, but figured it was about time I wrote something a little bit more thorough. So, here goes…

What is Tigre (some context)?

Tigre is a town just outside of Buenos Aires that is situated right on the edge of the Parana Delta. The Parana Delta is a massive delta (5400+ sq. miles) with tons of islands, many of which have vacation homes or B&Bs/hotels which are very popular place to spend a nice day outside of the city, and many others as you get further out which are pure wilderness.

Aerial_view_of_the_Lower_Paraná_Delta Image

An Aerial view of part of the delta

You can get to the town by train from Retiro station in just under an hour–and it’s a local train that stops frequently, so it’s really not very far away. The train costs ~$AR2 per person, which is about US 50 cents. Not bad.

Not that far...

Our adventure

We were told to meet one of the guides in the Tigre station at 9:30am as they are based in Tigre, which meant that we had to be on the 8:30am train from Retiro, which meant that we had to get up at like 7:30am. Did I mention it was Sunday?? This was a rough start, but we made it. Then, we met Juan in the Tigre station next to the big map of the delta on the wall, which is pretty hard to miss.

See, pretty hard to miss

It also helped that Juan was the only guy walking around carrying a kayaking paddle. We weren’t really sure what to expect from him as you never really know what you’re getting into with local guides here, but we were immediately very impressed. His english is basically fluent and he’s quite a dynamic guy–aside from running kayaking trips, he is also in the middle of finishing an advanced degree in anthropology with a focus on Andean pan-pipe music (if I remember correctly) and teaches English. Additionally, he is widely traveled outside of Argentina and even lived in Europe for a couple of years which gives him a much broader perspective than most.

As we followed him out of the train station, he told us that he had invited along one of his english students for the day so that he could be more exposed to english. Sounded great to us! Ignacio was ~13 years old and a nice addition to the trip. We followed Juan to the ferry station where he bought us tickets and then we got onto a ferry.

Lots of ferries leave from here all day--no roads, only boats

He explained to us how big the Delta is and showed us on a map how far out we were going. I don’t think we believed him about how far we were going until we had been on the ferry for an hour and still weren’t at our destination–and the ferry goes pretty fast 🙂 Really cool scenery along the way though–lots of beautiful houses and people having big BBQs and enjoying the day. Very cool “this is where the locals go on weekends” sort of vibe.

Lots like this, all with their own docks

It was a little over an hour on the ferry before we were dropped off at a fairly non-descript dock and walked a bit futher to the base camp of El Dorado Kayak:

Home base with plenty of kayaks

Their house was literally the last one on the very edge of civilization. This was great, because it meant that we’d get to kayak away from all of the ferrys and other big boats that leave big wakes and get to see some real nature.

When we arrived at the house, we met Juan’s business partner Chapa. Chapa also spoke great english and was incredibly welcoming. He had kayaked out earlier so that he could have lunch ready for us when we arrived. The 5 of us sat down and had some delicious cheese sandwiches and Mate for a bit, then got ready to hit the river–very easy to leave stuff in their house while you’re on the river, so don’t worry about bringing stuff with you, it will be safe and you won’t have to take it in the kayak with you and get it wet.

This was their dock, and that dog is one of the only dogs that has been willing to play with Jen in all of Argentina

We got our brief onshore paddling lesson and then off we went. Chapa stayed behind to begin preparations for the massive Asado (aka huge BBQ with several courses of meat) that we would have when we returned. We took 2 tandem Kayaks, me and Jen in one and Juan and Ignacio in the other and followed a route that took us way, way out there–there were points where the water was almost too shallow even just for our kayaks, so definitely no other boats; other parts were more populated so we got to see lots of beautiful houses as well. It was beautiful, and it didn’t hurt that the weather was a perfect 75 degrees and sunny all day.

Ah, pure nature

...And some civilization as well

Juan set a great tone for the trip. It didn’t feel like we were tourists on a guided trip. He clearly knew an enormous amount about the area and shared a lot with us, but it felt more like we were just out kayaking with a friend and sort of hanging out, chatting about whatever came up. We kayaked for about 3.5 hours, which to be honest was probably an hour more than we needed… we were very tired when we finally got back to the house (and quite sore for the next several days). Along the way, Juan mentioned that his fiance and a friend of hers were going to join us for the Asado; we were excited to meet them (and have meat with them).

In case you were wondering, this is harder than it looks--especially after 3 hours

We got back probably around 3:30ish and Chapa had outdone himself on the grill. We met Juan’s fiance and her friend, who were also finishing their theses in Anthropology and spoke near perfect english, and sat down to wine, soft drinks, home made chimichurri and criolla sauce, bread, salad and potatoes as we eagerly awaited each meat course that Chapa brought over to us. It started with Choripan which is one of our very favorite things–think of a spanish type Chorizo cut in half and put in bread. It’s awesome. That was the appetizer, then it was followed by 3 courses of different cuts of steak all of which were fantastic. We clapped for the chef more than once.

This was the grill!

We sat, talked and ate for almost 3 hours and had a wonderful time. Again, the coolest part was that it didn’t feel at all like a tourist thing, it felt like we had been lucky enough to be invited out with some locals to hang out at their house in Tigre for a Sunday. We talked about Argentine customs and food rituals, which the anthropologists knew quite a bit about–e.g., the traditions around drinking Mate and the traditions around Asados–discussed local politics, compared to the US and where ever else the conversation took us. As anthropologists (and just genuinely cool people), they had some fascinating things to say.

We caught the last ferry back to Tigre at 6pm which got us back to the town at ~7:15pm or so. Then we fought our way through the massive crowd (it was a beautiful day, so the place was PACKED) to buy return train tickets and finally made it back to Retiro at ~9pm followed by home at ~9:15pm where we promptly collapsed. At 12+ hours, including 3.5 hours of paddling, this was a full day indeed.

Costs/logistics

What did we pay for such a full day? Not much. To be honest, we don’t remember exactly… it was either AR$250 or AR$300 per person including everything (US$65-75 each). Quite a deal for a 12 hour day like that, especially when you factor in all of the food. To set it up, you just need to email them and make a reservation (just check their website for contact info)–also, you should double check pricing, as it likely varies by season. Logistically, all you have to do is get yourself to the Tigre train station which is very easy. Trains leave Retiro station every 30 minutes or so 7 days a week.

Summary

As I said in the beginning, this is one of the best days we’ve had down here. Tigre is a great place to see (especially on a nice day) and I can’t recommend these guys enough. A lot of people go out to Tigre for the day and just ride around on the ferry; I think that’s an ok trip, but you see so much more if you do something like this. And, by the way, they’re quite happy to customize the kayaking portion if you want something that won’t leave you sore for several days 🙂

Highly, highly recommended.

A few more photos (and some repeats) in our image gallery here: Tigre Image gallery

Our trip to the Northwest of Argentina (the NOA) in summary

Posted on June 3, 2010 by ryan

In case you haven’t caught every post over the last couple of weeks, I wanted to put a quick summary of all of the posts related to our one-week trip to the Northwest of Argentina. As a reminder, we went to Salta, Cafayate, (through the the valle de Calchaquies) and then up north to the province of Jujuy, including the city of Jujuy, Purmamarca, Tilcara, Los Salinas Grandes (the salt flats) and the Quebrada de Humahuaca.

All in all, we really enjoyed the trip and it provided a great change of pace from the buzz of daily life in Buenos Aires. That said, we definitely encountered our share of issues on this trip, but that’s just how travelling works sometimes and you can’t let it ruin your trip. Anyway, here are the relevant posts:

1) Pre-trip planning: Some thoughts on trip planning for our second vacation-from-vacation before we left

2) The FlechaBus trip to Salta in Cama-suite: A humorous review of our very entertaining and rather uncomfortable 20 hour bus-ride to Salta on FlechaBus in their Cama-suite class of service.

3) A day in Cafayate: Photos and descriptions of a great day we had in Cafayate. If by any chance, you’re working long hours in a job you don’t love, please consider that days like this are a very viable, affordable and easy to setup alternative 🙂

4) Bad Experience with Local Guide in Salta: A copy of the review we wrote on Trip Advisor of our very unpleasant and money-wasting experience with a highly recommended private guide in Salta named Angie.

5) Trip Report on Salta and Northwest Argetina: A thorough and step by step review with photos of everything we saw and did while we were there along with our thoughts. If you only read one of these, read this one.

6) Review: Patios de Cafayate hotel: Our review of our (almost) great Starwood hotel in Cafayate

7) Photo gallery from the province of Salta: Including Salta city, Cafayate, Valle de Cachaquis, some wineries in Cafayate and a Goat Farm!

8 ) Photo gallery from the province of Jujuy: Including Purmarmarca, Los Salinas Grandes, Tilcara, Quebrada de Humahuaca and more

Our quick summary: Fantastic place to visit to see a different and very beautiful part of Argentina. That said, it didn’t blow us away–while we’d definitely recommend it if you’re in the area, it wouldn’t be the first place we’d recommend. We haven’t been to Bariloche or Mendoza yet, but we’d definitely say that Iguazu Falls is far more spectacular on an international scale (though a very, very different kind of experience).

Enjoy!

This vineyard surrounded our hotel, not bad...