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We visited Argentina at the best time possible for value
(beginning of 2003) as the currency had plunged to almost a
quarter of its worth compared to the same time a year before.
Best of all, inflation hadn't really increased that much so
everything was SO CHEAP! I know this situation will not last for
long so if you are able to visit this fantastic country, go now.
The
People
What a pleasant
surprise. In many parts of Latin America the Argentineans do not
have the best reputation; they are often characterized as
arrogant, loud and rude. So, as usual, our preconceptions were
wrong. The vast majority of the people we met were kind,
generous, friendly and helpful. Excluding, of course, the
thieving bastards in Bariloche who broke into our lovely cabin and
stole all our stuff (passports, credit cards, cameras, even a
bunch of clothes!). That experience may have ruined our opinion
of Argentineans but the owner of the cabins we were renting was so
concerned and helpful that it made up for it. In fact, she was
instrumental in helping actually catch the thieves after we had
left.
We were warned by
other Argentineans that the people in Buenos Aires could be very
nasty but that too turned out to be very much the opposite.
Things to Know
Argentina
is a huge country and you will need lots of time. We saw only a
very small portion of the country but were very impressed with
what we found. Most countries have a specialty product or food
(think Canadian maple syrup, French wine, Russian vodka) and
Argentina does too: MEAT! Meat, delicious meat. Meat's the
treat. You can't beat the meat. Or in the words of my old friend
Andrew Brink, "Meat's meat and a man's gotta eat!" Until you have
sunk your fangs into a three inch thick slab of juicy red 'bife de
lomo' you cannot call yourself a true carnivore. And the best
part is that we were paying 12 pesos for steaks that were at least
30 ounces cooked. That works out to be about three dollars
fifty. The steaks were so big there was no room left on the plate
for any filler (like vegetables) so we often just ate meat. And
beer, of course. And wine, of course. Both of which were
obscenely cheap as well. After discovering the price of steaks,
we priced everything in terms of meat. For example, a bus ticket
that cost 12 pesos was 'one meat'. An ice cream that cost 6 pesos
was 'half a meat'. Getting our passports replaced at the embassy
cost us '20 meats', what a rip-off. When we looked at things in
this way it just seemed wise to spend as much time as possible in
restaurants eating so that's what we did.
Leather items
such as jackets are another specialty in Argentina. We bought
some for about ninety US dollars each, a real bargain. The
quality is fantastic though before the big drop in exchange rates
they would have been very expensive. So go now!
The busses in Argentina,
like most other surrounding countries, are extremely good; much
better than what you will find in any first world countries. The
first class sections are quite cheap and offer huge reclining
leather seats, meal service, and movies en route. Getting on a
cramped economy airplane seat after the luxury busses was a real
shock.
Car rentals are
extremely expensive, even after the currency meltdown. And the
worst part is they will charge you around three hundred bucks if
you want to rent the car in one city and drop it off in another.
We got along fine without one.
Where
to Stay
We stayed mainly
in mid range hotels which were pretty good value for money. We
even found a four star hotel in central Buenos Aires on the
internet for twenty bucks a night! Thank god for that because the
first place we booked (recommended in the Lonely Planet) and
stayed in was scary. We slept with garlic necklaces on to keep
the vampires away as there were surely caskets full of those
bloodsuckers in the lower chambers. There are meant to be quite a
few youth hostels around but we didn't come across any and figured
that hotels were better anyway.
Where
to Eat
Eat bife de
chorizo or bife de lomo or ribs or lamb or any other kind of meat
in the 'Parillas" which are the Argentinean barbeque restaurants.
I'm not sure what to do if you are a vegetarian as we didn't see
too many places that served vegetarian food. Eat potatoes I
guess.
The quality of
the restaurants actually did vary a bit so I guess it is best to
ask around for the good places. We did make the mistake of
visiting a seafood restaurant and we regretted it. The seafood
was much more expensive than the meat and not very good. We were
very sad we passed up a chance to eat more meat.
Things to See and Do
We didn't see
much of the country but for the most part, what we did see we
loved. I'm sure that within a couple years the exchange rate will
strengthen and inflation will increase and it will once again
become a very expensive country. So go now!
Bariloche
The time we spent
in Bariloche was some of the most relaxed we had during our six
month long round the world trip. The town itself is quite
touristy, especially with people from Chile but also a fair number
of people from English speaking countries and Europe. We stayed in the town for a few days then moved out
to a secluded villa (Villa Panil, tel: , email) about twenty miles
from the city surrounded by pristine mountains, clean cold lakes
and green forests. Our life consisted of eating and sleeping with
at least 15 minutes per day devoted to mild exercise, such as
moving the bowels. We had met two of the most wonderful people
you can imagine, Fraser and Rebecca, on a tour in Bolivia and
hooked up with them again in Argentina. We ended up spending more
than a month traveling together and it really made the trip for
us. In our lovely little cabin we would wake up late, eat egg
bread (that's New Zealand lingo for french toast), have a chat and
enjoy the lovely mountain view, eat a big barbequed lunch of
snarlers (that's New Zealand lingo for sausages), drink beer,
watch a movie, have obligatory happy hour, go somewhere for dinner
which was always meat and beer, then return to the cabin and play
cards and drink beer until three in the morning. This perfect
routine went smoothly until our very last night when we returned
from dinner to find our cabin ransacked and all our valuables
gone. At the time it seemed to ruin everything, but looking back
it was only an unfortunate interruption in an otherwise idyllic
vacation.
Puerto Madryn
The city itself
was not too inspiring. What we did enjoy was the day trip to the
peninsula where we saw sea lions, an armadillo, foxes and
penguins. If you are not big into animals I'd probably recommend
giving this place a miss, especially since the rental car for the
day, which was a complete waste of metal, cost us something like
seventy or eighty bucks and that was the standard rate for all
companies! Plus we nearly choked to death on the dust and heat
since there was no air conditioning and the car rattled until we
though it was going to fall apart.
Buenos Aires
It was the meat,
the shopping, and the great hotel that did it for us. We normally
don't like big cities that much but Buenos Aires was a real pleasure. The only problem we had was that we spent loads of
time and money getting new passports, visas, and airline tickets,
all of which were stolen from us in Bariloche. Besides that we
really did enjoy spending time in the city seeing the little bit
of it that we had time for. We will definitely be back there and
give ourselves at least a week to explore the sights.
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Click for 
Our favourite restaurant
No room for spuds
Vegetarian special
Armadillo
Sunning on the deck
Our cabin
Grill masters
Argentinean punks
Mister Frodo, are you home??
Balanced diet |
