Essential Argentina, Argentina
Experience Overview
Buenos Aires is a vibrant city, known for its art, culture, nightlife and friendly citizens. You get the impression of strolling through a European city and that’s where the name: “Paris of South America” has its origin: whine, tango, belle époque are omnipresent. Its South America’s most populated city after Sao Paulo and its port is one of the continent’s most important. The inhabitants or “Portenos” are mostly of Spanish and Italian origin and they are off course convinced they have the best football team in the world. Buenos Aires has a humid sub tropical climate and has 4 well defined seasons with temperatures ranging anywhere from 8C to 30C.
Ushuaia: At 50º south latitude, the last great frontier of the continent. Here ends the great Pan-American route that connects Tierra de Fuego with Alaska. Ushuaia is the southernmost city in the world, the gateway to Antarctica. At the bottom of the fjord and sheltered from the fury of Magallanes, its lights stand out against the landscape of southern mountains. Brave, young and obstinate, Ushuaia has streets that are full of life in the evenings, shop windows -of electronics, outdoor- with irresistible prices; bookstores to immerse yourself in fantastic worlds; Warm bars and sophisticated restaurants. Throughout the year, the temperature generally ranges from -1 ° C to 13 ° C and is rarely below -5 ° C or above 17 ° C.
El Calafate lies in the Southwestern tip of Patagonia close to the Chilean border. The little village is located on the banks of the gigantic lake Argentino, in the bedding of what once was an enormous glacier covering the whole region. Today there are still remainders of this once enormous and some of them advance some 30 cm a day and all of them end their lives in the Lago Argentino, which gives us the opportunity to get close to these wonders of nature during our excursions. This is certainly an important visit since it confronts us directly with today’s climate change issues. El Calafate has steppe climate with cool to hot, dry summers and cool to very cold winters with very little precipitation the year through. Temperatures can reach -5C during European summers.
Puerto Iguazú is a city in the province of Misiones, Argentina.
The city is part of an urban area known as the Triplice Fronteira, which also includes the Brazilian city of Foz do Iguaçu, in the State of Paraná, and the Paraguayan city of Ciudad del Este , from the Department of Alto Paraná. The world-renowned Iguazú Falls are only 18 kilometres (11 mi) away from the city, and as a result the city has developed much of its infrastructure around tourism. It is also a city very rich in beauty and natural varieties. Puerto Iguazú has a Humid Subtropical climate with temperatures that can plummet to -5C during the European summer and that can reach as high as 40C during the European winter.
Sample Itinerary
DAY 1
Arrival Buenos Aires
Arrival. Reception and assistance by our local guide at Ezeiza International Airport. Transfer to your hotel. Check-in assistance. (Check-in: 15h / Check-out: 12h). Overnight.
DAY 2
City Tour
Breakfast. City Tour. Enjoy the city on a tour of its main attractions.This tour gives you the emotion of a multiple Buenos Aires with it´s landmark: The Obelisk. We´ll visit places such as Plaza de Mayo, San Martin, Alvear and avenues like Corrientes, De Mayo, 9 de Julio, among others. Historical neighborhoods: La Boca, San Telmo, fancy as Palermo and Recoleta, modern like Puerto Madero; Parks like Lezama and Tres de Febrero, business and shopping areas. Football Stadiums and many more. Overnight.
DAY 3
Flight to Ushuaia
Breakfast. Transfer to J. Newbery National Airport for your flight to Ushuaia (not included). Arrival. Reception and assistance by our local guide at the airport. Transfer to the hotel. Check-in assistance. (Check-in: 15h / Check-out: 12h). Overnight.
DAY 4
Tierra del Fuego
Breakfast. 12 km. west of Ushuaia is the entrance to the Tierra del Fuego National Park, the only one with maritime coast in our country. It occupies an area of 63,000 hectares where lengas, cherries, ñires, cauliflowers, notros, flowers like orchids, violets and senecios coexist. A walk through this National Park, besides offering multiple panoramic views over the Beagle Channel framed by the mountains and the forest, brings us closer to Nature. The opportunity to breathe the sea air together with the perfume of the forest is the privilege of few. We will follow the path along the path that traces a very thin strip at the foot of the mountain; We will pass between peat bogs, beaver dykes and arrive at the Lapataia River. When crossing it the route turns serpentine and sprinkled with shrub vegetation, with panoramic views, as for example, on the Green Lagoon. The kaikenes and the bandurrias arrive here every summer. If you want to feel the protagonist of a story, we recommend the walk along the path that leads to the Laguna Negra or the path Los Castores, to interpret the work of these curious animals. Then begins the final stretch towards Lapataia (end of National Route No. 3), where the ancient inhabitants of the area have left their testimony: the concheros, incredible archaeological sites. We set sail from the local tourist dock crossing the wide Ushuaia Bay until reaching the Beagle Channel through Paso Chico. There we sail around the Isla de los Pájaros where we will see the birds of Tierra del Fuego watching skuas, black-browed albatrosses, steam ducks, cauquenes, cook gulls and gray seagulls; and of the Isla de los Lobos where we can observe sea lions of one and two hairs. Both islands belong to the Bridges Archipelago. When arriving at the Lighthouse Les Eclaireurs (The Illuminators), we will be able to appreciate the colonies of imperial cormorants and rocky cormorants; and also listen to the story of the collapse of the SS Monte Cervantes that he starred in 1930. Finishing the journey You will be amazed by the view of the mountain range that surrounds the city of Ushuaia and its sumptuous nature that surrounds it. It is a tour of great historical and scenic value that we made, visiting privileged and interesting points along the entire trip, which you can discover sailing with Canoero catamarans through the waters of the Beagle Channel. Return to Ushuaia. Overnight.
DAY 5
Flight to El Calafate
Breakfast. Transfer to Ushuaia Airport for your flight to Calafate (not included). Arrival. Reception and assistance by our local guide at the airport. Transfer to the hotel. Check-in assistance. (Check-in: 15h / Check-out: 12h). Overnight.
DAY 6
Perito Moreno Glacier
Breakfast. We will leave from El Calafate to the Glaciers National Park about 50 km along paved road (declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1981), continuing 30km inside the Los Glaciares National Park until reaching the Perito Moreno Glacier. From the beginning, the trip has pleasant surprises. Leaving the town, on the right we can see Lake Argentino with its Redonda Bay. In it you can see an important variety of avifauna, standing out the black-necked swan, flamingo, steam duck, gallareta, cauquén. The yellow color of the field is highlighted, this is due to its pastures called coirón, and among them stands out the white coirón and petiso. In the first 40 km the Patagonian steppe is crossed, passing later to the entrance of the National Park to observe the arboreal vegetation pertaining in its great majority of the family “notofagus” (ñires, guindos, lengas) and the one other canelo, and flowers of different colors, among which the note is highlighted by its intense red color, corresponding to the Patagonian Andean Forest. Once on the glacier, we go to the main balcony, then walk the catwalks freely, until the meeting time agreed with the guide. The footbridges offer from their viewpoints different perspectives of the glacier, allowing to enjoy this incredible natural spectacle. The glacier, named after the great Argentine explorer of the last century, is one of the few in the world in advance. This has made it one of the greatest natural spectacles in the world. In its advance it dammed the waters of the Rico Brazo of the Argentino Lake, with what the level of that reaches to rise until 30 meters on the one of the Argentine Lake, putting pressure on the ice. First, a tunnel with a vault of more than 50 meters is created, through which the waters of the Brazo Rico descend to Lake Argentino. The erosion caused by the water finally causes the collapse of the vault, in one of the most impressive spectacles that can be witnessed. The process has been repeated throughout irregular intervals: the last rupture, which began to take place on March 10, 2018. For lunch, the Park has a service area with a restaurant and a snack. Overnight.
DAY 7
Free Day
Breakfast. Free day at leisure. Overnight.
DAY 8
Flight to Puerto Iguazu
Breakfast. Transfer to El Calafate Airport for your flight to Puerto Iguazu (not included). Arrival. Reception and assistance by our local guide at the airport. Transfer to the hotel. Check-in assistance. (Check-in: 15h / Check-out: 12h). Overnight.
DAY 9
Argentinean side of the falls
Breakfast. Departure to visit the Argentinean Side of the Falls (National Park fee included). After taking the Ecological train, we will visit the upper and lower walkways of the argentinean side, approaching both water falls you can almost touch. Such magnitude of wild nature gets its highest expression in “The Devil’s Throat”, where the tumultuous waters are countless rainbow. We recommend the Optional tour “The Great Adventure”, where passengers of the boat have a baptism under one of his waterfalls. Overnight.
DAY 10
Brazilian side of the falls + flight to Buenos Aires
Breakfast. Morning tour to Brazilian Side of the Falls (National Park fee included). From Puerto Iguazú we will cross The International Bridge ‘Tancredo Neves’ (Puente de la Fraternidad) that joins the cities of Puerto Iguazú (Argentina) and Foz do Iguaçu (Brazil). At the crossing border we will go through Customs at both sides of the bridge. The Iguaçu National Park (on the Brazilian side) is 185.000 hectares long. As we get to the ‘Visitor Center’ we will enter the gates individually to check the loading capacity of the Park. We will immediately get into the buses to go along within the park and they will take us to the 1200 trail over the ‘Iguazú River’. At this point we will get a panoramic view of the Argentinean falls, ideal to take pictures. As we go on, we can see ‘Río Iguazú Canyon’ – Salto Rivadavia and Tres Mosqueteros (falls). Towards the end of the tour we will get to Devil’s Throat lower viewpoint (200m away). This beautiful scenery is enhanced by permanent rainbows. The tour ends at ‘Salto Floriano’ where an elevator takes us to the bus parking. The other option is to walk the path and up the stairs to the meeting point. In the afternoon and at the scheduled time, transfer Out to the airport for the flight to Buenos Aires (not included). Arrival, assistance and reception by our local guide at the airport. Transfer In to hotel. Check-in assistance. (Check-in: 15h / Check-out: 12h). Overnight.
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