We went down to Argentina with the Gulsens, Olkins, and Scudisons over the New Year’s break, primarily to go hiking in Patagonia but with a stop before in Buenos Aires and one after at Iguazu Falls, near the triple border between Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina.
Buenos Aires is a beautiful city. We stayed in Palermo, a very walkable neighborhood near downtown, in an old hotel with a nice garden.
The weather in Patagonia in general was phenomenal – normally it’s cloudy and windy, but we had a few days so clear that even the guides were taking pictures. We hiked up to the lake at the base of Cedro FitzRoy and had perfect views of the whole massif.
Estancia Cristina, one of the places we stayed, was a 2+ hour boat ride across Lake Argentina. It’s off the grid, literally – they turn off the electricity at night. (The 20-somethings were all scrambling to charge and download.) Most of the horseback riding was there, along with a hike down a long fossil-filled canyon.
On the way back, we stopped at Iguazu falls to see if the rumors about it being more spectacular than Niagara Falls are true – they are. We walked along both the Argentina and Brazil sides and took the Brazilian equivalent of Maid of the Mist. We also went to Itaipu Dam on the Paraguay-Brazil border, spending an hour or so on the Paraguayan side.