If you follow along on Facebook you would have seen I got married last October. Things were pretty hectic after the wedding with Katie and I so we’d planned our honeymoon to start on January 1st. We wanted somewhere new to both of us, warm (not winter!) and something exciting but with still some luxury dotted in. With little discussion we settled on South America and then more specifically Argentina. With both of us so busy we actually never did a whole lot of planning, thankfully we got some great advise from good friends and settled on the stops along the way, booked flights, at the last minute hotels and a tour or two. In all we were gone 19 days and it was quite literally one of the best times of our lives. Below is a bit of our adventure!
Iguazu Falls
We started the adventure in the very north, near the borders of Brazil and Paraguay at one of the most amazing water falls in the world, it puts Niagara to shame in sheer size. Stretching around 2 miles across it’s an impressive sight, set in the humid and hot jungle with loads of bugs it was so overwhelming! We had arranged a private tour guide (who was awesome) for the day and it made for such a perfect experience in and around the falls.
Yes, that ant really is about an inch long! It was one of many we saw.
Bariloche
Next up was the stunning city of Bariloche. Located in the middle of Argentina, it’s their lake district and in the northern part of Patagonia. A popular ski resort by winter and popular in the summer home/retreat for Argentinians from Buenos Aires. A beautiful setting of mountains, lakes and lush greenery! We had almost 5 days there and stayed quite a ways outside of the city in a remote but amazing little hotel. This was our first taste of the raw natural beauty and wonderful adventure Patagonia had to offer, we were so stunned and happy. We ate well, we hiked, went white water rafting, took an adventurous road trip and even a boat trip.
Our view from our hotel room at sunrise!
Our view from our hotel room at during the day!
Some adventurous hiking!
And every day ended with an awesome meal!
Day trip, looking back at Bariloche in the distance
We travelled many a mile on bumpy dirt roads, I have no idea how the cars there stay together…
Best steak of our trip in a roadside parilla amongst the locals! High class wine at $16 per bottle. The next day we spent white water rafting down the Rio Manso class III-V rapids into Chile! It looks gorgeous but the water was freezing, especially when we were tipped out of the raft!
El Chalten
Next up was a change of pace, moving on from Bariloche we left behind the luxury and flew then drove to the hiking outpost town of El Chalten. Located around 220kms from the nearest city (El Calafate) it’s quite literally in the middle of nowhere! We had a couple of days and three nights to explore the national park and our accommodations were almost the foot of the famous Mt Fitz Roy (3200m). Not all people would want to spend their honeymoon in freezing cold; crossing rivers and hiking 9+ hours but we loved it and it made the malbec every evening that much more enjoyable! While the weather was not ideal during our time in El Chalten it didn’t affect the amazing beauty and grand scale of the area, we were in awe of the sheer vastness of open space. I would definitely return here for more shots and can’t recommend the area enough to anyone who visits Patagonia.
Our massive all day hike took us up and around to the left eventually crossing the river. We later hiked over to the glacier shown here.
In this image above, near the centre is where Mt. Fitz Roy should be towering high above. Unfortunately we never had clear enough weather to capture it up close. We still endured a breathtaking (in beauty and effort) hike up 18oom through falling snow in the summer to this base. To give you an idea of scale there is a tiny red dot in the middle of the image, that’s a person!
The next day from another vantage point you could start to see Fitz Roy in the background
Looking back on El Chalten. This is a massive pano image I captured featuring the town and Fitz Roy in the distance. Our hosteria was a further 37 km from town and still aways from the base of Fitz Roy.
We’d been driving for almost an hour, around 70-80kms away and still the mountains appear crystal clear, the lone road had not a single bend …
El Calafate
After our long drive from El Chalten it was onto the town of El Calafate. We were there for one reason and one reason only – the Perito Moreno Glacier. Up early the next day and the first ones in the national park we had perfect conditions to see the glacier close up. We knew the glacier was ~ 90 sqkm but somehow it was bigger and grander than we could have ever imagined. Then it was crampons on – we devoted the rest of the morning to hiking onto the glacier itself – across inner ravines and ice formations caused by nature’s process. We ate lunch on this impressive beast and then hiked back in the howling ice cold wind of a “summer” day, stopping quickly to fill our water bottles with free “glacier” water. As our boat pulled away from the glacier’s face we knew we had seen natural beauty at a scale we had never seen before. To say it was impressive would be an understatement, it was probably the most poignant memory of our trip.
Ushuaia
Our last stop in Patagonia was the southern most city in the world, Ushuaia. We planned a quick stopover to see this gorgeous landscape and picked a picturesque hotel to complete the experience. It’s worth mentioning that some of the pics below were taken at 8pm – as it was summer sunsets were close to 10pm so far south! We ended our last morning in Patagonia with a chairlift into the mountains and an arduous hike that gave us amazing views of the Beagle Channel and the town .
Looking down at the town with the Beagle Channel and Chile in the distance.
Buenos Aires
Finally it was back to the big city for our last 5 days. After almost 2 weeks in the wilds of Patagonia to be back in such a huge and HOT city was surreal. We found it overwhelming at first but we had our own loft apartment and after a few mojitos, we hit our stride and enjoyed city life! We enjoyed some of the best food the city has to offer (from outdoor parillas to fancy restaurants), visited the must see sites, rented bikes (in 102 degree heat!) and on our last day signed up for a day on a polo ranch, which was a total blast!
All in all an amazing trip, it’s pretty hard to believe that we covered so much diversity in one country. Argentina is a truly remarkable destination: the people, the scenery and the sheer size of the country left us in awe and made it difficult to leave. We had some wonderful meals, even better wine and created memories we’ll never forget. Big thanks to all of those who helped make this the trip of a lifetime! x