Aconcagua – Trouspinet travels

Wow, what a journey that was! Argentina jumps effortlessly into the list of my top 5 destinations of all time, and for scenery, it would be No. 1. However, this trip required lots of planning, and I also learnt a lot as I was travelling. In this post I list my personal highlights and give some tips for planning (valid as of November 2022).

TROUSPINET’S HIGHLIGHTS

To help you plan your trip, here is my ranking of the places I visited on this trip:

Quebrada de Humahuaca (northwest Argentina)
Perito Moreno Glacier, Patagonia
Foz Iguazu
Mount Fitzroy, Patagonia
Torres del Paine, Chilean Patagonia
The drive from Mendoza to Aconcagua
The drive from Salta to Cachi
Puerto Varas and the Chilean Lake District
Buenos Aires
Mendoza’s vineyards
Bariloche and the Argentine Lake District
Salta

I put Bariloche and Salta bottom because there are places in Europe a bit like them, whilst the other places are unique in the world. But I really enjoyed even my lower-ranked locations on this trip – I simply didn’t have a single bad travelling day.

TROUSPINET’S TOP TIPS

Be Selective – Distances are huge, as is the choice of places to visit.

Unless you have the time (and endurance) for 12-36 hour bus rides, you will need to fly if you want to see many of the country’s highlights. I went for nearly one month, usually flew between destinations, but still did not have time to see everything I wanted to. After much thought, I regretfully excluded Ushuaia and some of the national parks from my list. You will also have to make some hard choices.

Check which Internal Flights operate

The main flight operators in Argentina are Aerolineas Argentinas, JetSmart and FlyBondi. Argentine airlines have a bad reputation for reliability and punctuality, but I had no major delays in any of my seven internal flights.

Check when flights go direct from one regional destination to another (eg Salta to Mendoza), without having to go back to Buenos Aires and out again. These flights will save you a lot of time and money, but they don’t operate every day. The popular and very convenient Bariloche-El Calafate flight only operates in the peak tourist season – late November to February. If you do have to fly back to Buenos Aires, remember it has two airports – the very convenient Aeroparque Newberry (AEP) located in the city, and Ezeiza (EZE), which is a long way out of town. Book ahead for anything In, To or From Patagonia over November – February. The region is hugely and justifiably popular in the southern summer. I went in November – not the peak season – and even then, I heard that the buses from El Calafate to Bariloche were fully booked for several days.

Cut your Costs by 50% using the “Blue Dollar”

Argentina has two exchange rates. The official rate is what you get for foreign currency in a bank, or if you pay by credit card. It is also applied to cash withdrawals by a credit card – which are a very bad idea since local bank fees for these transactions are also very high.

The unofficial exchange rate (or “blue dollar”) is nearly twice as good. You can get the “blue” rate from money changers offering their services on Calle Florida in Buenos Aires. Avoid them – they all look shady and are notorious for cheating customers. By far the best way to change money at the unofficial rate is by Western Union money transfer. Set up an account (important – do this in your home country before you leave), transfer money to yourself for pick up as cash in Argentina. You will need your passport and transfer details to collect the cash. It sounds easy, but there are a few complications:

Western Union’s website lists lots of agencies, but many of these are very small and don’t have money. Pick the biggest agencies, which are listed as “C.S” on their site.
Agencies are shut at weekends, except a few in Buenos Aires that open Saturday morning
Expect big queues on Mondays and the first and last days of the month.
There are no facilities in Patagonia.
You will get bulky wads of hundreds of banknotes. Argentina’s most valuable note, the 1000 peso, is worth only 3€ at the unofficial rate. And that’s if they give you 1000 notes – I often received 500s or even 100s.

All of the above means that you will need to plan in advance when and where you will get cash, particularly if you are going to Patagonia.

Accommodation – Check the Exchange Rate when you book

I used Booking.com to book hotels. You get quoted a price in US$. Once you have made a booking, contact the hotel to ask if they apply the official exchange rate if you choose to pay in pesos. Most of my hotels agreed to this; only one asked for the blue rate (so I cancelled and booked somewhere else). If you pay like this, you save 50%! More expensive hotels add 20% VAT to their bills, which can you avoid by paying with a foreign credit (but then you get the official exchange rate, so it is still better to pay with cash).

AirBnB is not recommended, because you pay in advance in your own currency. It may have been bad luck, but the one place I booked with them was of very poor quality and seemed more aimed at local tourists.

Don’t Rely too much on Guidebooks

Things change quickly in Argentina. Our guidebook claimed to have been reprinted in January 2022, but was hopelessly out of date.

Packing

Check average weather conditions and pack accordingly. Patagonia and Tierra Del Fuego are cold even in the southern summer and need very warm clothing and waterproofs. Aerolineas Argentinas (but not the other airlines) has a limit of 15kg for checked baggage, so you may also need to pack light and fully use the allowances of 8kg for carry-on baggage and 3kg for a personal item. The 15kg rule is not strictly enforced – we were usually a couple of kilos over, but the check-in staff ignored this.

Learn some (Argentine) Spanish

In touristy areas like Patagonia and parts of Buenos Aires, you can get by with English. But in most other places, few people other than hotel staff spoke a second language. If you already speak some Castilian Spanish, be aware that there are big differences in the pronunciation of “y” and “ll”, and that the second person singular “tu” is replaced by “vos” – with different verb endings. I didn’t find any good books on Argentine Spanish, but I found this website (for intermediate speakers) to be very good- https://argentalk.com

That’s all for now. I could write a lot more, but I am worried I will bore my readers. If anyone has a question, please leave a reply at the bottom of this page. Happy Travelling!

My plan today was simple – to drive off to Aconcagua National Park to see the highest mountain in the Americas. It was a three-hour drive away, but this turned out to be one of the highlights of my trip so far. The road led west into the Andes, first passing through the foothills….

As I climbed, the scenery became increasingly rugged and spectacular……..

The road was beautiful almost all the away along its 190km length. I am a small teddy, but I felt much smaller as I contemplated the majestic landscapes. Shortly before my destination, there is a quirky natural rock bridge called Puente del Inca that I visited briefly. It was popular with people taking a break from the long drive from Mendoza to Santiago in Chile.

The entrance to the park was just before the Chilean border. I found to my surprise that you needed to pre-register a visit on the internet. This must have been a new procedure, since it wasn’t mentioned in any of the websites I had seen or my guidebook. Luckily there was a small shop next to the park office, which had wifi (no mobile signal here!) and the friendly owner helped me navigate through the park authority’s registration website. The permit I bought allowed me to walk a short distance into the park to a point with a great view of the mountain – going in any further would require a very expensive climbing permit. The park ranger told me that the walk would take around 2 hours – especially for someone with little legs like me. However, his advice was based on visitors who were not acclimatised to the 3000m altitude; since I had already spent several days in mountains, I could walk much faster and got there in under an hour. I smugly passed several other walkers, who were struggling for breath.

The mountain soon came into view. It is 6,960m tall (increasing by 2cm per year!) and easily the highest mountain in the Americas. Although it is very high, it is supposed to be technically an easy climb; I had been briefly tempted by this idea until I discovered that at least 10 days acclimatisation to extreme altitude is needed before attempting it.

I was lucky to have brilliant sunshine; as with any tall mountain, the top of Aconcagua is often covered in cloud. I soon reached the bridge that marked the end of the route for non-climbers. I stopped for half an hour to admire the view and met some new friends…….

The drive back was equally spectacular, giving a different perspective to the mind-blowing views I had seen on the way up.

The way back was just as impressive as the outward trip

I finally arrived in Mendoza, returned my hire car, and headed to Western Union for some more pesos. I was both lucky and unlucky – they just had enough money left in their branch to pay my latest transfer but had to resort to paying part of my 200,000 pesos with (a lot of) 100 peso notes. I left with all of my pockets filled with wads of cash.

It was now time for dinner. I was tired of eating meat and wanted to have fish for a change. My guidebook had listed seafood or vegetarian restaurants for all the towns I had visited so far, but these recommendations had all closed! It seems that the life expectancy of a restaurant not serving meat is very short in Argentina. A long internet search revealed one (and only one) restaurant that specialised in seafood, so I headed there to have a nice paella.

Back in my flat I collapsed into bed and fell fast asleep. I was very tired. So far, almost every day of my holiday had started early, finished late, and involved lots of driving. There was so much to do, and the never-ending display of beautiful landscapes was almost overpowering. It was getting harder and harder to write my blog. I resolved to take it a bit easier at my next destination, Bariloche in Argentina’s lake district.

Tag: Aconcagua

Trouspinet’s Top Tips and Highlights for Argentina

Aconcagua – the Summit of the Americas