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Hotel Video Tours: La Cayetana Hotel
Last year, Buenos Aires gadabout Matt Chesterton filled us in on the boutique hotel scene in the city. And wouldn't you know, we needed a place to crash after our long trip to Uruguay. (Our flight was out of Ezeiza airport in BsAs.)
So we looked up La Cayetana, after reading Matt's dead-on description:
Here's a boutique where the designers (Estela Fitere and Silvina Tarrio) have devoted more than 10 minutes and a few phone calls to their scheme. A perfect blend of restored original features (the mosaic floors, the high bare-brick ceilings, the free-standing tubs) and modern conveniences (Wi-Fi, etc).
We really enjoyed our one-night stay, and our full review, complete with another video tour is after the jump.
Tags: Punta Del Este Hotel Guide / Matt Chesterton / Uruguay Hotels / Francis Mallmann / → All Tags
Punta del Este Hotel Scene: Garzón
Once again Matt Chesterton has returned to HotelChatter. All week long he will be schooling us on the hot hotel scene in Punta del Este, Uruguay. Any tips, suggestion or questions? Send 'em our way and we'll have Matt answer them for ya. For now, sit back and enjoy.
We end our seagull's-eye swoop along the Uruguayan coast by going a few kilometers inland, to the wee town of Garzón.
Garzón doesn't look like a vacation resort. It doesn't even look like a town. If it had a Wikipedia entry, we would link to it. But, like all communities in Latin America that can be placed somewhere on the spectrum between hamlet and city, Garzón has a town square, a church, a general store, and a thriving stray dog scene.
It has also has a police station which must be doing a pretty good job, because there is no crime. Oh, and one more thing. Garzón is home to one of the best and most exclusive lodgings in Uruguay.
Tags: Punta Del Este Hotel Guide / Matt Chesterton / Uruguay Hotels / → All Tags
Punta del Este Hotel Scene: José Ignacio
Once again Matt Chesterton has returned to HotelChatter. All week long he will be schooling us on the hot hotel scene in Punta del Este, Uruguay. Any tips, suggestion or questions? Send 'em our way and we'll have Matt answer them for ya. For now, sit back and enjoy.
With our customary zeal for persnickety research, we've unearthed a draft (never published) of a tourist brochure for José Ignacio, the fishing village turned chi-chi resort located 25 km or so east of Punta del Este city. Here's an excerpt:
José Ignacio is the perfect spot to hunker down in during a nuclear holocaust. It's remote enough to ensure no belligerent would waste a missile leveling it but easily reachable from Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and other international hubs.
You'll have access to several well-stocked supermarkets in JI, as well as the world's second largest ocean, so you'll be able to feast on cod and canned sweet corn whenever you fancy! The famous faro (lighthouse) offers panoramic views of the coastline, enabling you and your fellow citizens to keep tabs on the movements of those inevitable gangs of radioactive mutants. And here's the best part. Jose Ignacio is home to an ever-swelling community of writers, artists, new-media tycoons, fashion designers, and beach bums - all the components needed to reboot western civilization from scratch!
Sign up today! Our H-Bomb holiday package starts at 50 million euros for 40 years bed and breakfast -- tax free!
The threat of a thermonuclear freak-out has of course receded since this brochure was penned; the attractions of José Ignacio, on the other hand, have never loomed larger: Latin America's 'best-kept secret' has gone viral.
Tags: Punta Del Este Hotel Guide / Matt Chesterton / Uruguay Hotels / → All Tags
Punta del Este Hotel Scene: La Barra
Once again Matt Chesterton has returned to HotelChatter. All week long he will be schooling us on the hot hotel scene in Punta del Este, Uruguay. Any tips, suggestion or questions? Send 'em our way and we'll have Matt answer them for ya. For now, sit back and enjoy.
Bikini Beach: The Taliban's and Susan Sarandon's worst nightmare and every frat boy's soggiest wet dream; less a fleshpot than a fleshcauldron. It's not, however, an elitist scene. Anyone, blonde or brunette, very rich or slightly rich, is encouraged to declare their assets on this sand stage. The only prerequisites are a) enormous fake breasts; b) a wasp waist; c) a bikini. (Interestingly, going topless is a no-no in Punta. No one knows why.)
Tags: Punta Del Este Hotel Guide / Matt Chesterton / Uruguay Hotels / → All Tags
Punta del Este Hotel Scene: Staying in The City
Once again Matt Chesterton has returned to HotelChatter. All week long he will be schooling us on the hot hotel scene in Punta del Este, Uruguay. Any tips, suggestion or questions? Send 'em our way and we'll have Matt answer them for ya. For now, sit back and enjoy.
A Martian sends a postcard home from Punta del Este:
Even by Earth standards, this is a strange place. Person A will pay person B to put lumps of plastic underneath her skin. This is so person A becomes bigger. At the same time, person A will pay person C to wake them up in the morning and compel them to do an hour's vigorous exercise. This is so person A becomes smaller. Strangest of all is this: the less time a person spends in his hotel room, the more he pays for it. Apparently if you screw someone just a little bit, they will complain; but if you screw someone really hard, they will brag about it. Wish you were here. PS Please wire more money. PPS Preferably the money known as euros; the currency known as dollars is worth shit.
But at least he didn't write: Punta del Este is the Hamptons of South America. We're getting sick of reading this. [Ed. Note: Oops.] There may even come a point when we get sick of writing it. If only travel journalists would go on strike and Leno's writers go back to work. Does the Hamptons have a hand in the sand? Or anything like this? Case dismissed.
Tags: Punta Del Este Hotel Guide / Matt Chesterton / Uruguay Hotels / → All Tags
An Introduction to the Punta del Este Hotel Scene
Once again Matt Chesterton has returned to HotelChatter. All week long he will be schooling us on the hot hotel scene in Punta del Este, Uruguay. Any tips, suggestion or questions? Send 'em our way and we'll have Matt answer them for ya. For now, sit back and enjoy.
In case you hadn't noticed, a crucial, not to mention fiercely fought contest is currently underway. The outcome is uncertain, the stakes sky-high. Candidates? There are many; and all of them have to strut, fret, smirk, and when all else fails, beg. There are friends to placate, enemies to crush, thousands of hands to shake, and a seemingly infinite number of babies to kiss. (Fatigue will take its toll: somewhere along the line a hand will be kissed and a baby shaken.)
Yup, it's mid January in Punta del Este. And before the month is out the glossies will have anointed this season's most coveted awards -- Top Blonde, Rack of the Year and, most hankered-after of all, This Summer's Firm-Yet-Tactile Buttocks. In these competitions, everyone wants the booby prize.
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Again, May We Remind You: Don't Judge a Hotel By Its Website
The faboo Monica Guy, who is becoming a younger, more attractive Andy Rooney in this space, makes another appearance on HotelChatter today. This time, she wants to know why hotels sometimes have such crappy websites. Enjoy.
And speaking of hotels with outdated websites....
Our legendary Buenos Aires correspondent Matt Chesterton once wrote a slamming piece on the Onze Trendy Hotel in Buenos Aires, namely for the poor grammar on the homepage and the verbose new-agey description. That got Matt into a spot of trouble over in BA (he may or may not be in the witness protection program now), but we think of it every time we check out a hotel's god-awful website.
Why do hoteliers spend millions of dollars on their hotels, thousands on their chefs, hundreds on their potted plant decorations and pillowcases, at least ten on their staff training, and then display it all to the world with a fluffed website?
Tags: Buenos Aires Hotel Reviews / Buenos Aires Hotel Guide / Ian Mount / Matt Chesterton / → All Tags
248 Finisterra Gets A Nod, Barely, from the NY Times
A while back we mentioned the 248 Finisterra Hotel in our Thinker's Guide to Staying in Buenos Aires written by the brave Matt Chesterton.
Back then Matt wrote:
Finisterra is actually a fine looking place, even if everything has been ordered from Boutique Fittings Ltd. The main draw is the location, in Las Cañitas, yet another Palermo sub-barrio.
Las Cañitas has thrived lately as a neighborhood for nightclubs, shops, sushi restaurants and bars for the "young and beautiful" so says Ian Mount of the New York Times, who reviewed the hotel for the paper's "Check In, Check Out" column.
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Yo Quiero Dormir: Quiet hotels in Buenos Aires
[Ed. Note: We have gotten a few questions about finding a hotel in Buenos Aires that are not-so-noisy, so naturally we hit up our resident Argentina hotel expert, Matt Chesterton, for his suggestions. Enjoy.]
BA stands for Buenos Aires. It could equally well stand for Bad Acoustics. This is one of the world's noisiest cities. Several street intersections make the global top 20 of eardrum-shattering junctions. On a recent trip to London we were stunned by how quiet the city centre was. That's how loud BA is.
Several readers have asked us to recommend some 'quiet hotels' in BA. It's a good question to ask and a tricky one to answer. For one thing, you can't assume that a hotel in a quiet neighborhood is a quiet hotel. The Hotel Panamericano, for example, overlooks the world's widest boulevard, Avenida 9 de Julio. But their rooms are so well soundproofed you can hear a pin drop in them. (If you want to test this out, go ahead; just be sure to pick the pin up afterwards or you're bound to tread on it.)
Award-winning Home Hotel, on the other hand, is in a peaceful neighborhood of cobblestoned streets and one-story housing, far away from major traffic arteries. But they have a lively bar and cocktail garden (over which the rooms are tightly clustered) and party-oriented guests. A group of LA advertising execs in full braying mode is, in the noise pollution stakes, a match for any number of low-flying fighter jets. And way more annoying.
There are good reasons why business people stay in 'business hotels'. They tend to be quieter, regardless of the location. They tend to have more rooms than boutique hotels, so you can easily ask for a room change if you want one. Larger three-star establishments are rarely double glazed or soundproofed but usually have quiet rooms (often the ones with a view of the parking lot).
Golden rule: If a hotel describes itself as having a 'chilled atmosphere' or anything along those lines, you can guarantee it's about as quiet as a recently kicked beehive.
[Photo: Coolinbox]
Tags: Patagonia Hotel Guide / Argentina Hotels / Matt Chesterton / → All Tags
Staying in Patagonia: Tierra del Fuego & Ushuaia
Travel writer Matt Chesterton who broke down the Buenos Aires hotel scene for us last month, is back to help us crack staying in Patagonia. As Matt told us, Patagonia lodging knowledge is actually more important than knowing BA, in some ways. For instance, in BA if you get stuck in a dodgy hotel you can check out and be checked into a new location within the hour. In Patagonia, you could be 1,000 clicks from the nearest alternative location--so pay attention. If you have a specific question about Patagonia accommodations, hit us on the tipline, or just comment below, and we will do our best to get you some sort of answer. Enjoy.
[Photo: JuliettaDM]
Tierra del Fuego. Land of Fire. The End of the World. (Why not 'the beginning'? Who's in charge of branding around here?) And the end of our whistle-stop tour around Patagonia's accommodation scene, which we hope you haven't hated.
So, Tierra del Fuego and its capital Ushuaia (pronounced oo-SWY-yah). What's it like, this last outpost of humanity, heavy industry and litter before you reach (and you can reach if you're prepared to shell out 10,000 dollars on an Antarctica trip) the still-pristine but probably melting southern ice continent?
(Lame digression on Al Gore: How porky is that guy these days? Is he going to personally volunteer to plug the hole in the ozone layer? Is that the 'big announcement' we're waiting for? Also, on some occasions he looks fatter than on others. Is it the natural flux of water retention, or, with his contacts in Hollywood, has he borrowed William Shatner's girdle, the one which kept Captain Kirk looking relatively trim during the latter Star Trek movies?)
Tags: Patagonia Hotel Guide / Argentina Hotels / Matt Chesterton / → All Tags
Staying in Patagonia: El Calafate and The Glaciers
Travel writer Matt Chesterton who broke down the Buenos Aires hotel scene for us last month, is back to help us crack staying in Patagonia. As Matt told us, Patagonia lodging knowledge is actually more important than knowing BA, in some ways. For instance, in BA if you get stuck in a dodgy hotel you can check out and be checked into a new location within the hour. In Patagonia, you could be 1,000 clicks from the nearest alternative location--so pay attention. If you have a specific question about Patagonia accommodations, hit us on the tipline, or just comment below, and we will do our best to get you some sort of answer. Enjoy.
View from Eolo in El Calafate
[Photo: Iankalass]
Imagine the middle of nowhere. Now imagine a city rising there against the odds, built by visionaries driven by a strange blend of greed, chutzpah and sheer bloodymindedness. The city grows and becomes a tourist mecca, drawing visitors from every corner of the globe. Wonderful hotels are built to accommodate them. More people come so the old hotels are torn down and bigger, better ones built in their place. What started as a risky dream has become a lucrative reality. What a place!
But enough about Las Vegas. We're here to talk about El Calafate. Oh dear.
Tags: Patagonia Hotel Guide / Argentina Hotels / Matt Chesterton / → All Tags
Staying in Patagonia: Puerto Madryn & Península Valdés
Travel writer Matt Chesterton who broke down the Buenos Aires hotel scene for us last month, is back to help us crack staying in Patagonia. As Matt told us, Patagonia lodging knowledge is actually more important than knowing BA, in some ways. For instance, in BA if you get stuck in a dodgy hotel you can check out and be checked into a new location within the hour. In Patagonia, you could be 1,000 clicks from the nearest alternative location--so pay attention. If you have a specific question about Patagonia accommodations, hit us on the tipline, or just comment below, and we will do our best to get you some sort of answer. Enjoy.
We love watching penguins. We could sit around all day watching penguins. In fact, we often have. What's the attraction? It's just something about the way they go about their business. We enjoyed the new Scorsese movie, but still, we'd have rather spent those two and a half hours watching penguins.
(If you were unlucky enough to catch the previous installments of this series, you may have already deduced that our two favorite Patagonian diversions are penguin watching and attending high profile trunk-chopping competitions. We've been developing a hybrid game which incorporates certain elements of both these pursuits and expect to showcase `Penguin Chop' just as soon as Latin American Inventor is premiered down here.)
[Photo: IgnacioErrico]
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