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.
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?)
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.
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.
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.)
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.
Estancia Huechahue
There's a Mapuche (the indigenous tribe who populated most of the lakes region of Patagonia before the white guys turned up wielding swords and smallpox) legend that goes something like this. God (for it is he) was wandering about the Earth, deciding where to put this and that mountain, volcano, lake, etc. Upon reaching the Argentine Lake District he tripped over a foothill (it can happen to anyone) and accidentally deposited all of the really beautiful stuff in this one region, where it remains, largely unblemished, to this day. This impressed the Spanish so much they told the Mapuche to go fish and hunt somewhere else.
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.
You get on a plane at BA's Aeroparque. You're going to Patagonia. Patagonia, baby!
An hour later and you're cruising over the flattest landscape you've ever seen: no wrinkles, no creases, an endless green shirtfront pressed into perfection by Mother Nature's valet. This isn't how it looked on the Discovery channel. Never mind. Can't be long till those snow-capped peaks hove into view.
Half an hour later and you still haven't seen anything resembling a gradient. Then, quite suddenly, the plane lands, depositing you in an Alpine town that resembles the set of the 1937 adaptation of Heidi. As you push your trolley through arrivals, a stunningly attractive blonde hands you a flyer inviting you to a log-chopping contest where this year's Queen of the Boysenberry will be crowned. You make your way to your hotel, noting en route that every second shop specializes in hand-made chocolates. WTF?
Welcome to Bariloche, Argentina's most popular tourist destination after Buenos Aires. It's a big, busy, fun and freakish city with stuff going on all year round: trekking and sunbathing (it can hit 35 degrees down here) in summer, skiing in winter (mostly by Brazilians, hence the nickname 'Brasiloche'), log chopping smackdowns every Saturday afternoon. You'll notice a lot of teenagers. Argentine kids come here for a week after graduating high school to 'let their hair down', that is to say, to drink cheap whisky and acquire their first STD.
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.
Patagonia. Just the word itself is enough to give most travel writers a boner. All those turquoise lakes and snow-capped peaks; that relentless, scudding wind peeling off the topsoil to reveal dinosaur thigh bones and Nazi gold; the eccentric characters (if you don't meet one, just invent one, no one will find out); the equally eccentric fauna, much of which can be shot dead with impunity; Butch, Sundance, Darwin, Chatwin, er, Stallone... for us it's better than a Jenna Jameson compilation. If you want to ruin a dinner party, invite a travel hack and ask them to talk about their voyage to the "End of the World". It's up there with "Grandad, tell us about that time you killed 10 Japs with a single coconut on Guadacanal."
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by MattyC
