Since the collapse of the Peso, Argentina has gone from the most expensive country in South America to one of the cheapest. This has made Argentina into a hot destination for budget travellers for the first time.
I never made it to Patagonia, because it was winter, but I had a great time in Buenos Aires - a sophisticated European-style city with great food (if you're not vegetarian), and great nightlife.
Domestic flights have suddenly become a bargain, so you can go to the far-flung corners of this vast country quickly and cheaply. I flew to Salta, a pleasant colonial city up in the foothills of the Andes. From here you can bus up to Bolivia through the back door and acclimatise, unlike flying in to La Paz at 4,000 metres (apprx 13,000ft).
Footprint are the experts in South American travel. The Footprint South American Handbook is great and the Footprint Argentina Handbook is far better than its rivals. Time Out publishes interesting books - Time Out guide to Buenos Aires and Time Out guide to Patagonia. As for maps, we stock a range of road atlases, street plans and detailed maps of Patagonia imported from Argentina and Chile.
Author: Guy Bristow
Date: 1 February 2004
1 comment
Comments
15 August 2008 14:20 : William Russell
Read and compare. The guides will all be on Stanford's shelves. The best thing to do is take either a Lonely Planet or a Rough Guide in addition to your Footprint - they act as a check list and will also have things in them to see omitted by Footprint which is by no means as all inclusive as it would like to believe.
Winter in Patagonia can be chilly, but try it in May - there is a wonderfully quiet time between Easter and the start of the winter sports season in Ushaia. Fly there, of course, but otherwise stick to the buses - that way you see the land, and usually the terminal will be centrally located with budget hotels round about. This is another reason for having two guidbooks. Airports are out of town, involve taxis and you can end up at the mercy of the local tourist desk if not the taxi driver.
Argentina is marvellous, but there are long journeys involved if you want to see a lot of it. Buenos Aires is, like Rio, one of the world's amazing towns, but moving on means overnight bus journeys to the Andes cities - Salta is unmissable, but they all are. By flying there you miss out on Cordoba and Tucuman for starters. Salta is also the backdoor for going to Chile to the Atacama desert and Antafogasta.Going south is slightly trickier although there are places to stop on the way to Puerto Madryn and the Welsh townships like Carmen de Patagones - no great tourist sites there but it is lovely and breaks the journey either way.
There are sort of black holes in Argentina, cattle land, farming land, with no towns for a stop over, but which have to be crossed. So do not balk at 12 to 15 hours. Consider it a way of saving on hotels if nothing else, and do not think experience on long distance buses in Britain has any bearing on travel there. It is very well organised, the buses are comfortable, the food stops invariably terrific, the toilet facilities put pretty well every British bus station to shame, although you may end up suffering from an overdose of Steven Segal movies as they do have in-drive videos.