Buenos Aires & Ushuaia

Buenos Aires

We arrived into Buenos Aires with little planned for our 2 months in South America besides our 4 nights booked in the city. We were immediately confronted with how little we had researched when we took our 1+ hour taxi ride from the airport to our apartment in the Palermo neighborhood. The taxi did not accept credit cards, so our driver took us to an ATM. Once we paid in pesos, we realized we paid over $60usd for the trip – way more than we anticipated…we thought Argentina was a super affordable travel destination! After some rudimentary research (which we could have easily done before our trip) we learned that Argentina’s hyper inflation has caused a confusing mess of exchange rates. There is the formal rate and blue dollar rate. The formal rate is what you will get at an ATM (along with lofty fees) and is about 3 times worse than the blue dollar rate. The blue dollar rate can be found when exchanging dollars into Argentinian pesos or when using a foreign VISA credit card. So our $60 taxi ride could have cost us $20…lesson learned! Rookie mistake. We high-tailed it to a Western Union and stocked up on some cash. The blue dollar exchange is about $1usd to $1,000 pesos and they generally only hand out $1000 bills. So after grabbing $200usd worth of pesos, we had a fat stack.

As we had about 7 weeks of trip planning to do, we spent our time in Buenos Aires doing just that. We generally stuck to our neighborhood, walking around and hunting for good food in between our planning sessions. While wandering around, we stumbled upon a small wine store to pick up a bottle for the evening. After talking with the owner, he invited us to a wine tasting dinner he was hosting a couple nights later which we agreed to immediately! We were excited to try some local wines, food, and to be immersed in the language for an evening. The wine was excellent, the food was just as good (who knew a hot dog with corn could wow me?), and I learned that the Argentinian accent is super challenging for me to understand! I fumbled through some conversations and had Alex translate most of the evening – it’s fascinating how different the Spanish can be from one country to the next.

As we left the wine dinner, the owner recommended a local parilla (restaurant that specializes in grilled items). We had mentioned that were on the hunt for some excellent Argentinian steak and his recommendation did not disappoint. The next evening, we had a fabulous and shockingly affordable meal of Provoleta (grilled cheese) and entraña (a steak cut similar to skirt steak). We are already looking forward to returning when we go back to Buenos Aires at the end of our trip!

We left Buenos Aires with a much better outline of the following 7 weeks and a great first impression of the city. The food was great, the people were friendly, and the general vibe was very inviting. We will be staying in Buenos Aires for the last 4 days of our trip – there is still so much to explore!

Ushuaia

Our first stop after Buenos Aires was Ushuaia, nicknamed “End of the World” as it is at the southern tip of Argentina in Tierra del Fuego. Ushuaia is a port city and is a jumping off point for boat expeditions to Antarctica. From here, we would take an expedition cruise through the Beagle Channel, to Cape Horn, and through the Fjords and channels at the tip of South America into Chile. We were so excited!! But first, we were happy to explore the small, picturesque village surrounded by mountains and sea.

Obviously, our first task was to seek out the foods this part of the country was known for. It didn’t take us long to find and try their two specialties – lamb and king crab, appropriately from both land and sea. The lambs are roasted over wood fires which are positioned at the front window of the restaurants, teasing with the smell that floats through the streets. The crab was fabulous as well, but it was the impressive grill that brought us back for more.

With a full day to spare before our boat’s departure, we spent a day hiking at the nearby Tierra del Fuego National Park. This park offers impressive views of the surrounding mountains and lakes and allows you to hike right up to the Chilean border. We enjoyed a beautiful, chilly hike and soaked up the Patagonian scenery.

On our final day, with a few hours to burn before we left, we visited the local history museum which was hosted in the old prison. We learned about all of the old ships that took refuge from the rough seas in Ushuaia and the colony of prisoners who were banished to live in this harsh land. It was a nice little history lesson and the perfect cap to our short Ushuaia stay.