philip0

Hi. I got lucky on some direct NYC-EZE lie-flat F award tickets and plan to spend about 20 days in Argentina this upcoming January, primarily to explore Patagonia. Flying into FTE on 2 Jan, returning to BsAs on 15 Jan from USH. First time in Patagonia though not in Argentina.

We're booked at Los Cerros in El Chalten for the first 6 nights with a plan to do 3 day-hikes and probably a guided Viedma Glacier cruise/hike. (2-8 Jan)

The second half will be Ushuaia-centric. Priorities and itinerary still under construction, but tentatively I plan to stay at Los Caquenes or Arakur Ushuaia. (10-15 Jan)

I'd love to hear some thoughts on the following:

• Ground transport between FTE, El Chalten. Initially I planned to get a private transfer from FTE to the hotel in El Chalten as we arrive early afternoon. However, looking at quotes ($600 for two people one way) it seems renting a car for a week, even if it just sits in a lot, provides more optionality for roughly similar cost and more control over our schedule. Am I missing something?
• Cave of the Hands as a destination in general (e.g., vs. Walichu) and an intermediate destination between FTE arrival and USH departure. When I booked the trip this was one of my top shortlisted must-sees. I'm not bothered that it's a 6-hour drive from El Chalten with only one (lame) place to stay nearby, but getting there and then back down to Ushuaia costs 2 days (3 total including day at the caves). Is the road at least scenic? Is there a way to get down to Ushuaia that doesn't require us to simply double back to Chalten or Calafate?
• Ground transport between El Calafate and Ushuaia. I'm inclined to fly but should I be considering the bus more seriously for thrills or scenery?
• Ushuaia tour or site recommendations. Likely a penguin colony day tour and a splurge on a helicopter ride to Cape Horn, with the rest glacier / TDF national park day hikes. Any feedback would be welcome.

Thanks a lot.

Marambio

Not a first-hand experience but I've been tempted to drive from Bariloche to Ushuaia for some time now. This is based on my readings and conversations with people who are from/really know the area.

By $600 you mean 600 USD? That is a lot of money. There are daily coaches from El Calafate to El Chaltén which cost around 400 ARS per person one way. The journey takes roughly three hours.

I wouldn't drive in Patagonia in anything but a 4WD, even if the road from El Calafate to El Chaltén is paved.

El Calafate to Cueva de las Manos is a ten hour drive, and you have 200+ km of a bumpy gravel road with no mobile phone signal and very few cars, if any, passing by. You will drive through the Patagonian steppe - scenic for a while, dull after the first few hours. I drove from El Calafate to Río Gallegos which is a similar scenery some years ago. I liked it, the girlfriend slept most of the way.

To get to Ushuaia from Cueva de las Manos you could pass through Río Gallegos instead of El Calafate. Río Gallegos ranks very high in my "ugliest town on Earth" list. From there you need to cross the border to Chile, take the ferry across the Magellan Strait, re-enter Argentina and drive all the way south to Ushuaia. It's a very long journey. I'd rather fly.

philip0

Yes, I meant $600 USD. It seems upon further inspection that the rate for a private car (one way) should be about half that. It's been an intense week or so of planning and research, I probably pulled a quote for the wrong thing or round-trip.

We're strongly disinclined to rent a car for the 8 days at El Chalten / El Calafate given Los Cerros is supposed to be at the doorstep of most of the interesting hikes; even if I wanted to do it, recent web accounts of cops stopping drivers at random looking for a "donation" gave my girlfriend the creeps.

Thanks for your thoughts on the long distance drive. We decided that the round-trip to Cave of Hands is a bit too much to tackle in our short time. So rather than 16+ hours of driving or busing there from Chalten and back to Calafate we'll spend a couple days in Calafate before heading down to Ushuaia by air. I totally agree that driving all the way down 40 from either BsAs or Bariloche sounds incredible -- wish I had time for it but like those hands reaching out from 10,000 B.C., it'll have to get bumped to the next visit's list. Hopefully the Walichu caves will be moderately inspiring substitute.

The last decision I really need to make now is between Arakur (senior suite) and Los Caquenes (Channel view jr. suite) in Ushuaia. I took a refundable reservation at Arakur just because things are booking up so quickly, but by most accounts Los Cauquenes is a better experience. I like the fact that Los Cauquenes's views are more or less uninterrupted by the town, but that's offset by Arakur's close-at-hand hiking trails and forest walks. Price for a prepaid, non-refundable reservation at LC == the refundable one at Arakur. Any advice?

getmethere

Just done this:

Tour glacier in el Calaffate, with ferry ride. Very crowded, rainy, but still fantastic.

Took bus from el Calafate to el Chalten. Blown away scenic along the ride, make sure to sit on the driver side, I.e. left side. Bring squeegy to clean fogged up window. Three hours.

Took Viedma Glacier cruise/hike, non pro one. 1870 pesos. Worth every peso. Extremely friendly and helpful guides, even for non hikers. Bring gloves sunglasses.

Took short Lake Caprice hike. First view area the best. Lake so so. 40 minute hike from ranger statation also great. Encountered brief snow fall at summit, in November.

Terrible internet connection in these two towns.

Enjoy.

philip0

Great tips! We're dead set on the Viedma Glacier cruise and hike, still debating whether to do the self-directed tourist shuffle or a private tour on Moreno after reading this compare/contrast analysis. Did you book Viedma in advance or after arriving?

All this talk about lousy internet connections has got me pretty excited. I'm overdue for that kind of solitude.

Any surprises or off-the-beaten-track sights (or full-day hikes, or restaurants, etc) I should look for?

getmethere

I agree with many of the comments in the comparison. Some additional comments.

Both boat rides took me close to the glaciers, and would travel their lengths, slowing down at several spots. All allowing for great photo ops from different angles. Use your widest angles, with highest shutter speeds to combat the boats' movements. If your camera has panoramic mode, become familiar with it will let you cover the glaciers entire width. The bigger Moreno boat was jam packed with regular (and inconsiderate) tourists taking selfies, and ruining many of my shots. The smaller Viedma boat only had trekkers, who were by far more considerate in not getting in the way of other photogs.

Losing my connection, will continue later.

fedechat

Torres del Paine should be another great option for your 2 weeks Patagonia trip.
Don't take a private transfer, get the bus, is cheaper and the seat will be more comfortable that a regular car.

philip0

Appreciate the tip(s). Two additional questions for you.

I finally realized the Walichu caves are actually "reproductions" by a private landowner to "provide tourists of the experience of seeing what a cave painting might have looked like", so of course that was one day-trip crossed off my list.

Do you think Torres del Paine is worth doing if we only have a single day for it? Under present itinerary we have 6 nights in El Chalten; 2 nights in El Calafate before flying to Ushuaia; and then 5 nights in Ushuaia before the flight back to BsAs. The flight to Ushuaia and hotel there can be changed or refunded: so would you recommend trading time in Ushuaia for a trip to TDP?

We're already committed to at least three full day trail hikes in El Chalten, the guided Viedma glacier boating / hiking tour everyone raves about, and spending one of our days in El Calafate seeing Perito Moreno {whether on the footbridges or hiking tour is TBD}. I could probably cancel the FTE->USH plane tickets and get to Ushuaia by bus if we make a detour to TDP from Calafate, this is something we considered but sounded hectic. I think we're also having trouble getting excited about these long bus rides given a preexisting bias against that mode of transportation. Thanks for your feedback.

getmethere

Agreed with TDP worthy of a visit.

Our bus group tour that took ~12 hours. The bulk of time was spent through immigration and driving. Stopped at ~6 vista points for ~10 minutes each (barely enough time to shoot with a tripod), coupled with a ~1.5 mile easy hike. IOW, the good stuff accounted for ~20% of the time. The scenes were breath taking stunning, far more than what we saw on our very short hikes in Argentina.

With additional time and cost, TDP should really be appreciated by renting a car and staying in the park for a night or two. The drive is long, but on good roads. Our driver took a shorter route including a short stretch of dirt road which does not require a SUV. We saw a small group went there in a taxi!!! Serious.

philip0

Little update for those interested. We elected not to spend a full day in transit for TDP or the Cave of the Hands. I had a bit of a medical surprise while in El Chalten which called for attention and convalescence. We ended up doing Laguna Torre, Laguna Los Tres, and opted -- a bit too ambitiously in retrospect -- for the Viedma Pro glacier climbing clinic. Viedma Pro was pretty intense, we actually hiked across the glacier a mile past the intermediate groups and scaled 30-50-foot vertical ice walls with crampons, ropes, and ice axes. They taught us multiple climbing techniques, moved us through multiple levels of wall difficulty, and took us deep into sapphire-blue ice caves in the center of the glacier. We were able to keep up and got a lot out of it (my gf and I are both healthy, fit, late 30s) but not as much as people who'd done ice climbing or rock climbing before. My one complaint is we were on the glacier for like 5 hours without access to a bathroom, which is a bit too long not to specifically warn people about in advance. That's a long time to hold it in the middle of grueling physical exertion (and rappelling back down ice walls in a harness). V.Pro also included the ferry ride around the lake with up close glacier and ice floe views, great chance to relax and snap lots of photos. I think it was $250/person and worth every penny.

We had room 211, a cathedral-ceilinged corner room with a stunning view of the mountain range and valley, at Los Cerros in El Chalten. I think it was the best room in the house. The staff was lovely and very helpful, the room layout and facilities were quite nice (especially for a rustic lodge in a remote national park), and the breakfast was pretty solid. This is definitely the best hotel in El Chalten and at $300/night inclusive of taxes there's no point in looking at other properties in the area. The front desk can make any local tour arrangement you want and will drop it onto your bill. I'd read that Chalten is expensive but at the best hotel in town we drank limited-run bottles of wine which were 50% more in Ushuaia and Buenos Aires (identical bottle/vintage).

We ended up taking a private car from the Calafate airport to Chalten, Condor Taxi did it for $200 one way. On the way back, the vendor used by Los Cerros cost $300. The return trip driver told us some hilarious stories about driving one of those cross-border vans to TDP for many years and "not speaking English" (his English was excellent) during those 12-hour runs. The private car enabled us to stop at Estancia La Leona and and also slow or stop to view wild Guanacos and Rhea/Ostrich and horses and foxes on the open steppe -- a remarkably picturesque drive.

After our intimate communion with Viedma Glacier we decided not to do Perito Moreno and instead spent a leisurely half day at the bird sanctuary in Calafate. In Calafate we stayed at Posada Los Alamos, which has nice facilities but put us into a terrible room which was grossly misrepresented (they said it was a mistake), with paper thin walls through which we could hear the neighbor coughing all night. Overall Los Alamos was a pretty third-rate experience from bed to breakfast, wish I'd gone with another property in Calafate. They gave us a glorified single bed and tried to tell me that's called a queen in Argentina, then I realized they also called Kirchner a queen and I got the joke. Seriously, though, the room was like a dollhouse room, a real queen wouldn't have left any space to move around its edges. I strongly encourage looking elsewhere in Calafate, which has several luxury hotel options.

For anyone trying to decide between time in Calafate vs. Chalten, we spent 6 nights in Chalten and 2 in Calafate; if I had it to do over I'd have taken a night from Calafate and stayed longer in Chalten. Estepa restaurant in Chalten was also very good.

We ended up flying between FTE and USH, which was the right choice, thanks to feedback from this thread.

We had 5 nights in Ushuaia, where we spent 2 full days hiking in Tierra del Fuego national park (3rd day possible if you want to do Cerro Guanaco). The Fin del Mondo post office is cute, the Costera trail and the Hito XXIV trail shouldn't be missed. We also did the Pira Penguin tour, which was really cool in both senses (sunny day / freezing wind, and pretty unique fun). We got to see three kinds of penguins and some pretty dramatic scenes of predatory birds swooping in to hunt penguin babies during peak nesting; against the backdrop of Andean coast this felt like being swallowed up by a nature show in the best possible way. Weather was windy and rainy / freezing rain the first day or two, sunny and clear and warm another two days, and white-out snowing one day in the middle.

In Ushuaia we stayed at Arakur, which is a gorgeous hotel with exquisite facilities and some strange idiosyncrasies. Its grounds have trails and a nature preserve, where we saw wild-looking (but probably just loose) horses feeding and spying on us for a few km around the peat bog. Nice way to pass a few free hours. The restaurant, spa, and other services were superb. We had a senior suite, which was basically two connected rooms with two full bathrooms (each with a bath and picture window to enjoy the stunning Channel views), the second room had a living room setup instead of a bed. Highly recommend this property with a couple caveats about its weirdness: firstly, the front desk people speak perfect English but they're the only hotel staff who do. I have enough Spanish to get by but this can be tricky when you order the most expensive bottle of wine at the restaurant but can't ask for a decanter. Secondly, it seems that most locals opt for the dinner and grill buffet at the restaurant, which was fantastic if buffets are your thing but they're not really mine. This means the service at the restaurant is a bit lacking (e.g., unaccustomed to tips) if you elect to order from the regular menu. Breakfast buffet was the best we had on this trip. Because the suite involved two room numbers this created some confusion when signing a bill such that the restaurant called the second room's phone every day asking if we wanted them to hold breakfast for us (until I caught on and gave both room numbers). The hotel has an hourly minibus service to the town center and back up, as a tall person I found the seats unpleasant and the schedule erratic so we mostly used it to get into town and then taxis back up the hill (it's not walkable). The room had two stocked minibars, all soft drinks: at some point in the middle of the stay they started charging me exorbitant prices for bottled waters ($5/500ml), which struck me as arbitrary and tacky given my $600+/night rate for their best suite product.

Kaupe restaurant in the town of Ushuaia was excellent, fine dining on par with international standards. Otherwise I found the town center of Ushuaia forgettable, with throngs of docked cruise ship types drowning out its few charms.

Overall I'm glad I allocated an extra uncommitted day in each of Chalten and Ushuaia to account for errands (laundry, medical, misc supply runs, internet research when reliable) and the risk of weather related airline delays. Despite all the horror stories, we had a pretty positive experience on Aerolineas for domestic (business / prem economy) flights between EZE-FTE, FTE-USH, and USH-EZE. The only alternative, LAN, had fewer scheduled flights and no extra-legroom options.

Thanks to everyone here for the earlier input. It really helped me make the most of this trip in both relaxation and itinerary-maximizing senses.

Marambio

Great feedback! Thanks a lot, and glad you had an enjoyable trip!

Just out of curiosity, did you have to use a medical facility in El Chaltén? In that case, was it up to international standards?

philip0

I visited a doctor in Chalten twice, first time for (confirmatory) diagnosis and second for analysis of prescribed medication's effect. I didn't need emergency services or actual hospital stay. The doctor in Chalten spoke B-/C+ English. She had good instincts and friendly manner and decided on the smart way to approach my somewhat complex situation such that I'm still thinking about the proper way to thank her. It wasn't on par with urban medical standards for access to best quality pharma locally but for intellectual and situational rigor I'd put them against my Manhattan specialists. It was a marginally scarier situation because of remoteness and dirty surfaces and 'pay me' front window vibe but mitigated by the clinic/hospital doctors bedside manner.

philip0

One or two things to add to my other reply: the medical center in Chalten from what I could tell is a two-doctor rural clinic (mini hospital?). The entry and waiting area is a little grubby but not more than you'd expect from a dusty backpacker-dominated town in a national park. I probably overstated the "dirty surfaces" above, bear in mind I walked in there annoyed and scared and am a default germaphobe. Both doctors were diligent and thoughtful, the younger one (female) from Buenos Aires spoke English more comfortably. I waited maybe 5 minutes to see her both visits.

It seems like they're prepared to deal with most ordinary problems that could arise. There's only one small pharmacy in town and it stocks common prescription drugs in small quantities. For anything remotely unusual or nonstandard (medical and pharmaceutical) I think you need to be in Buenos Aires. When I asked one of the front desk people at Los Cerros about the flashy new hospital in Calafate his only comment was that I should forget about it as it's "ahem...new. Very new".

For example, I had an infection I thought called for a very strong (and rare and expensive) antibiotic I'd used successfully about a year earlier. The Dr. in Chalten prescribed me 10 days of a weaker, more common antibiotic but the pharmacy in town only had 5 days' worth of it in stock. Los Cerros called around to all the pharmacies in Calafate and Ushuaia and nobody carried the rare/expensive one or could get it within 5 days.

This being FT, people will probably be interested in the fact that I used the Amex Platinum concierge and the Visa Signature concierge to help me track down that rare antibiotic in Buenos Aires. Just as a backup in case the weaker, commoner one didn't work (it did work). In a rather frustrating development, Amex found a pharmacy that "could order it and get it within a day" but they wanted payment up front and refused to ship it, and as far as Amex was concerned that was mission accomplished and they quit looking at that stage. Amex's medical services concierge was also a bit ruffled by my request to both find a pharmacy with this in stock and also a courier service to get it to me in Patagonia. Visa claimed to have found a place with it in stock (again, payment up front and in person only) but when I went there in BsAs they didn't actually have it and were confused at the suggestion they might ever have. I was surprised to find the Visa concierge's approach much more personal, managed by one individual who frequently called and emailed me. Amex, on the other hand, was more bureaucratically specialized and the work dispersed to people I had no contact with (and for follow up, which was good, I never spoke with the same person twice).

I guess the takeaway about Chalten is it's reliable and safe for straightforward medical issues but anything beyond that it's just for triage until you can get to a city.

Marambio

There's an old saying in Patagonia which says that the best doctor in the region is Aerolíneas Argentinas - i.e., as soon as you feel seriously ill, you jump into a plane to Buenos Aires. I can see that is still the case.

Anyhow, I'm glad you sorted your emergency out and that there were some medical facilities in Chaltén. Towns less than 10,000 people can be very tricky here medical-wise, especially when they are so far away from big cities.

HIDDY

I can believe that and it's not only relevant to Patagonia.

When I was taken into our small hospital a year ago and diagnosed with a gallstone attack my doctor recommended I have my gallbladder removed asap at a 'colleagues' clinic in a neighbouring town as there was no time to waste....he would sort out an appointment.
Smelling a rat I asked to be discharged and went home. I made an appointment to be seen at the Hospital Aleman in Buenos Aires the following week where the specialist there said although it would be wise to have the operation there was no rush whatsoever to have it done as long as I kept to a diet I would be okay. He said he was bewildered why I was told it was urgent. Long story short a couple of months later I had the operation in the Aleman which was an excellent experience all round.

I've since been informed doctors in my town detest losing patients to Buenos Aires hence why they try and force their patients into making quick decisions. And the reason? Pure and simple.....lost earnings!! It turned out my doctor also has a stake in his colleagues clinic.