Proud of myself for an early morning adventure in Buenos Aires, I took a flight to Bariloche (Bariloche), officially known as San Carlos de Bariloche. This city lies in the heart of Patagonia, within the Nahuel Huapi National Park (Nahuel Huapi), a region of ancient forests, snow-capped peaks, and crystal-clear lakes. It’s a wonderful place to enjoy a vacation year-round, whether kayaking, fishing, or warming up by the fireplace after a day of skiing. The challenge, however, is that when embarking on a once-in-a-lifetime journey to such remote lands, you expect to experience not just beautiful places but something truly unique that can’t be found anywhere else.
That’s why the Seven Lakes Tour (Ruta de los Siete Lagos) in Bariloche, while interesting in its own right, doesn’t quite fit into the category of unique experiences South America has to offer. In hindsight, I would have preferred to spend that day either in Buenos Aires or in El Calafate, where I went after Bariloche. That said, the souvenir shops here are excellent. (From Bariloche, there is an option to get to Chile by taking an 8-hour bus ride over the mountains.)
El Calafate (El Calafate)—now this is a place to explore. I stayed here for 2.5 days, but you could easily find enough to do for a longer visit. From here, excursions depart to the Perito Moreno Glacier (Perito Moreno), arguably the most famous glacier in the world. I booked a tour that included transportation to the glacier and a boat ride across Lake Argentino, but you can also reach the park entrance by bus. If you choose this option, try to sit on the left side of the bus for the best views of the glacier and its surroundings. The park features boardwalks that allow you to admire the glacier from different perspectives—and there’s plenty to admire.
I can’t say I am a great expert in glaciers, but I’ve seen some of them in my life, in the Caucasus, Norway, Canada, and Iceland. None of them compare to Perito Moreno, a colossal wall of white and blue ice that astounds with its sheer size and majesty. I couldn’t stop gazing at it, trying to imprint the scene in my memory, to hold onto the sense of awe and reverence inspired by the power and beauty of nature. Once a year, a rare event occurs here: across the entire width of the glacier’s face, massive chunks of ice collapse simultaneously, causing monumental disturbances in the water. I wasn’t fortunate enough to witness this, but I did see a sizable piece of ice break off and crash into the lake, sending waves rippling through the water that took a long time to settle.
From El Calafate, I also took a tour to the Torres del Paine peaks (Torres del Paine), located across the border in Chile. This tour is expensive, and the journey is long—over three hours each way—but it’s absolutely worth it. Unfortunately, I wasn’t lucky with the weather: the iconic peaks were almost completely shrouded in mist. Such is the fate of a traveler, forever at the mercy of the elements. Still, what little I managed to see was impressive, and the views along the way were nice as well.
My flight from El Calafate was scheduled for almost 7 PM, which, this time, turned out to be a great stroke of luck, as it allowed me to take an extra excursion which turned to be very interesting. It was a half-day 4×4 bus tour into the surrounding mountains. Aside from breathtaking views of Lake Argentino, we were shown there unusual and truly unique geological formations. The trip ended with an open-air picnic, which was a delightful way to wrap up both the excursion and my stay in El Calafate.
I tip my hat to nature’s wonders.
And here I am in Tierra del Fuego (Tierra del Fuego). I must admit, I was just short of removing it from my itinerary, having read nothing particularly exciting about it during my preparations for the trip. How glad I am that I didn’t! This place has a unique, inexplicable appeal—an extraordinary aura, a kind of magnetism, to use a modern term.
Arriving in Ushuaia (Ushuaia), I glanced at the seemingly unremarkable mountains surrounding it and… that was it. Love at first sight. Later, after returning from excursions, I wouldn’t head home without standing for a few minutes, gazing at them, and filling myself with… I’m not sure with what, but filling myself nonetheless. Taking it in.
From Ushuaia, the southernmost city in Argentina, I went on two excursions. One was a boat trip to a penguin colony. As always, it was delightful to watch these amusing, human-like birds. It’s a pity we couldn’t go ashore to get a closer look at them.
On the way, the boat passed by Puerto Williams on the opposite shore of the Beagle Channel, the southernmost settlement on earth. This is already Chile. The vertical line of the Argentinian border does not reach the very end of the continent, and Chile’s long, narrow strip makes a 90-degree turn here, cutting off the last pieces of land across the entire width of the continent, which is narrow in this place, just before the waters stretching all the way to Antarctica. By the way, it is from Ushuaia that the increasingly popular Antarctic tours depart, some of the most expensive tours available. Perhaps this contributes to their popularity. Expensive means prestigious. As for me, I would only go on such a tour after traveling around the entire globe. And not because of the price.
The second was a bus tour of Tierra del Fuego National Park (Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego). It was also very interesting, perhaps again due to the uniqueness of this place, the edge of the earth, as reminded by the sign placed there. For some reason, standing on the shore and looking at the sea with no land until Antarctica, I experienced completely different emotions than while standing, say, on the shore of the Atlantic. You can also take a tour of the park which includes a 50-minute ride on a 7-kilometer railway – the southernmost in the world, called the Southern Fuegian Railway, but known to everyone as the End of the World Train. Minibuses transport visitors to the starting point of the railway, 8 km from Ushuaia. There is also a sea lion tour available here.
When I was planning to travel both east and west across South America, I dreamed of sailing from Ushuaia to Punta Arenas in Chile through the Beagle Channel and the Magellan Strait, with a detour around Cape Horn. I checked now: such a 5-day trip costs between $5900 and $6820. Those who don’t want to sail to Chile can take a very good and not outrageously expensive 7-day round cruise along the Beagle Channel returning to Ushuaia, which includes visits to Torres del Paine and Tierra del Fuego National Park, and canoeing on the Lapataia River. The price ranges from $1448 to $2015, depending on the type of cabin.
After saying goodbye to Tierra del Fuego, I flew with a stopover in Buenos Aires. I was thinking about pulling off the same trick again: leave home at 5:30 to stroll through the wealthy Recoleta district, or perhaps the “young, fashionable, expensive, and full of color and life” Palermo district, as it’s advertised. But common sense prevailed: between two long flights (almost a full day including the wait at the airport), it was wiser to rest.
Due to the time difference, I arrived in Madrid in the early morning. My hope to kill time at the duty-free shop didn’t work out (people sleep at night, this isn’t Ben Gurion airport). They told me to come at eight. But at eight, and even later, everything was still closed. It turned out to be a local holiday. A sacred thing, no time for tourists.
I traveled by air within South America, but I learned there that I could have saved time and money in some places by using overnight buses with reclining seats that turn into beds.
Of course, I would like to see more in South America: the capital Brasília with Niemeyer’s architecture, the so-called Danish triangle south of Rio, where immigrants from Denmark settled and largely maintain a traditional lifestyle, the Argentine city of Córdoba with its UNESCO-listed churches, the peaks of Los Seismiles in Argentina reaching up to 6,000 meters, where roads lead through a desert with picturesque red cliffs and hills; Puerto Natales and Punta Arenas in the south, and the El Tatio geysers in northern Chile’ the Colca Canyon; La Isla de la Plata, a small island off the coast of Puerto López in Ecuador labeled “the Poor Man’s Galápagos”, where you can see birds and animals endemic only for this place and the Galapagos islands, hence the name. But I am grateful to fate for what I was able to see. And that was good.
