Enjoying Summer for New Year's Eve

Our trip started in Buenos Aires, where we stayed at the Hotel Presidente, right on the 9 de Julio avenue, which connects most of city. It was very comfortable, and its location was the best, making it easy to walk around the city non-stop. From the hotel we had a wonderful view of the public works building and its Evita mural; and its location allowed us to easily walk to most places in the city. Buenos Aires is a beautiful city with classic architecture and buildings that have been left to the mercy of time, still it’s really easy to picture the grandness of every street and building as it once was. The capital is a place where a lot of cultures and types of people meet up, and every sector is something completely different; from Caminito with its wonderful colors and life, where you can walk through the tight streets and see people dancing the tango on most corners; to La Recoleta with its huge mansions and solemness, where you can appreciate the elegance of the city. Argentina in general has some of the best food and restaurants I’ve been in, and the most incredible thing is that the food was amazing not only in fancy restaurants but in every single place we tried; the best places we tried were a food court in Galerias Pacific and Siga La Vaca an amazing restaurant in Puerto Madero, right in front of the water (any restaurant in this area is great), both of which had incredible Argentinian dishes and meat. Buenos Aires is amazing no matter what your interests are, you can visit historic spots like the Recoleta Cemetery to find Evita’s tomb and the Plaza de Mayo, shopping at any of the beautiful malls or at the streets of the San Telmo street market or Palermo (be sure to visit the Burger Joint here), be sure to get some sunblock for those though. We enjoyed the culture in the famous bookstore El Ateneo formerly a theater that is now completely filled with incredible books and visiting the football stadiums for Boca and River, the famous sports teams; and you could end any night with a great meal while watching live tango at Buenos Aires: Tango Porteño, an experience that fills you with love for the culture. You can feel the music follow you around the city, from Soda Stereo’s rock to Gardel’s tango, you will feel the city beating around you. We spent the days walking through this amazing city non-stop, never getting tired and seeing something new each day and we spent New Year’s Eve at Puerto Madero, watching the fireworks shine over the water and the city, making it look spectacular.

While staying in Buenos Aires, we were able to take a day for a boat trip. We walked over to the docks and among many options, chose to cross over to Colonia, in Uruguay. Once the ferry ride was over, we started walking around Colonia, amazed by the gorgeous colorful colonial houses, the ancient fortification, and the history you could sense in every cobblestone street. It’s an incredible escape from Buenos Aires’ metropolis and movement. The best thing for me was to walk around the historical center, crossing over the old town gate, walking by the plaza de armas, enjoying the small shops that are a part of history themselves. Sometime in the day we found that we could climb up the Lighthouse, from where you can see the entire historical center of the town and glance at the more contemporary settings further away. This was an amazing change from the rush of the city.

After Buenos Aires, we took a flight to Puerto Iguazú one of the gateways to the incredible Iguazú Falls in the National Park, which is shared by three countries: Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. Here we stayed at the Hotel Esturion, which was really beautiful and comfortable, the rooms felt like they were right in the middle of the jungle while being really pretty, but we really didn’t spend that much time in it. This part of the trip was organized by a traveling agency so we were picked up with another group of people and followed a day by day itinerary, every day in Iguazú was dedicated to visiting the park and enjoying the natural wonders of the falls. This park is huge, and every corner is amazing; not only from the Argentinian side, but from the Brazilian which we had a chance to cross over to. There is an incredible amount of different views to watch the falls from and hundreds of places to walk through, surrounded by animals and fresh air. While in Brazil we also had the chance to stop by the duty free before crossing back to Argentina, which was also a cool shopping opportunity. Regarding food, since everything was planned by the agency, we went to the restaurants they picked, with great traditional food; besides that, we ate at the hotel or the park. Every day spent around nature was amazing and there wasn’t a day in the falls that we weren’t absolutely soaked to the bone. The only downside to this was that our boots and cameras got soaked as well and took a long while to get fully dry once more, but it was worth it.

After spending a couple of nights in Iguazú, we flew to Bariloche. This city was something completely different from the jungle and nature of the falls; the best description we could manage of it was being thrown in a movie-like Swiss little town; with the chalets and gorgeous houses, surrounded by mountains covered with snow and beautiful bodies of water. We stayed here for two nights at a great hotel called the Edelweiss, just a couple of blocks away from the town’s center square. This town went beyond any expectation. One of the best and most common activities in this city is to climb up to the many mountains and ski slopes. Since it was summer, they weren’t actually any places to ski, but you could still go up many of the mountain tops which were still covered in snow. Besides the more natural and view focused activities, we could walk around the civic center and through the shops and restaurants, enjoying the feeling of being in a small town. Still, most of the popular activities in this town consist of climbing up the mountains and many day trips around the city.

From Bariloche, we started the Andean Lakes Crossing. This is an incredible trip that took us from Puerto Pañuelo (just a short bus ride away from Bariloche), all the way to Puerto Varas in Chile, taking bus rides and boat rides all the way through beautiful lakes surrounded by the most amazing mountains. This journey will take you on a whole day of sailing on pristine waters and give you great views of Cerro Tronador, Osorno Volcano and Puntiagudo Hill. Once this trip was over, we arrived at Puerto Varas, a beautiful small town in Chile. Just like Bariloche, this town is focused around the magnificent nature that’s surrounding it, and most activities will take you to beautiful places like the Petrohue Jump, Llanquihue lake and many others. Since we were only spending one night in town, we took it calmly and chose to walk around the small streets looking for a nice place to eat. Aside from that we mainly stayed at the beautiful hotel the agency had picked out, the Bellavista Hotel which was a great way to relax for the night before continuing the trip. It was a night in paradise after a day of relaxing and being amazed by nature.

The next stop was flying to Santiago de Chile. For the days we were there we stayed at the Hyatt Place Hotel, by Vitacura. This was a really nice hotel, perfect for relaxing the last days of our trip. Since we only had a few days there, we took it a little bit more relaxed. We spent part of a day just walking the streets around the hotel, mainly residential areas, and huge parks, until we reached Alto Las Condes, a great shopping center with good food, stores and just an overall cool atmosphere. Another day we chose to walk the center of the city, visiting Plaza de Armas, the Presidential Palace known as La Moneda, the Museum of Fine Arts and climbing up Cerro San Cristóbal. The difference between what we saw the two days was incredible, it’s almost as if they were two different cities. This was a very metropolitan city with lots to see; surrounded by beautiful mountains and with really nice weather. It was a great last stop for an amazing trip.