In winter, we like to travel to warmer places, most often to exotic destinations in Asia or the Caribbean, but we often forget that the coldest time of year in Europe is the best choice for travelling to the southern hemisphere, where they enjoy summer at this time. So, in February, I went to South America, where I spent two weeks exploring Argentina, and briefly visited its neighbours – Chile, Uruguay and Brazil.
Argentina is the eighth largest country in the world, the second largest in South America after Brazil, and measures a total of 3,700 kilometres from north to south. As befits such a huge country, it has a very diverse surface and climate, as its far northern part is tropical and hot, while the south is much cooler. Most travellers fly into the capital, Buenos Aires, because it has the best connections to the world.
The quickest way to overcome long distances in Argentina is by plane, and the network of bus connections is also well-branched, but trips can take a very long time. Because I was limited in time, I travelled by airplane. I started my journey in Buenos Aires, followed by exploring the far south of South America. My journey took me to Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia in the north, and I saw the famous Iguazu Falls on the borders between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. I stopped in Uruguay for a few days before heading home. So, let's get to know Argentina.
Argentina's capital and largest city, with around 15 million people, is Buenos Aires, known as BA for short. Argentina is a highly urbanised country, with the vast majority of the population living in cities, a third of them in the wider metropolitan area of the capital. The city is located on the western shore of the Rio de la Plata, or the River Plate, which is essentially the funnel-shaped mouth of the Paraná and Uruguay rivers in the Atlantic Ocean. And it was by sea in the 16th century that Europeans arrived in the area of today's capital and named it Real de Nuestra Señora Santa Maria del Buen Ayre, after Maria Bonarska of Sardinia, known as Our Lady of the Fair Winds. After all, the first colonisers, with the blessing of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Good Wind - which is what the name originally means in Spanish, the official language of Argentina - and with the help of the winds, reached the shores of the city. Later, the name was shortened to Buenos Aires, which can be translated as "good winds" or "good air".
Today's locals are largely of European origin and call themselves Porteños, or the inhabitants of the port city, which is more than appropriate given that Buenos Aires is one of the busiest ports in South America. BA is a multicultural city where many immigrants from all over the world have found a home, but the European influence is predominant, reflected in the impressive architecture and cultural life, and the inhabitants consider themselves more European than Latin American in character.
Some prominent people come from Argentina. The footballer Maradona and Messi and the current Pope Francis are among the best known. Most people don't know that Che Guevara, the independence fighter of many Latin American countries, is also Argentine. And of course Evita or Eva Duarte, the wife of post-war President Peron in the 1960s, has an almost saintly status in Argentina for her work on behalf of the poor, so it was no surprise to see them offended when their Evita was portrayed by the notorious singer Madonna in the musical of the same name. All these famous Argentinians can be seen in Boca, where their wax figures greet us from the balconies of the brightly coloured buildings where immigrants from Italy and Spain settled.
The capital of Argentina boasts the widest street in the world, the July 9 Avenue, which is the main thoroughfare of the city centre and honours the memory of Argentina's Independence Day in 1816. It is 3 kilometres long, has 16 lanes and is 110 metres wide. You can't cross it in one piece, as the traffic lights switch to red first. In the centre of the avenue, there is the famous obelisk, for which the construction of many building were demolished and where important milestones in the history of the city are recorded. It was built in 1936 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the city's founding.
One of Buenos Aires' biggest attractions is the Recoleta Cemetery, where the famous, and the wealthy are buried. The most visited tomb is definitely the one of the aforementioned Evita. However, this cemetery does not contain the graves of the victims of the violence of the military junta that ruled Argentina from 1974 to 1983. Even today, in the main square of the city called Plaza de Mayo, which is considered the place where Buenos Aires was founded, the mothers of the missing come to protest every Thursday and seek justice for their children. The vast square is blocked on the west side by the red presidential palace, or Casa Rosada, from the balcony of which Madonna, as Evita, sang to Argentina not to cry for her.
There's plenty of green spaces in the city, and the renovated old harbour of Puerto Madero is worth a visit, with its many skyscrapers and restaurants housed in the former brick harbour buildings.
On Calle Florida, the most famous shopping street, you can see tango dancers, which is Argentina's passion alongside football and is considered a cultural symbol, and you can't help but hear the cries of "cambio" from the so-called "arbolitos" or "little trees". These are the people who exchange money. Argentina was once one of the richest countries in the world, but today it faces many problems, mainly high inflation, so stable currencies such as the US dollar and the euro are desirable. These street money changers offer a much better exchange rate than the official one, but caution is never a bad idea when doing this. Unfortunately, poverty is quite noticeable.
You can see many homeless people on the streets of Buenos Aires, including entire families with young children, which is the most heartbreaking. Right next to the Retiro district, which is considered Buenos Aires' more elite address, we find the shanty town of Villa 31, home to mainly illegal immigrants from Paraguay and Bolivia, and a high crime rate. The town, with its colourful buildings, is clearly visible from the road leading from the centre to the Aeroparque airport, one of the two airports of Argentina's capital, from where I flew to my next destination to the tip of South America.
After almost four hours of flying, I landed at the airport in Ushuaia, the capital of Argentina's southernmost province, called Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and the South Atlantic Islands. Despite its name, Argentina has no control over most of these islands and parts of Antarctica, because of disputed territorial claims (the most famous example being the Falkland Islands).
Tierra del Fuego is an archipelago separated from mainland South America by the Strait of Magellan - named after the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan - which has the tourist slogan "the end of the world" (Fin del Mundo). The very name Tierra del Fuego is more than interesting. When the first Europeans arrived in this part of the world, they saw the land full of fires to keep the poorly dressed indigenous people warm. It is surprising that in this cold climate, the Selk`nam and Yahgan people lived almost naked, and later research has even shown that their body temperature was 1 degree higher than normal, while at the same time they anointed themselves with animal grease, which gave them some protection against the cold temperatures of the area in which they lived. Today, there are almost no indigenous people left, but there are descendants of convicts, because Ushuaia was founded as a penal colony in the 19th century.
Named after its location on the sheltered Bay of Beagle Channel, the city of 75,000 people is supposed to be the most southern place in the world. Puerto Williams, on the Chilean island of Isla Navarino, is further south, but it is much smaller than Ushuaia. Punta Arenas, Chile, which is home to a large number of descendants of Croatian Dalmatian immigrants, also holds this title, but is located further north of Ushuaia and has twice as many people living there. Still, Ushuaia is the southernmost point of Argentina and, for me, the southernmost place I have ever visited, and that fact alone justified the long journey for me.
Like most Argentine cities, Ushuaia has a square named after the Malvinas Islands, an archipelago in the South Atlantic, better known as the Falkland Islands, over which the Argentines went to war in 1982 and which are still considered Argentine to this day, even though they lost the war and the islands are internationally part of Great Britain. The city itself, located on the Great Island (Isla Grande) of Tierra del Fuego, the largest island in South America, which Argentina shares with Chile, has few attractions, a few museums, but, as already said, its location at the end of the world makes it an attraction. With Antarctica close by, it has become the starting point for many cruises to the shores of the ice-covered continent.
I didn't go on the big boat this time, but I did cruise along the Beagle Channel, the eastern part of which is the border between Argentina and Chile and divides the Great Island of Tierra del Fuego from the smaller islands on the south side, which belong to Chile. Named after the Beagle, the ship in which the famous English naturalist, biologist and geologist Charles Darwin explored the area, the strait is 240 km long and up to 5 km wide and, along with the Strait of Magellan and the Drake Passage, is one of the busy sea lanes linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
As well as the famous Les Eclaireurs lighthouse, there is an island home to sea lions, but the main attraction is, of course, the penguins on Martillo Island. Magellanic penguins are smaller than other penguin species, reaching a height of around 70 cm, while emperor penguins, for example, can reach a height of up to 1.2 metres. They are still penguins, although they are often confused with cormorants, which, unlike penguins, can fly.
The area to the west of Ushuaia, exactly on the border with Chile, is part of the Tierra del Fuego National Park. In the past, there have been a number of disputes over the undefined border between the two countries, so that the authorities have justified their sovereignty over the territories by creating national parks. It is the only park in Argentina where you can find the sea, forests and mountains.
It can be reached by train, poetically called the "The End of the World Train", which, truth be told, is very slow, but offers great views. It is a former prison train that transported prisoners to work in the forests every day. Today it is a popular tourist attraction. You can still see many felled trees, the fruit of the labour of the convicts who were forced to work in the forest, regardless of the weather conditions, which can be very unforgiving in this part of the world. I felt it myself when the plane to my next destination in Patagonia took off in windy weather.
I arrived in El Calafate after over an hour of flight from Tierra del Fuego. Still in southern Argentina, but in another province called Patagonia. It is a mostly arid land stretching between the high Andes to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. It is a very sparsely populated steppe plateau with low vegetation, mostly divided into agricultural areas owned by large "estancias" or estates on which small livestock graze. Long-necked wild guanacos, relatives of llamas, alpacas and vicunas, which belong to the camel family, also graze there. Guanacos produce wool, and their meat is used in stews or as a filling for the delicious empanadas. Tourism has developed considerably in recent decades, but Patagonia is also rich in oil and minerals. After all, Argentina was named after the Latin word for silver (argentum), the precious metal that gave rise to European colonisation in the 16th century.
The tourist centre of southern Patagonia is El Calafate, named after a particular type of blue berry bush. Founded only in the 20th century, the city depends almost entirely on tourists. The town on the shore of the largest lake in the country, which has the same name - Lago Argentino - almost has no attractions, but thanks to the airport, it is an important base of this part of Patagonia, from where it is possible to go to nearby national parks, so it is not surprising that the city is among the most expensive in Argentina, both in terms of accommodation and restaurants.
Many tourists drive to El Chalten, a few hours away, to hike to the viewpoints of the unconquerable Mount Fitzroy. A very popular place to visit is Torres del Paine National Park, located in the neighbouring Chilean part of Patagonia. While it is true that the Torres del Paine mountain range, with its towers and horns, is an impressive shape, travellers are more attracted to the nearby country of Chile. I had been to Chile before, but in the arid north and in the capital Santiago de Chile, but I also wanted to visit the south of Chile, so I didn't let this opportunity pass me by.
The park covers mountains, glaciers, lakes and rivers and is one of the most visited national parks in the country. Despite all this, the trip takes a very long time, most of it is spent on a bus, even at the border crossing between Argentina and Chile you have to wait, so you only have 2 to 3 hours for the trek. This trip, like most trips in Argentina, is not cheap. It costs about 100 euros, which was still half the price at the time of my visit than last year when I started planning the trip. The Argentines elected a new President who decided to devalue the national currency and, as a result, prices in euro terms have fallen by half.
El Calafate is surrounded by mighty mountains (Argentina also has South America's highest peak, Aconcagua, at almost 7000 metres), but the main attraction is the nearby glaciers, which are located in Los Glaciares National Park. The most famous, which I have visited myself, is Perito Moreno, which shares the name with the explorer Francisco Moreno, who explored the area shared by the two countries in the 19th century and played an important role in the defence of Argentina's territory in the international dispute with Chile.
Perito Moreno is not the largest glacier, it is one of the smaller ones, but it is by far the most accessible and consequently the most visited of all the glaciers in the South Patagonian Icefield. There are several ways to explore the glacier, the highest point of which is at 2950 metres on Cerro Pietrobelli. The cheapest, when you only pay the entrance fee of around 10 euros, is to walk along the wooden paths on the Magellanes peninsula, from where you can see this 30 kilometres long and 5 kilometres wide glacier, and its glacier face rises up to 80 metres above the water level. It is interesting to watch the ice breaking up and crashing into the water with a loud noise. You can also take a boat tour, but you'll have to dig deep into your pockets to walk on the glacier.
Most of the world's glaciers are said to be shrinking every year, but Perito Moreno is considered unusual because it is said to be growing. But let's have enough of the cold south of Argentina for now, even though the temperatures were above average during my visit, as I enjoyed a warm wave with temperatures above 20 degrees, and let's head to the warmer places in the north of the country, which I will present in the second part of this article.
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