School me on Patagonia

[Skirotica]

I know, I know, wrong forum. But it involves skiing. Padded Room might be best, be with the miscreants that frequent that dark and scary corner of the interwebs, I'd be worried the only beta I'll get is where the best brothels and drug dealers can be found.


The future wife and I are headed to Patagonia for our honeymoon. Yeah, I know it's the size of Texas. No, we can't stay long enough to see it all. But we'll do 9 days in country, and at least 8 can be in the region.

It'll be early September, so skiing is an obvious option. But we're not going to ski for seven days. Too much to see and I'd never forgive myself for passing up all that extra stuff. We want to see glaciers and penguins and the edge of the world and all that stuff too.

There are a lot of need to do's and nice to do's. We clearly want to see El Calafate.
I'd love to do some actual glacier travel, or maybe some ice climbing.

The questions I've got are,
What is a must do?
What is a nice to do?
What can we skip if time/funds limited?
What is not worth doing at all (too isolated, too touristy, nothing to actually see, do?)

[digitaldeath]

post a picture of your lady and we will supply you with contacts in patagonia

[Skirotica]

She's been posted before.

[wolfelot]

She's been posted before.

Thats my boy!

[RootSkier]

I am unclear on why you would want to go to El Calafate in the winter. What do you plan to for the very short days?

[covert]

You want way too much for an eight day winter trip. Skip El Calafate. Stay in Bariloche and San Martin. Best patagonian brothels are in Bariloche and the best drug dealers are down the road in El Bolson.

[Hugh Conway]

How much time do you want to spend travelling and dealing with said attendant "A-Factor"? Do you need to have nice places to stay and eat - thinking a number of places may be closed in El Calafate for the winter. What, exactly, do you want to do? Stare at a glacier?

You could have a fun week in Bariloche skiing. Or go to Mendoza, do some skiing, drink wine and fuck like bunnies. Or go to Calafate/ushuaia and see penguins and play tourist.

[klar]

what everyone else said, not enough time to do all that stuff. i would do either bariloche area (ok town with nice lakes, restaurants/hotels, skiing) with optional excursions to villa la angostura and/or san martin or go to ushuaia (boat trips to see penguins, sea lions etc, skiing). ush feels like a slightly derelict port town that is not as important as it once was, has a certain charm though, imo. boat tours are touristy but cool. flights to calafate not too much of a hassle, could do both if you wanted to. you can always just drive to the glacier from calafate and look at it, not sure the places that take people onto the ice are open in winter but the crowds are certainly much more tolerable and it is an impressive bit of ice. drive to chalten for a day in nice weather and look at fitz and cerro torre, scenic drive too. you'd be lucky to find an open restaurant in chalten in winter though.

some people say that the bariloche zone is not "true" patagonia, which apparently starts south of esquel, ends north of tierra del fuego and consists mainly of nothing and sheep (argentina) and nothing and rain forest (chile), some mountains in between. if you want that, rent a vehicle that you can sleep in if needed, start in esquel and drive down ruta 40 however far and back up carretera austral.

[covert]

...or you could just buy a nice coffee table book of patagonia and go to los roques...

[Skirotica]

So the tours that we've researched suggest that things are viable in winter, though I'd totally overlooked the whole short day thing, especially at that lat.

So we're down for about anything. Nice hotels are not a requirement. Could even camp a night or two. She wants one or two days of lux. We could get that at Buenos Aires prior to departure.

I posted this thread to get exactly this:

You want way too much for an eight day winter trip. Skip El Calafate. Stay in Bariloche and San Martin.

This is probably true and it sucks. But better we understand what we can and cannot do rather than get down there and have a whirlwind trip of flights, driving and no memory of what we were told we saw.

I could ski, ice climb see a few scenic overlooks and be very impressed with the trip. But Liz wants a little more. She wants to see the glacier and penguins and do a few touristy things. So we're working on a best compromise.

[thin cover]

^^^^ I did my honey moon in Patagonia 4 years ago and spent 2 weeks there and still it was not nearly enough time to get all that stuff in. Go to Bariloche, rent a volkswagen Gol, not golf, they leave the F off because its a half the size. Eat lots of Lomo, provlaka and drink great wine, the food options are outstanding there. I would say PM En Los Andes and stay at one of this places but he moved back to Tahoe. Still shot him a PM his places may still be renting. Seriously sweet location in Lao Lao. Ski at Catedral then drive around the lake check out the Glacier Niegro but be careful on that road. Klar gave some great Bariloche excursion suggestions as well. PM me for more if you like.

[covert]

if penguins and glaciers are your highest priorities the rest of your trip will suffer for it. that's like going to whistler for sushi and hockey. ushuaia might be your best compromise.

[GIR]

I second that. Pretty much everyone has it right, 8 days in patagonia is not going to cut it. I spent over a month there and pretty much just added to a list of things I wanted to do/see. If penguins and glaciers are the goal, then just fly directly (from BA) to Ushuaia. Just don't expect much of the town. But, Bariloche is kind of the hub down there, it is pretty touristy, but it gives you options there. Nice hotels, good steakhouses, good wine/breweries, ski resort, backcountry huts, chocolates, etc. You can rent a car, get a guide, and do whatever. Its important to note not all towns have those amenities. Also, there are some incredibly scenic mountains and lakes just outside of Bariloche, but no penguins, or big glaciers. Renting a car is an option, just good to keep in mind the roads down there are not like US highways. Some of them are good, but many, like route 40, are long, slow drives. I know the bus from Bariloche to El Calafate takes something like 36 hours, which is a significant amount of your time if you only have 8 days.

Have fun. You'll want to come back, I'm sure.

[dump]

Many fond memories of the great scenery:

[enlosandes]

I had my honeymoon in Argentina, it was super.

I'd say to go to Buenos Aires for a long weekend, then fly to Bariloche for the week. It's a great base camp for many excursions, romance and skiing.

Hit me up if you need lodging there. Be sure to ask for the Hugh Conway discount.

[Skirotica]

Many fond memories of the great scenery:

Glare suggests she didn't appreciate the assistant photographer on the scene...