PATAGONIA MID NOVEMBER TIPS AMD INFO
Patagonia mid November tour
This is just an unorganized review of our tour in no particular order, before I forget more detail.
I would heartily agree with all Ken from Vegas has posted on another thread.
Here are a few additions
The hotel in Puerto Natales was closed because of the connections to the past president and not noise but it is a longer walk into town. There is a shuttle that leaves the hotel every hour on the hour and returns from the town twenty past the hour.
The Singular Patagonia activities, you will be able to go on any tour you chose without it filling up and you can do two of them if time permits, one morning, one on the afternoon. You get a free 25 minutes massage at this hotel, so sign up for that early, you cannot give your free minutes to someone else to boost their time, but you can pay for the additional 25 minutes which is what we did, we had a fifty minute each couples massage. The massages were of a high standard. There was a nice swimming pool there.....(.if you are planning to swim at the Singular Santiago, it does not open until December 1st)
We did the Condor walk in the morning and booked our massage for 3pm instead of taking a second outdoor activity.
Condor walk. A strenuous hike up the cliff path, starts at a steep part, the guides walked very quickly. Five of us went. Another lady and myself had to make stops along the way, we did not go to the final look out but saw at least six condors there. It was very windy and rainy. The views were beautiful. I was very nervous when we went on parts of the trail that were near a steep drop off especially because of the weather conditions. Mr B and two others made it to the top, by then it was very cloudy and snowing and they could not see any more Condors there. I was glad I did the walk. The cave walkers saw three Condors sitting by the caves!
This is the most strenuous, active Tauck tour I have ever done, I could do it but some may find it too challenging and if you can’t do the walks you will miss all but the Moreno glacier and even that has quite a few steps.
The restaurants did not open until 7-30pm and service is really really slow, even if you catch a waiter’s eye they may ignore you. I don’t normally worry about slow service but with meals ending past 10pm most nights and having to be up before 6am quite a bit, you just wanted to get to bed. We had no issues with getting our meat cooked the way we wanted it prepared.
Electrical outlets— these have two or three round pins in a line. All the hotels provide one adapter in the room for your use. If there isn’t one, ask. I also saw the Australian two flat pin slanted outlets in the Alvear Palace hotel.
Clothing—— we took plenty of clothes to layer. In Patagonia we wore, long sleeve t shirt, hoodie fleece or fleece, puffer feather coat and rain coat over that . Long johns, we took three pairs each, laundering them after we wore them—- clothing dries very quickly when you have to launder over night. Then over long underwear we wore thin safari type pants and then good rain pants, yes three layers, we needed all that at times. And no we do not get cold easily. Woolly hats and gloves, I had fingerless ones, good with the camera operation, but I had regular gloves as an alternative. We wore a hoodie or coat or rain coat good over the woolly hat. We took buffs for our faces which were invaluable for wind and stinging hail. All the guides used buffs over their faces but we were the only ones on our tour that had any. Woolley socks and waterproof boots/shoes. You will spend a lot of time taking off layers and then needing to put them back on.
We encountered winds as high as 60 miles an hour with gusts up to 70 at the Uppsala glacier It was hard to keep upright. At the Grey glacier the wind was also fierce and hail stung your face. But it was all still wonderful.
We enjoyed visiting at this time of year because all the trees and plants were in flower, very pretty. As it is Spring, we saw baby Guanacos, cygnets, lambs, feels, calves etc
When we arrived in Buenos Aires we were strictly warned by our tour director to remove all jewelry and watches, even if it was fake, lock in the safe with passports and other valuables. Only take one credit card, not American Express, and a small amount of money. There is little need to change money into local currency. Not having to worry about pick pockets made us feel perfectly safe when we were walking around.
In Buenos Aires, if you are there on a Saturday or Sunday, there is a large craft market very near the hotel which has nice ‘stuff’ at fair prices. They take dollars but will give you change in local currency. There is a really good ice cream cafe down the street directly opposite the Alvear Palace hotel, Volta, try the Dulce de leches flavors.
Shopping. The best place for variety is El Calafate, we restricted ourselves to one hour so only went in a few shops, the prices are not cheap. Some will give discount for paying cash in dollars. The craft market in BA would have been a better first choice.
What to buy, silver, lapis lazuli, the pink stone in Argentina, leather, things flavored in calafate plant in Chile. Mate cups and straws in Argentina.
Do not attempt to take even dried fruits into Chile, they are very strict and the fine is $200.
On our last morning, the tour director did not think it was possible to get a late check out because the hotel was busy because of the G 20 summit about to begin. We tried and got two extra hours for a payment of $50. Apparently a 4 hour late check out is $150. This was perfect for us because it gave us time to visit the famous Japanese gardens here that did not open until 10am. We did not want to carry around passports etc which is why late check out was what we needed. The garden is a 35 minute very brisk walk from the hotel and it is free if you are over 65 and have ID, of course we took no ID! They take credit cards for the modest entry fee. It was lovely there.
When we arrived in BA it was unusually quiet because of the famous football game. But come Monday morning it was chaotic as is usual. We saw all the people running and exercising on the streets and in the parks and many many professional dog walkers with as many as ten dogs on a leash. BA is known as the Paris of South America and it certainly is, we loved it. Next time we will be sure to stay several extra days.
Money and shopping...... the Argentinians and Chileans use the American $ sign to price their goods, but that does not mean the price is in American dollars, it’s rather confusing at first.
Two unique situations occurred on the tour.....
In Santiago, on the day before the tour began, a policeman shot the son of the chief of an indigenous tribe. There were major protests, little fires were being lit all over the city and then a truck was set alight right by our hotel. We knew nothing of this but then all of a sudden all of us in the restaurant which was near the front of the hotel and went forward to an outside part, began to be overcome by fumes and a cloud of gas, our eyes started streaming and throats were affected, we were evacuated to a back room of the hotel. The staff were very good and immediately distributed pieces of cut limes to ius to suck on to counteract the reaction in our throats. And then free champagne. We only then learned that the police had thrown tear gas or pepper spray, I have no idea of the difference, to disperse the crowd. Things eventually cleared and we began dinner again. Other people on our tour were in the streets when it happened and got caught up with people running to safety.
Then in Buenos Aries, there was the attack on the football players before the big match but we were in the hotel at the time and did not see anything happening.
The tango dinner and show do not finish until almost midnight on the last night, it was excellent but be aware!
