This tour lived up to my expectations as a first-time visitor to South America. Crossing the Andes by coach from Santiago to Mendoza was a particularly spectacular journey. When we stopped for mid-morning coffee at as ski-resort at 9,000 feet, most people experienced slight dizziness while walking from the bus to the hotel- an effect of the thinner atmosphere. Bizarre, but not alarming.
Mendoza is a delightful city, full of avenues provided with shade by numerous trees, able to grow in this semi-desert region courtesy of an irrigation system bringing water from the Andes, which was first set up by the Incas. With its lovely park and pavement cafes and restaurants, it is reminiscent of many a southern European city.
It is worthwhile arranging to have some free time to explore Buenos Aires. The hotel used by Just You is very conveniently located close to one of the major pedestrian shopping avenues which in turn leads one to the Plaza de Mayo, the Presidential Palace and the cathedral. You can see quite a lot in the space of a long afternoon stroll. Again, Buenos Aires has quite a European feel to it, in part due to the splendid fin-de-siecle architecture of many buildings, but perhaps not so surprising as 50 % of the Argentine population is of Italian heritage.
While the town of Iguazu has little to offer, the Iguazu falls are quite breathtaking, especially as the excursion in the National Park brings you right up close to their thundering majesty. A rainproof is an absolute necessity as it is impossible to avoid the huge amounts of spray rising high above the cataracts. The add-on excursion to see the Brazilian side provides a different perspective and is a desirable extra. It also affords an opportunity to stop en route at a huge shop offering all manner of goods attractive to visitors!
We were slightly disadvantaged in our visit to Rio de Janeiro as the day following our evening arrival was rather wet. So Christ The Redeemer was a ghostly figure in the horizontal rain during the morning city tour, though a stop at the Sao Sebastiao cathedral provided shelter and the chance to appreciate its beautiful stained-glass windows. The following day the weather improved, permitting, in my case, a pleasant stroll along the Copacabana promenade seeing how the “cariocas” spend their Sunday mornings- jogging, cycling, playing 7 - a - side football on the beach etc.
Some words of advice for future travellers.
1) The pre-holiday information provided by Just You emphasises precautions against mosquito bites (and rightly so), saying that long-sleeved tops and long trousers are advisable. Consequently I left all my short-sleeved summer shirts at home, ditto shorts. It turned out that in November mosquito risks are much less and it is perfectly possible to wear short - sleeved tops and shorts during most of the holiday, though insect repellent might be advisable in Iguazu. Another point to bear in mind is that plug-in repellent devices are pointless unless you switch off the air conditioning, as the latter rapidly removes the repellent from the air in the room (read the small print of the leaflet).
2) Dealing with 3 different local currencies plus the ubiquitous US dollar is one of the headaches of this tour. No sooner do you get the hang of one than you need to get to grips with the next one. In the case of Argentina, there are two different exchange rates against the dollar: the official rate and the “dolar blue” rate. The latter when we were there was offering 14 pesos to the dollar as opposed to the official rate of about 9-10. The “dolar blue” rate, strangely enough, IS legal and is published in the national daily La Nacion and can be obtained in certain exchanges, which the tour manager and local guide can identify. So it can be advantageous to bring heaps of US dollars in cash with you. But you need to be comfortable with the risks associated with carrying large sums of cash. If you do take cash, make sure that you count it on a regular basis to ensure that some of it does not evaporate, even when kept in a supposedly safe place, as some of us found out…. The two exchange rates may disappear if, as mooted, the newly elected president of Argentina devalues the peso. I also found that one of my credit cards was not accepted by several banks’ ATMs despite the card issuer having been warned of my trip. When I raised the matter on my return the issuer said that I could have received cash over the counter if I produced two pieces of ID. So it might be worthwhile taking a second ID in addition to your passport.
3) Electric socket adapters are sometimes a problem. In Chile the two round pin style (as for continental Europe) worked fine. In Argentina the sockets required two flat angled pins, except that the angle on my international adapter was exactly the opposite of what was required. It was only at the second hotel that I found the solution: ignore the logical way of inserting the plug and turn your plug through 180 degrees. Then the flat pins are at the right angle to enter the socket. In Brazil I had to give up on recharging as the socket taking 3 round pins was countersunk. So try to get an international adapter that can cope with the Brazilian socket.
There are plenty of early starts in this tour, either to reach a destination before the hordes arrive, or to catch a plane. So it’s a good idea not to have very late nights in the bar!
The long flight to Santiago from Paris can be rather testing for those of us who find it difficult to sleep on long-haul journeys. On arrival at the Santiago hotel we had brunch and shortly thereafter were off on the city tour. By the time I went to bed that night I calculated that I had not slept for more than 40 hours! But I found that by staying up till about 10 p.m. local time, the following day was largely unaffected by jet lag.
Altogether a most enjoyable holiday, well worth the tribulations of the long flight south.
