Wendy & Keith's Patagonian Adventure
My husband and I booked a last minute trip to Patagonia. I initially inquired thinking it might need to be for the following year, but Carrie pulled everything together for a 2 1/2 week trip for us quickly and after a couple of phone conversations to make a few adjustments and consider some various options for lodgings and activities we booked and then departed less than a month later. We chose to book 24 hours in Santiago, about a week in southern Chile, a week in southern Argentina and 3 days in Buenas Aíres. (Previously we have traveled to Mendoza for the wine country and hiked to the base camp of Aconcagua, been to the Iguazú Falls, the Itaipu Dam, and Rio de Janeiro, so we didn’t repeat those on this trip) April had fall colors and the significantly less tourists. We were super fortunate with the weather and had gorgeous blue skies almost every day which made for spectacular views. A couple of places I’d been interested in staying at were already closed for the season, but I’m so glad we came when we did. We chose to stay in estancias and hotels rather than backpacking on this trip and Carrie directed us well and we were very happy with the ones we ended up at for location, comfort, food and price. Horseback riding is not an activity that we frequently choose to do, but we were delighted by our stay at the estancia: horseback riding was a wonderful way to explore the land, we could combine it with some hiking, we were the only guests and had an amazing time there. We used a private guide for much of our hiking. While not necessarily needed, they gave us a richer experience and were fun to be around. They helped us time our hikes so we had the views at the end almost to ourselves upon arrival. We did a combination of the most popular iconic hikes and very beautiful but not nearly as popular ones and could adjust based on discussion with the guides. We were able to reach Carrie and her team with any questions throughout our trip. It was very helpful to book with a local company for time zones to match and for the local up to date knowledge. I stumbled upon Venture Patagonia by chance on Trip Advisor—we’d planned to book our trip ourselves, but we couldn’t have gotten it pulled together that quickly and it wouldn’t have gone as smoothly. Carrie is an American who moved to Chile and she has hired a great team of Chileans who speak English. She arranged English speaking drivers and guides in Argentina for us as well. Thank you to Carrie and her team for a spectacular trip!
