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Post by grecian on Feb 4, 2009 18:20:56 GMT
Flying form England, is it realistic to be able to be able to get from Buenos Aires down to Tierra Del Fuego by train and then catch an internal flight back somehwere down there to BA to fly back in about 2 weeks?
I realise that a month+ would be ideal but I only have limited leave...
Frey Bentos RULES!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 4, 2009 18:38:51 GMT
I think that transportation is very good in South America. I saw in a Quantum of Solace that it was possible to leave La Paz by airplane and fly for quite some time to the middle of the desert after being chased through major mountains by other crashing aircraft. And even if your plane crashes in the middle of the desert, it doesn't take too long to walk to a nearby village, take the local bus and be right back in the center of La Paz at your hotel the very same evening.
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Post by Wild on Feb 5, 2009 3:06:41 GMT
what a lovely way to start the South America board....
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Post by grecian on Feb 7, 2009 18:00:19 GMT
I do my best!
Any ideas, luv?
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Post by gringalais on Feb 9, 2009 1:02:37 GMT
I don't think there are trains, most travel in South America is by bus. The distance is a lot to cover for the time you have, but you could take night buses to not lose out on daylight hours for exploring. If you pay extra for salon cama they are pretty comfortable.
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Post by Wild on Feb 10, 2009 2:22:09 GMT
hmm I thought there was a train that takes you pretty far south, not as far as Tierra Del Fuego you'd have to catch a bus the rest of the way and there are flights, as least as far from where the train goes my advice is to go to TT to ask, we don't seem to be much help  |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 10, 2009 14:17:31 GMT
Shouldn't Farsi be here with all the info?
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Post by spindrift on Feb 10, 2009 15:07:17 GMT
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Post by spindrift on Feb 10, 2009 15:21:31 GMT
As I suspected: read this
"Alexander Henderson, the first Lord Faringdon, who made a fortune financing railways across Argentina and Spain."
I know the family. I HAD heard stories of their exploits whilst constructing the railways in Argentina! (I think Chile as well).
Grecian will be all right on these railways.
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Post by grecian on Feb 11, 2009 20:49:24 GMT
I'll check the Rough Guide I have and report back....
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Post by bjd on Feb 26, 2009 10:56:14 GMT
I don't think you can get from BsAs to the south by train. There used to be thousands of km of railways but they were privatized in the 1990s and most have gone out of business. There are just bits and pieces of train track now, and most of those in the link above are just short distance tourist trains.
With only 2 weeks, you would have to fly. Buses are possible, but although they are comfortable, it will take a long time. Or else you take buses one way. As an example, BsAs to Puerto Madryn -- still a long way from Tierra del Fuego -- takes 19 hours. And the scenery is not interesting -- just flat and empty.
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Post by spindrift on Feb 27, 2009 18:30:20 GMT
that's what I feared...flat and empty...I have read Bruce Chatwin's book 'Patagonia' and the countryside wouldn't appeal to me.
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Post by hwinpp on Mar 11, 2009 10:22:52 GMT
Are there budget airlines in Argentina? Or in South America?
I'd have thought a thread on Argentina had to include steaks.
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Post by gringalais on Mar 11, 2009 11:44:51 GMT
There are only a few airlines in Argentina - mainly LAN and Aerolineas Argentinas and generally flying is pretty expensive.
Chile doesn't have any discount airlines, but you can get inexpensive fares sometimes. When we went up to the desert in October, we got tickets for a price that was similar to the salon cama bus. It is a lot cheaper to book online than going to their offices. Right now LAN is having a lot of promotional fares. Sky is the other main airline, but I have never flown them, everyone says they are cheaper, but not for the flights I wanted. There used to be another called Aerolineas del Sur, which was affiliated with Aerolineas Argentinas, but I have not heard anything about them for a while so I don't know if they are still operating.
For steaks - bife de lomo or bife de chorizo are good ones to try in Argentina. Asado de tira is very tasty but there is not much meat, it is mainly rib bones.
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Post by hwinpp on Mar 17, 2009 10:59:10 GMT
How about Chile? It's so off my radar I don't even know if they've got gauchos there or raise cattle...
But I have a friend in Santiago teaching English.
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Post by gringalais on Mar 17, 2009 15:26:09 GMT
I live in Santiago too.
Due to the geography (not a lot of wide open spaces since it is a skinny country with 2 mountain ranges), we don't have much cattle here, beef generally comes from Argentina, Brazil or Paraguay. Agriculture here is mainly wine grapes and fruits and some vegetables for export. The equivalent of a gaucho here would be a huaso, but these days you generally only see people dressed up like that for Independence Day (Sept 18th) when they dance cueca, the national folkloric dance.
There are a lot of amazing places to visit. There's a bit of everything, the driest desert in the world, glaciers, mountains, beaches, lakes, volcanos.
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Post by bjd on Mar 17, 2009 19:45:41 GMT
There are cowboys in southern Chile. A couple of years ago I bought a book by an American who spent time with the last cowboys of Chile -- near Coyhaigue (sp?). They still lead, or at least did in the 1990's, a really rough life and seemed to be pretty rough characters. They mostly spent their working time driving cattle up the mountains to Argentina, basically ignoring the border.
I agree that Chile is a great place to visit. I have been twice in the past few years and still have seen very little.
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