The final week of 2024 was spent mostly on the road, as we ultimately planned to enter 2025 in Argentina. As we left Puerto Natales after the trip to Patagonia, we came back to Santiago for a few days to enjoy some Christmas – we did however elect to add one more Chilean activity before we took off for Argentina, and that was wine. So much wine…

With Rahul back in the US, the four remaining Patagonia survivors set out to Isla de Maipo – a wine valley about an hour south of Santiago where many Chilean wineries have sprouted up with a varietal that we don’t really see a lot in the states: carmenere. As sophisticated as the French word makes the trip seem, all we really did for about 8 hours is get driven around from winery to winery, getting progressively more day drunk on the heavy handed pours of the wineries in this region… I would love to recount the exciting details of artisanal wine-making that were taught to us that day, but by the third winery of the day with multiple glasses of full-cup pours, the most I can recall is Ferrona’s Dune impression pictured below. Fun time!

After another day or two of recovering from our wine outing, we finally made our way to Argentina. The flight over is relatively quick – not sure I’ve done many sub-2hr international hops before – but it crosses the Andes mountain range, which is a phenomenal sight on a clear day like the one we traveled on. Apparently this crossing can be quite harrowing given the air currents around these mountains, but I thought that part of the flight was the easiest range crossing I’ve ever done. However, 5 minutes later when the pilot willingly flew into a storm despite a clear path only 500ft above our altitude at the time, we were not so lucky… the turbulence was quite memorable.

Buenos Aires is one of those cities that you can feel that the energy is different as soon as you step foot out of the airport. The city was bustling even at 11pm as we got settled into our new Airbnb and started our hunt for some ‘dinner’, which was not too far off from true dinner-time in Argentina. I would have to say that the food in Buenos Aires definitely is a more memorable experience than almost all of Chile – while we enjoyed the dining there, Argentina just knows how to season it’s food a little better and that did seem to be the missing ingredient for truly amazing food experiences. Well that and the 1/2 of dulce de leche in each alfajor…

We had a great time exploring the city, in no small part to Ferrona’s business school friend Manuel, who recently moved back to Buenos Aires for a short while. He was gracious enough to walk with us and experience the most touristy of tourist traps, while giving some insight into the Argentinian psyche and how each of these locations is or isn’t truly that important to the people. His recommendations also helped feed us for the entire rest of our time in Buenos Aires and I wholeheartedly blame him for the extra 20lbs I’m likely to see on the scale when we get back home.

Given the rich colonial history of Buenos Aires, there are countless historical sites and architectural marvels to enjoy while you meander through the relatively compact ‘old’ Buenos Aires. We chose to do a few famously touristic sites, and also branch out a bit to see some not-so-well-known parts. In order of most enjoyable to okaish, as rated by a cultural connoisseur such as myself, we have:

• Bar Sur – A spectacular dinner + tango show, that we later found out was a set for a famous (not to me) movie and an Anthony Bourdain fave of Buenos Aires. Well deserved recognition, with a very small crowd and incredible showcase of tango through the years!
• El Zanjon de Granados – Truly a fascinating look into how an irrelevant real estate deal in the ’80s uncovered some of the richest history of how Buenos Aires dealt with nature and it’s expanding borders in the 18th and 19th centuries.
• Palacio Barolo – This early 1900’s office building was built because some guy (Barolo) wanted to bring Italian architecture to Buenos Aires. Successfully so I’d say given the Dante’s Divine Comedy inspiration is pervasive through the entire 100m tall structure!
• Teatro Colon – A world-renowed opera house, that is as impressive as the thousands of articles written it has inspired make it seem. Don’t come in January if you want to see a show though, since it’s closed for annual renovations…
• El Ateneo Grand Splendid – Old opera house renovated into a book store – cool idea, way too crowded though. Great place if you need to find CDs as physical media for your songs though.
• Cafe Tortoni – Long wait to sit down for some meh coffee and snacks. Maybe it was a miss just based on the timing, but the historical description as Latin America’s oldest cafe is more interesting than the experience itself.

Our trip to Buenos Aires was a fantastic time filled with friends, family and lots of food! As we head out to the rest of Argentina and beyond, I’m already thinking of what we want to do the next time that we visit – and we will be back. See you soon Manuel!