City of rhythm, land of ice – exploring Buenos Aires and the glacial wonders of El Calafate
By Caroline Phillips
Go to Buenos Aires for its faded Paris-style chic, cobblestone streets, wide boulevards and endless architectural surprises. Its excellent restaurants, vinotecas (selling the country’s fine wines) and retro cafés. Also, for its countless ice-cream shops (the local obsession), bookstores everywhere plus welcoming, passionate people. And for its Latin American buzz, multiple flavours from waves of immigration, and its liberal vibe.
Forget luxury travel for once. In Buenos Aires, jump on a hop-on-hop-off bus to get the hang of the city: it’s fun and, frankly, offers a much better view from its upper deck than you get in a chauffeur-driven limo. You’ll spy everything from the Plaza de Mayo – the historic heart of the capital and scene of revolutionary protests and Evita’s rallying cries for social justice – to gritty La Boca, the port neighbourhood where tango was born, with its colourful Caminito area and football stadium. You’ll take in Recoleta – think Old Money, graceful 19th century mansions and equally grand mausoleums in the “Evita” cemetery – to Puerto Madero with its recycled warehouses and footballers’ apartments in high-rises.
Or brave a bike tour to negotiate the city on two wheels – you’ll be joined by twenty-somethings to sixty-year-olds – choosing perhaps a themed outing such as graffiti or architecture. Then wander later at leisure through San Telmo – an area boasting French cobblestones, traditional cafés and antiques shops – and Palermo, one of the hippest places in town, with its groovy restaurants, boutiques and youthful spirit.
This is the city of tango and you mustn’t miss a lesson in Gala Tango’s grand hall in San Telmo, with its pillars and chandeliers; you’ll soon realise there’s nothing easy about learning this dance. Afterwards you can enjoy a formal three-course dinner and endless wines while watching a first-class tango and folklore show. Alternatively, hit the iconic Michelangelo restaurant-theatre in a restored conventillo (an old customs house) for an equally mesmerising show followed by dinner: it’s where Liza Minnelli and heart bypass inventor Dr. Favaloro got their tango fixes.
It’s impossible not to fall for the high kicks of the sequinned dancers, the boleadores demonstrations (gauchos madly clacking balls on cords onto the floor, traditionally used for capturing animals by entangling their legs), broody songs and melancholic music – the dance and songs that were originally a heartfelt lament by the immigrants over leaving their motherland. Both offer dancers, singers, guitarrón (a 6-stringed banjo-style instrument), violin, cello and accordions.
If there’s one place that should be on everyone’s list of things to do before they die, it’s the Teatro Colón, the 7-storey opera house that vies aesthetically with Milan’s La Scala. The Teatro Colón is an Italianate structure that was opened in 1908, and boasts 2,500 red velvet seats – stretching for seemingly almost as far as the eye can see – plus standing room for 500 (it’s no longer an elitist establishment). It also has a whopping 700-light chandelier and marble, Venetian mosaics and French stained glass.
More importantly, its acoustics are hard to beat. It has hosted Callas to Pavarotti and ballet – but whether you go for a Schubert with the Michael Barenboim ensemble or for Wagner and Sibelius with the Argentine Symphony orchestra, you’ll leave walking on a pink cloud.
The Museo de Arte Latinoamericana de Buenos Aires (MALBA) offers yet more culture in an airy modern arts museum – inside cool concrete blocks and glass walls – and opens at (a delightfully Latin and laid back) noon. Visit this spot for Argentinian works, including Xul Solar and Antonio Berni, but also if you’re a Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo fan. Alternatively, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes is the country’s most important national art museum – worth a trip just for León Ferrari’s strikingly original Christ on a USAF aeroplane crucifix – and houses some great Argentine artists through to minor works by the big Europeans.
When it comes to food, BA is the country’s (gastronomic) belly, with everything from bodegas (authentic, low-key eateries) to star-studded restaurants. Locals eat meat most days, sometimes more than once, and don’t even think of having dinner before 9 pm. If you have space after your meal, there are countless dulce de leche shops selling acres of the gloopy, rich, brown milk caramel and its products; otherwise almost every other retail outlet seems to be a patisserie.
You can expect to go up a dress (or trouser) size after being served a family-sized portion of milanesa (for just one person) and “papas fritas” (chips) in a bodega. If you’re after home cooking (and the Argentines are among the friendliest and most hospitable people in the world, so it’s likely you’ll get lucky,) you’ll be invited during your stay to an asado (the BBQ that every local loves) with Porteñas (people born in BA) for some of the world’s best beef; otherwise make sure you book a traditional parrilla (grill) in a restaurant.
For more local authenticity, you might try a tasting tour, walking around town to savour street foods, from takeaway snacks to hole-in-the-walls, and sampling choripán (sausage sarnies), empanadas (the Argentine pastry turnover) and provileta (an Argentine grilled cheese). Hovering in the glorious mid-range, Sottovoce hits the spot for classic Italian, and MARTi for cool vegetarian fare cooked by yet another Francis Mallmann disciple. You can also tick some classy restaurants off your list; after all, there are five Michelin-starred restaurants in the city.
Stay at the Anselmo in San Telmo for its skinny (rooftop) pool and enviable location. You simply step outside its door and you’re immediately in a piazza with tango dancers and musicians, while a quick wander down the street leads to antiques markets and galleries. What’s not to like?
You must take, at least, a weekend out of Buenos Aires. After a nearly 3 and a half hour flight, you’ll savour the delights of southern Patagonia’s El Calafate, 1400 miles away. As the plane nears its destination, the ground and sky merge into one icy expanse of blue-grey and white of endless snow and steppe ice; and then as the 15,000 year-old Lago Argentino hovers into view, Earth turns brown with a tributary snaking through. There are few more breathtaking landscapes to fly above.
First stop is El Calafate, a small frontier town – and yes, yes, the barbecued lamb in Casimira Biguá restaurant is to die for and who wouldn’t enjoy La Zaina, a gluten-free restaurant in a former stable? But you’re not really here for anything urban. Not even for the endless shops with sheepskin rugs, sheepskin hats and maté cups. The real attraction is the Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, a UNESCO world heritage site, 50 miles from town on a smooth road that passes by sheep estancias. You’ll hop aboard a Solo Patagonia cruiser and after chugging between awe-inspiring icebergs scattered like milky blue ice art underneath a rainbow, and spying condors with 10-foot wing spans and eagles above the waters, you’ll come to Glaciar Upsala, a 35-mile-long glacier. Cor.
Then on to the Spegazzini glacier with its falling ice, amid a landscape so perfect that it looks airbrushed – imagine creamy blue water, snow-covered mountains, green forested hills and wild cows. Stop at the end of the world for lunch in Refugio Spegazzini – a surreal experience that involves looking at a glacier through picture windows overlooking decking and contemporary garden sofas, while eating guanaco (wild llama) goulash, served in a little saucepan on a wooden board, and listening to the thunderous sound of distant crashing ice.
If this all leaves you momentarily speechless, your next day’s trip to the park’s biggest hit, possibly one of South America’s most spectacular sights, will leave you mute. Discovered after winding through hills and lenga forests, the Perito Merino glacier on Lago Argentino is a translucent blue-green cliff of frosty majesty. This creaking, crashing ice sculpture – three miles wide, 180-foot high and with the heart-stopping sound of its ice falling – should be one of the Wonders of the World.
Stay at the Xelena. It may be the only hotel near town, yet in winter you’ll still watch people skating on the frozen wetlands in front of it and see flamingos. Or you may wake up to a sky exploding with reds, crimsons and yellows that turns into icy blue heavens with cloud formations from an angel’s painting masterclass. When you leave this magical part of the world, you’ll have seen forest, steppe, mountain, lake and glacier, and experienced an epic expanse of icy mantle, plains and sky. Not bad for a weekend.
Journey Latin America offers a 13-day Highlights of Argentina holiday, staying 3 nights in Buenos Aires at Hotel Anselmo before venturing to southern Patagonia, the Lake District and Iguzazú Falls, from £4,950 per person. The price includes domestic flights, transfers, excursions and good-quality hotels on a B&B basis, but international flights are extra. Alternatively, they offer a 13-day holiday staying 3 nights at Xelena in El Calafate with visits to Buenos Aires, the Lake District and Iguazú Falls from £4,989 per person. The price includes domestic flights, transfers, excursions and good-quality hotels on a B&B basis, but international flights are extra. Visit www.journeylatinamerica.com for more information.
Caroline Phillips is an award-winning freelance journalist who contributes to publications from Sunday and daily newspapers to glossy magazines and various luxury websites. To see more of her work, go to www.carolinephillips.net.
