South America

Tango and Whales in Argentina

Grab a seat and come with me on my trail of honeymoon memories: As I’ve told you before Mr Merry grew up in Chile and still has Chilean family. Around our wedding in 2014 I really started to speak about my wish to see Chile. Mr Merry was all in and with more. He wanted to show me whales in Argentina and really give me an experience to remember in South America. So he planned a trip:
1. From Nottingham to Buenos Aires in Argentina.
2. From my days working in Port Aventura I still have a friend in Uruguay so I wanted to do a quick day trip to Montevideo.
3. Then flying from Buenos Aires to Puerto Madryn to see the whales on the beaches. Obviously hoping to catch orcas hunting (even though it wasn’t the season).
4. From Puerto Madryn we’d hop on a bus and head onwards through the mountains and on to Puerto Montt in Chile.
5. Chiloe and after Santiago. From the Chile part of this journey you can read from a post in here.

The honeymoon started off with bad weather. We got stuck in a storm on our first transfer in Chicago, USA. So we ended up missing our connecting flight from Miami onwards to Argentina. We had to stay over in Miami for a day and continue our trip the next evening. Miami in the summer with winter clothes is not fun! Miami reviews can be found on this post.
First day in Argentina we were walking around seeing the main sights to see. Mr Merry was very excited to show me all the different important buildings of Buenos Aires. I was really keen on going to Uruguay. So the first day in Argentina we had a massive fight (just the thing you need on a honeymoon, right?). One side was angry that being here in Argentina with him wasn’t good enough and the other one arguing that I was super keen on Uruguay to start with. But as always in marriages: you argue, you forgive and you move on. So I gave up on the Uruguay plan and we decided to stay in Buenos Aires the rest of the days before our flight down South.

Important buildings to see in Buenos Aires

Second day in Buenos Aires we decided to visit La Bombonera which is the famous football stadium of Buenos Aires. It’s the club (Club Atlético Boca Juniors) and stadium where players like Maradona has played. Of course my football fanatic husband wanted a small tour so we paid for the tour around the stadium. But even if you’re not keen on La Bombonera or football, I would recommend to visit the area. The area is full of colours and life. Houses are painted in different colours, there’s live music and artist around. Great coffee shops and restaurants to eat in. La Boca area truly is an experience in Buenos Aires. For the evening we had booked a private tango lesson. I was super nervous hence I had never done tango before. The teacher, Fernando, turned out to be a bit of a master teacher when it comes to teaching us. Super patient and got us dancing some basic tango together. He also took me for a spin and I had no idea what I was doing but apparently it looked amazing. Couple dances really is a great way for a woman to let go of all control. You really need to let the man lead. Our lessons took place in Confitería Ideal.

From Buenos Aires we hopped on a local airline and headed south. We flew to El Tehuelche Airport to head towards Puerto Madryn. Mr Merry really wanted to show me the Southern Right Whales and that’s why he planned us to stop here for couple of days. This was the biggest “honeymoon” part of our vacation, because after this we’d head to Chile and see his family for the “rest” of our honeymoon. Puerto Madryn did not disappoint! It’s this tiny city situated next to Golfo Nuevo, a body of water formed by the Península Valdés. This inlet of sea water is used by the Southern Right Whales for breeding purposes and for nurturing their babies. So Puerto Madryn area has a long season of seeing whales right next to be beach!! It’s absolutely mind blowing to be standing meters away from these humongous creatures. Peninsula Valdés is an enclosed nature reserve and it’s most famous for it’s orcas that hunt baby seals off the beach waters. This hunting method is unique for the Argentinian Orcas and has not been seen anywhere else. Obviously you’d have to be extremely lucky to witness this and we weren’t in the season for it. But there was a tiny little hope in me that we’d see a pod of orcas swim by (of course we didn’t).

If you want to see more pictures and videos from La Península Valdés head to my Instagram from here.

Puerto Madryn area has a lot of different options of wildlife to see. We had planned for us to head out to the sea to see some whales and dolphins a bit nearer but unlucky for us the weather wasn’t good and all boats were cancelled. So we hired a car with some people from our hostel and headed out to explore the national park area next door. The lady that was renting to car to us gave us a little hopes up spiel of all the animals we could see. To our amazement, one by one we met those animals the next day. It was such a blessed journey! Although the rubble road made sure we had to drive extremely slow. But this is definitely something you need to do if you’re heading towards Peninsula Valdés. Our hostel was pretty great too (unfortunately can’t remember the name!). It had a real community vibe and had a huge barbecue together with other people from the hostel. Overall we ate a lot of meat in Argentina. Loads of cute street dogs and sweet honeymoon memories. Argentina was unforgettable for us!

Our journey in Argentina ended up in a bus from Puerto Madryn towards Puerto Montt in Chile. We road the roads towards and through the mountains between Argentina and Chile and the view was pretty unforgettable.

Child of the World. Language enthusiast. Wanderlust running in my veins. Making the world Merry.

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