Travelers' Tales: Latin America

Two Audley clients round out their Latin America experience the tailor-made way

By Audley Travel

February 25^th, 2015

latin america redeux

We went on an incredible trip to Latin America for two weeks, visiting Chile, Uruguay and Argentina. We have traveled extensively through Latin America in the past, including visiting Machu Picchu and hiking in Patagonia, but there were a few things left that we wanted to do to round out our experiences. We tried to do an Argentina trip ourselves a few years ago and almost everything went wrong. Planes we had booked didn't fly and ships we reserved didn't sail. We wanted a vacation, not something stressful. That is just what Audley Travel and Chris Watkins gave us. Everything was custom tailored according to our selected destinations. We went into the planning knowing what we wanted, and Chris combined our ideas with his own to maximize our experience. We’d never planned a tailor-made trip before, and we appreciated the individual attention this provided. Everywhere we went there was someone waiting for us, every guide we had knew the details of our schedule and was knowledgeable about the region, and every car we got into had an envelope with a welcome letter and information about our destination. We’d never felt so well taken care of.

the stella australis

Our stay on the Stella Australis was a huge highlight of the trip. In fact, it was one of the main reasons we wanted to travel back to Argentina. We spent four nights and five days on this new, beautiful and extremely comfortable ship. The food was incredible as well; a stay on the Australis includes a huge breakfast, buffet lunch, a served dinner with fresh fish and meat, and all drinks. We made a lot of new friends among the other passengers on the ship who were from all over the world. The four days were packed full of beauty, from glaciers and fjords to penguins and sea lions.

Our excursions to the shore were amazing as well. Just riding on the Australis you’ll see the fjords and glaciers, but being able to explore the glaciers on hiking trips was remarkable. The guides even had two or three levels of hikes so everyone was comfortable. Definitely ranking as one of our favorite excursions was our time spent exploring Cabo de Hornos (Cape Horn) on the Tierra del Fuego archipelago. The ship goes out around the cape, but more than half the time they’re not able to land because the waters are too rough. We were fortunate to see some waters calm enough to land on the shore. Cabo de Hornos is the southernmost part of the Tierra del Fuego, so standing there literally feels like you’re standing on the edge of the world. It felt incredibly exciting to land and be able to be there.

mendoza

The wine tour in Mendoza was another memorable part of our trip. The tour was organized by Audley, and we were picked up by an incredibly friendly and knowledgeable guide who took us to two fabulous wineries. The first winery was huge and sells millions of dollars worth of wine around the world, while the second was this little boutique and elegant newer winery. In both places we had a private tour of the entire place. The lineup of wines at the second boutique winery was fabulous, and the guide told us about how it was just recently converted into a tourist attraction. We had a great time with the guides from both wineries, and we’ve even been in touch with them since!

montevideo

We would recommend that anyone traveling to Uraguay should absolutely make a stop in Montevideo. Like most places in the southern hemisphere, Montevideo is extremely organized, very progressive, and has a high literacy rate. It’s a well-taken-care-of city and it’s a great culture to be in. The most stunning part of the city is the architecture. There’s a lot of nineteenth and twentieth century art deco and art nouveau around the area. Some of the buildings have been remodeled while others have just existed for years and years. There’s one building in particular, the Palacio Taranco, built in the early twentieth century by an incredibly rich family who wanted to reproduce a French city residence. All of the furniture and decorations were made specifically for the building, and it was later purchased by the state to be made into a museum. After admiring the architecture, we made our way down to the port on the river to the Mercado del Puerto. The market had all the meat and fish you could want, and in the middle were at least 15-20 restaurants. We sat down and had a wonderful meal with great meat, wine, and caramel desert. In addition, all of the locals were so hospitable and friendly. Montevideo is truly a terrific place to go and definitely worth a visit.

our audley experience

We really can’t emphasize enough how wonderful Chris was to work with and how smoothly everything went. The connections that Audley has with local tour companies are incredible, and Chris was right about every suggestion he made. He was friendly, listened attentively, was efficient, responsive, and well-informed. We truly appreciated Audley’s philosophy, reliability, excellent connections, and knowing that, if anything went wrong, Audley was right there to help. We may only be doing tailor-made trips from here on out!