Travelling and Argentina Day1

On Friday the 7th of April we, the Hewsons, started our South American trip. This trip includes visiting places such as Buenos Aires, Patagonia, Rio De Janeiro, Panama, Cuba, Mexico and then onto southern America. Our trip started on the Friday afternoon when we first took a 1 hour (more like 40 min.) flight to Auckland and then onto an 11 hour flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Me in Koru

 It was a long trip and was a great time to catch up on some recent and not so recent movies. The plane was a Dreamliner built to reduce jetlag by being shaped differently. The windows were tinted purple or charcoal so that even though we were flying through the middle of the day, you couldn’t tell. It felt like the dark of night. Perhaps the casinos should consider this technology. 

When we arrived in Argentina it was early evening (5pm) but very early morning back in New Zealand which are all the ingredients to make for an interesting tired teenager. We crossed the dateline so it was back to being Friday evening in Buenos Aires which meant everyone was heading home for the weekend. 

We took a 1 ½ hour taxi to the airport hotel we would spend the night in next to the International Airport. Our taxi driver was really enjoying our ride. He didn’t speak a word of English and we didn’t speak Spanish but there was lots of gesticulating and mama mias and aye aye ayes to work out his views on the Friday night traffic. 

After finding our room and working out the cryptic elevator signs – level 2 actually is level 3, level 1 was actually the ground floor. And you only have 5 seconds to get out of the lift before the door closes so you’d better be paying attention. 

We dropped our bags and off we went to an “Authentic American” diner called Trixies which sold the basics: hamburgers, hot dogs, milkshakes, sundaes with whipped cream and cherries on top etc. It had good food and a lot of it which was good for me as I was starving after having practically no food on the plane, I had a burger and a coke(with ice, the water is fine here despite what some may think) and then a sundae for dessert. We then walked like zombies back to the hotel where we passed out on our beds/sofa couch.

P.S The hotel wasn’t the cleanest in my humble opinion so 1 night was more than enough

In the morning we got up early(6:30) to catch a 3 hour plane to Patagonia. It was a comfortable flight in terms of the seats but the first half hour of the flight was quite a shake. But I come from wellington which had just experienced a 5.5 earthquake. At the airport before I left I realized how short the people of Argentina were – both men and women. Us Hewsons often towered over them!

Before landing in el Calafate the pilot told us we were early and so had time to do a circle over the glaciers before landing so we could see them from above. Unfortunately just as we approached, the clouds closed and we saw plenty of white and nothing much else.

When we got off we picked up a rental car from Avis which I soon labeled “El Death Trap”, the boot was smaller than wanted and when two of our suitcases were put in there blocked the rear view mirror. We took off out the Airports driveway on the wrong side of the road and continued down the same side on a quiet motorway until noticing something wasn’t right. Argentinians drive on the right hand side of the road not the left like back in New Zealand.
The ten minute drive to the small town was welcomed when we walked through into the warm lobby of the Patagonia Queen to drop our bags off, after doing so and getting changed we picked up some typical Argentinian snack food (beef empanadas) for lunch. They’re really like mini Cornish pasties. 

We headed for the Perito Moreno glacier. It was a 45 minute drive to the glacier which ended with incredible panoramic vistas of the glacier.

Upon arrival we took a short minibus trip up to the top of some tracks before walking along the walkways to approx. 4 balconies all with progressively closer views of the glacier. During these walks you can hear the glacier creaking and groaning as it moved and occasional loud pops (like a gun being shot).

We saw slabs of the ice falling and crashing into the freezing water below. Every sight along the walkways was amazing - whether it be the hilly background, the open lake, the colourful trees or the massive glacier. After making our way back to our car along these walkways we drove back into the town and went into souvenir shops and chocolate shops, found tonight’s restaurant and headed back to the hotel.

Later in the evening, I played a game of pool with Mum and then we headed off to a traditional Argentinian Parilla restaurant. This involved slow cooking the meat over a traditional BBQ.

 We ordered a paradilla which turned out to be an enormous meat platter for the 3 of us to share comprising pork, chicken, beef, lamb, of all varieties including sausages and black pudding.

We couldn’t finish it. When we got back from the restaurant we headed back to our room before dad and I went up to play some more pool. Now I am about to head off to sleep, I look forward to tomorrows cruise around the glaciers.



Joseph Hewson