While we sweat it out here in the States, going to cook outs, forming relationships that won't last past Labor Day and crashing on our friends' couch at their beach house, life in the deep Southern hemisphere is in full-on winter mode. Argentina has been having a moment the last couple years with lots of coverage about super-cool Buenos Aires. But a lesser known feather in the old Argentine cap is the Las Leñas ski area.
Located just 90 minutes by air from Buenos Aires, the Las Leñas Valley is a hot spot for South American ski nuts as well as North Americans looking for the perfect year-round snow buzz. The base area of the resort is pretty much the whole town, where you'll find cheap-to-five-star dining options and lodging, as well as clubs and bars that go off all night.
For people from North America, the mountain definitely has a much different look and feel: This stretch of the Andes has craggy, cathedral-esque formations full of open snowfields and tight, steep chutes. So whether you're headed down to experience a different culture or the rush of your life, Las Leñas has you covered.
Ushuaia is known as both el fin del mundo and the beginning of the journey to Antarctica. Convicts helped construct its streets, bridges and buildings when the Argentinean government built a jail there in the early 1900s. Officials figured wannabe escape artists wouldn't have a chance to make a getaway, thanks to the city's location in Tierra del Fuego: The waters of the Beagle Channel don't make for an easy swim.
Today, the town's population balloons to almost 65,000 during the high season from November to March. After the jump, find our guide on what to do and see in the City at the End of the World.
For our journey to the South Pole, we signed up with a group called People To People, which essentially offers study abroad programs for adults. In addition to whisking us to the seventh continent, People to People lined up top experts to lecture on board our cruise. We got schooled in everything from glaciology to marine mammals to the politics of Antarctica.
Group or no group, if you're among the .05 percent making the trek to the bottom of the world, mastering the f-word is essential. (That'd be "flexibility.") Our trip to Ushuaia, the southernmost city on earth and the gateway Antarctica, involved flight changes, lost luggage and botched travel plans.
On Monday we covered a grapey getaway in South Africa. Another great place to go vineyard hopping this time of year is in the mountainous Mendoza province of Argentina, the fifth largest producer of wine in the world.
Postales del Plata offers packages ranging from weekend jaunts to ten-day wine safaris, including bookings at country lodges surrounded by grape-producing fields. In case you're not ready to travel now, return for winter wine tastings and some of the best skiing in the Southern Hemisphere.
While we dawdle around in the US, asking if the airlines would please, maybe, hopefully sorta respect us, passengers in Buenos Aires are letting Aerolineas Argentinas know exactly how they feel. As labor conflicts wear on, delays and cancellations have stranded passengers expressing their feelings by smashing computers and offices while hurling soda cans at weary airline employees.
Thousands of passengers have been stranded at Ministro Pistarini International since Friday when the trouble started. Some news reports blame baggage handlers and pilots for the flight cancellations, though the pilots union says it's members are ready to fly. Passengers suspect that Aerolineas Argentinas is overbooking flights.
It'll take at least another epic summer of delays in the States before we see this kind of rioting at JFK--though it might be the kind of drastic action we need to get our airlines working again. ¡Viva la revolución!
Buenos Aires, the capital of the land of tango and macho gauchos, is going gay. Exhibit A in the transformation is the newly opened Axel Hotel, the first specifically-for-gay-customers property to open in the city. And though it offers up a marketing campaign featuring much racier photos than the hotel-provided pic above, the Axel isn't driving the change in attitudes. Instead, says Alexei Barrionuevo in the New York Times, the hotel is the result of a newly open society.
This summer the city hosted a soccer World Cup for gay players, soon after a TV dating show made waves by showing gay men kissing on camera. Five years ago, BA legalized same-sex unions. Before that, Argentina's president declared equal rights, regardless of sexual orientation. And as Buenos Aires warms, gay travelers have started dropping by. Trying to capitalize on the tourism boomlet, of course, is the Axel Hotel.
That said, there's more to see than the hotel. Partiers of any orientation are welcome at Kim y Novak, a grungy bar with nothing but debauchery on its blog. Downtown, Palacio Alsina draws a mixed crowd with its drag queen hostess and go-go dancers. And mega-club Amerika is still the gold standard for those into the gay clubbing scene.
Buenos Aires is famous for its nightlife. A few lesser-known hot spots may have been ignored by guidebooks and tourists (lucky for us) but they're a definite must-visit.
El Beso -- This Forties-style nightclub hosts a variety of tango parties, or milongas, ranging from casual, no-partner-needed rounds (where you, o seeker of love, come in) to pros-only dance-offs. Riobamba 416
Beat House -- Jetlag begone! Ease into the Argentinean nightlife with this bar in the northeastern neighborhood of Las Cañitas, where the fun starts at the early bird hour of 9 p.m. Meet someone here and you can take them to the next bar, and the club, and then to breakfast... Báez 211
Embedded Travel Guides: We are searching the world for folks who can take you on a field trip of their "backyard." When we find these folks, we then stealthy embed them into their local travel scene and ask them to be our eyes and ears out in the field.
We are expecting the same sort of grainy video, choppy sentences, and snapshot photos that you are use to seeing from embeds. The rub is, at the end of the day we should be left with a backyard travel guidebook like no other.
I'm finished. In every sense of the word. Hungover, bilious and exhausted; one pair of overpriced sneakers worn out, one liver on the way. It's been great fun. If you've been reading, thank you. If you haven't, you've missed an opportunity to augment your knowledge of, and sympathy for, the human race, so get thyself to the archives, which, if I carry on like this, will surely outlive me.
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by DanielR
