Travel Review: Luxury South America Vacation, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Mendoza, El Calafate, Colonia, Perito Moreno Glacier

Vacan!  Wow!  Our travel agency provided a first-class experience from our first to concluding contact.  We started with outlining our travel plans – places, types of activities, room preferences, and cost.  Our travel planner was spot on with his first draft itinerary.  We fine-tuned it over five drafts.  What impressed us was how he gently suggested some alternative destinations that ended up in our final itinerary.  Our travel agency also made the reservations on all of our flights/ferry rides within and between Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile – eight legs in all.  Our transitions went smoothly; never did we worry about missing a connection.

While on the ground, we felt that we were on a magic carpet with our contact unobtrusively watching over us to make sure that everything went smoothly.  Our drivers were always on time and even took time to stop and show us places that were not in the plan.  The guides were very knowledgeable pointing out or taking us to interesting spots that were not on the typical tourist trail. 

We experienced only one potential hitch in our travels – note the word potential.  It had rained heavily overnight in Mendoza and continued to do so when we woke up for breakfast.  Our adventure for the day was to travel to an estancia in the Andes.  We shrugged our shoulders and said – what will be, will be.  I was thinking about sending our contact a What’s App message to see if we could change activities when our driver showed up and said that our contact had switched our estancia trip to the next day.  We stayed dry for the day and enjoyed a five course lunch with wine pairings that should rate as a one-star Michelin.  The next day, the sky was bright and I made my horseback ride into the Andes followed by a superb asado.

We give the highest marks to our travel agency for listening to us, for setting us up with an outstanding array of drivers, guides, adventures, and hotels, and for being watchful while we were traveling.  I love planning trips but this agency has perhaps spoiled me for the future.  We are asking them to plan our future trip to Peru and Bolivia.  What more can one say except thank you.