Wildlife adventures in Argentina

To start at the beginning: Kieran from Rooney's Boutique met us at Buenos Aires airport and took us to his hotel.  He was welcoming and informative on our journey, talking us through the itinerary and gave us breakfast. Rooney's was a great place to stay as it is in the centre of BA and we could walk to all the sites (the rain was torrential so we took a city tour arranged through the hotel reception).We were told the weather was uncharacteristic everywhere we went. Uncharacteristically hot, cold, dry, wet and windy for the time of year!  While we were there we just missed the worst rains for 40 or so years in Buenos Aires (quarter of a million people were displaced) and Salta had damaging winds. On our return to BA, Kieran said he had been tracking our progress and was pleased that we managed to get back to him - there were times he doubted we would make it as the airports were flooded for a few days.

In Salta we stayed at Selva Montana Lodge, On arrival at the airport we were met by Nico from the lodge, checked in, had lunch and then walked in the Huaico Reserve.  Nico was a superb guide with excellent English.  It was interesting and stimulating to stay in a place owned and run by people directly involved in conservation projects. We spent the rest of our time with Mario, who drove and guided us all the way across Argentina to Aguape Lodge.

We camped for one night in El Rey National Park and the rest of our accommodation was in small roadside hotels, not in estancias, and Aguape Lodge to end.  These were all clean and restful.  As far as food is concerned we did well as vegetarians; the hotels and roadside restaurants catered for us and Mario bought food en-route for packed lunches to suit our diet. Mario was an excellent driver and guide.  His knowledge of the wildlife in each reserve was phenomenal.  He took good care of us and became a friend.

It’s hard to state any highlights but here goes:  condors in the high Andes; walking a lot through the mountains and forests (up to 15km at a time, that we thoroughly enjoyed); a very friendly Andean fox at about 4 500m; these were parts of Argentina rarely visited by anyone - one of the reserves had us listed as visitors 4 and 5 since it was declared a National Park!  hundreds of bird species with many that were not frightened by our presence as they are rarely visited; good views of Andean dippers and torrent ducks; there were only a few miles of tarmac roads, even in the towns dust and mud were prevalent, so 4-wheel driving expertise essential; the huge expanse of wetlands and marshlands with boat trips at Aguape; otters, caiman, deer, skunk and wildcats amongst the non-bird species.

As I said previously, Mario left us at Aguape. He returned to ‘civilisation’ as quickly as possible due to the weather but not on the road we took out of the marsh (nb there are only two roads - one to the south and one to the north).  One of our guides in Aguape said that in a normal winter there is rain on one day a week - this year there was one non-rainy day a week.  Hence we had to leave the lodge at 0200 and it took four and a quarter hours to travel the 90km to the tarmac road.  This was in the midst of an electrical storm and pouring rain.  The driver, Carlos, was hired by the lodge and was undaunted by the drive. It was quite an experience and lived up to the name given to the road by Mario’s wife, “the emotional road.”  We were at the airport in good time for our 0845 flight that didn't leave until about 1000.

We have many incredible memories and hundreds of photographs. Thank you to you and your team for enabling us to have the experience of high Andes to low marshland and all of the habitats between. We would recommend anyone who wants this sort of ‘wild’ experience to follow this itinerary. Mario Mosqueira is one of the best naturalists we have ever had the pleasure to meet.

Alan and Karen travelled on a tailor made trip to the wilds of Northern Argentina.