Join Nick and Iris Van Gruisen on a wonderful adventure in Argentina.
Begin with a couple of days in and around Buenos Aires, known as the ‘Queen of the River Plate Basin’ or the ‘Paris of South America’, a city full of contrasts where the architecture reflects a time of splendour and abundance and cultural influences from immigrants including the Spanish, Italians, English, French, Dutch, Jews, Arabs, Greeks and Japanese.
Then spend seven days on Estancia Huechahue in Argentine Patagonia, a land which is unfeasibly beautiful, rugged and wild and where life is always an adventure. Four generations of the Wood family have worked on the 15,000 acres of Patagonian Steppe to produce a self-sufficient oasis and thriving cattle operation. Today Jane Wood Williams runs the estancia and has been welcoming guests since 1990. Huechahue maintains traditional values and customs whilst welcoming visitors into a unique world where horses and cattle still roam free and food is home grown. Enjoy a riding programme which will be adapted to the experience of the group and to how long you wish to ride each day. There will be opportunities to catch sight of condors, swim and to work with the cattle on horseback.
There is also an optional extension to Southern Patagonia where one of the most beautiful landscapes in the Western Hemisphere can be found in the Patagonian Andes. Numerous turquoise lakes fed by melt water from the glaciers reflect the majesty of the snow-capped peaks. The mountainsides are covered by primeval forests of sub-Antarctic beech trees. Surrounded by this magnificent vegetation are the immense glaciers, the highlight of any trip to this region. Travel to the small and picturesque tourist town of El Calafate, known as the National Capital City of de Glaciers and enjoy excursions into the awesome Los Glaciares National Park and to see its famous Perito Moreno Glacier.
Patagonia Extension: 12 – 17 October 2021
Extension price: £1,440 (based on a minimum of 6 people)
14th October 2021
- Accommodation; domestic flights; all entrance fees, visits and excursions; transportation; breakfast daily, 9 lunches, 7 dinners; activities at Huechehue; gratuities and porterage
- International flights; travel insurance; excess baggage; items of personal expenditure; government levies or taxes introduced after costing and publication of this programme on 30/11/20
His wife Iris was born in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), where she lived for a few years before moving to Papua New Guinea. In the 1980s, she too joined Tiger Mountain to work at their flagship lodge, Tiger Tops, in Nepal’s Royal Chitwan National Park. As well as co-leading trips with Nick, she has taken trekking groups on expeditions to Kilimanjaro, the High Atlas, Ethiopia’s Simien Mountains and the Himalaya.