Wednesday, October 31, 2018

My South America Trip Summary and Final Thoughts

Here is a summary of links to my South America trip blog posts:

My South America Bucket List
Peru:
- Machu Picchu (and getting there)
- Lima
- Sacred Valley: Chinchero and Ollantaytambo
- Cusco
Brazil:
- Rio de Janeiro
Brazil and Argentina:
- Iguassu/Iguazu Falls
Argentina:
- Buenos Aires
- El Calafate and Patagonia
- Perito Moreno Glacier

Restaurants and local cuisine: South American Food and Drinks, Casa Qorikancha in Cusco, Tunupa in Sacred Valley, Museo del Filete in Buenos Aires, Casimiro Bigua in El Calafate
Hotels: Inkaterra Hacienda Urumbamba in Sacred Valley, Inkaterra Machu Picchu Pueblo Hotel, Palacio del Inka in Cusco, Loi Suites Iguazu Hotel, Hotel Kosten Aike in El Calafate
Other thoughts and experiences: South American Wildlife, Prepping for our trip, Challenges, Going on a tour vs. Do-it-yourself, Summary and Final Thoughts

Perito Moreno Glacier in Argentina

Here again is a recap of our itinerary:

Day 0: depart Manila
Day 1: arrive in Lima
Day 2: half-day tour of Lima
Day 3: flight to Cusco, check into Inkaterra Hacienda Urubamba
Day 4: Sacred Valley tour, train to Machu Picchu
Day 5: Machu Picchu, train to Cusco
Day 6: free day in Cusco
Day 7: flight from Cusco to Lima
Day 8: flight from Lima to Rio de Janeiro
Day 9: full-day tour in Rio de Janeiro
Day 10: flight to Iguassu Falls, tour of Iguassu Falls (Brazil side)
Day 11: cross the border to Argentina, tour of Iguazu Falls (Argentina side)
Day 12: flight from Puerto Iguazu to Buenos Aires
Day 13: half-day tour of Buenos Aires, dinner and tango show
Day 14: flight from Buenos Aires to El Calafate
Day 15: Perito Moreno Glacier full-day tour
Day 16: flight from El Calafate to Buenos Aires
Day 17: flight from Buenos Aires to Lima, flight from Lima to Manila
Day 18: In transit
Day 19: arrive in Manila

Machu Picchu

While this was a pretty solid itinerary, if I could do it all over again, I would make a few changes. One of them would be to add an extra day in Rio de Janeiro. We were in Rio for about the same amount of time as we were in Lima and in Buenos Aires but in Rio, we didn't have as much free time to explore on our own. Our original itinerary actually included a free day in this Brazilian city because we were supposed to fly in on Day 7 but as it turned out, there were no direct flights on that day. There was an overnight flight that would leave Lima on the evening of Day 7 and arrive in Rio in the morning of Day 8 and that would have given us at least one free afternoon in Rio. However, that flight had two legs and there was only an hour to make the connecting flight. If the first leg was delayed, we would miss the second leg and that would ruin the rest of our trip. As such, we decided to just opt for the direct flight on Day 8 which left us with no free time in Rio.

View of Copa Cobana and the Cable Car system in Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio de Janeiro

A few other changes I would make to our itinerary:

1.  I would take an earlier flight from Cusco to Lima on Day 7, even if it costs more. Because our flight was in the evening, we ended up checking into our hotel in Lima at midnight but we had to check out at 5AM the next morning because our flight to Iguassu Falls was at 9:25AM. (We ended up having 2 hours of sleep that night.)

2. I would also request our travel agent to schedule our Dinner and Tango Show at La Ventana on the evening of our arrival in Buenos Aires (Day 12) instead of on Day 13. This is because the flight to El Calafate on Day 14 is at around 5AM. If we watch the dinner and tango show on Day 12, we will get to have a lot more sleep on the night of Day 13 before we fly to El Calafate. (I had two hours of sleep that night but my mom didn't sleep anymore.) If we had a bit more energy upon arrival in El Calafate, we might also have been able to book a tour of Patagonia in the afternoon of our arrival there.

3. Finally, on Day 16, I would book a room at the Holiday Inn Buenos Aires Ezeiza Airport. I was trying to search for a hotel near the airport and the one I found was Howard Johnson Resort and Convention Center. Unfortunately, this hotel was in the middle of nowhere - no restaurants or shops nearby - and it was still about 20 minutes away from the airport. I was told that the Holiday Inn is the only hotel at the Ezeiza airport. It might be more convenient for us to have just stayed there.

Caminito Street in La Boca in Buenos Aires

Some other thoughts and memories. Traffic was quite heavy on our way to the Lima airport for our flight to Cusco. The rest of the folks in the tour were shocked by the traffic and my mom and I were thinking that the traffic there, while heavy, was definitely not as bad as the traffic we are used to in Manila.

Plaza de Armas in Lima

You may want to try to get a window seat when you fly from Lima to Cusco because you get some pretty nice views of the Peruvian mountains. (I think the views might be better on the right side of plane, but I'm not 100% sure.)

view of Peruvian mountains from the plane

If you are flying LATAM, download the LATAM Play app and bring your own earphones. Most of our LATAM flights didn't have TV screens. Instead, passengers can connect their phones - which have to be on airplane mode - to the LATAM WiFi network then launch the LATAM play app. From there, you can get access to the LATAM online entertainment system. (You will of course need your own earphones for this.) Bringing your own earphones is always good because even in our KLM flights, the headset provided by the airline had subpar quality and it was difficult to hear the movie dialogues. While I did have earphones, I would often lend them to my mom so that she could have a better audio experience.

Iguassu Falls (Brazil side)

I also used Smart Travel WiFi because I wanted my mom and I to be able to go online without having to pay extremely high data roaming rates. I decided to take this option rather than getting a local SIM in each country I visited because our itinerary was so jam-packed that there wouldn't have been a lot of time to get and activate a local SIM. Our Smart Travel WiFi signal was decent to pretty good in most of the places we visited.

Sacsayhuaman in Cusco

This was my first international trip where I used Google Maps to figure out how to get around instead of relying on a travel book such as Lonely Planet or Rough Guides. Not having a book also meant that there would be just a bit less weight in our luggage, which was a big deal considering our itinerary. Google Maps was especially helpful for getting local currency. The exchange rate at airports and hotels is pretty bad so whenever we were in the city center, I would search for money exchange locations on Google Maps that were within walking distance and the exchange rate was always much better.

Libreria del Colegio in Buenos Aires

Be ready to deal with altitude sickness when you travel to Machu Picchu, Cusco, and Sacred Valley. I'm very thankful that the most my mom and I experienced was some shortness of breath and maybe a bit of a headache.

Iglesia de la Compañía de Jesús or Church of the Society of Jesus in Cusco

One of the places I wanted to visit was Rainbow Mountain, which we could have seen during our free day in Cusco. However, we decided against it because a trip here requires a very, very early rise, since most tours to Rainbow Mountain depart Cusco at around 4AM. More than that, my research indicated that getting to Rainbow Mountain requires you to walk about 11 kilometers and that the elevation will gradually go up from about 10,000 feet above sea level to 15,000 feet. I felt that this would be a bit too difficult and exhausting for us so we decided to skip it. It is possible to book a private tour that will cost a lot more but will depart at a later time (around 6AM), making it a bit more manageable. If you are going to Cusco and have the time and energy, you may want to include Rainbow Mountain in your itinerary.

Temple hill in Ollantaytambo

One new experience I had during this trip was that I was the first person to arrive at a hotel breakfast. This happened in Loi Suites. I thought that breakfast would be served at 6AM and I wanted to be there the moment it opened so that I could finish by 6:30. I could take a taxi to the city center, visit the Triple Frontier Landmark and then exchange money at the city center (I was told the money exchange there opens at 7:30AM). As it turned out, breakfast was only served at 6:30AM. In the end, I decided to scrap my plans to go to the city center not only because my morning schedule was thrown off by half an hour but also because I felt it was too risky time-wise. I could get stuck somewhere which could then make me late for our airport pick-up and we could end up being late for our flight.

Walkways linking the different buildings in Loi Suites Iguazu Hotel

One interesting thing in El Calafate was the number of big, free-roaming "gangsta" dogs. By big, I mean the size of a Labrador or a German Shepherd. And I call them "gangsta" because every time a car passes by, these big dogs start barking and running after them as if they owned the streets. It gets a bit freaky if they run right past you while chasing a car because it looks like they are about to jump right at you. Thankfully, they never did.

Mini-trekking in Perito Moreno Glacier

I'm also happy that my mom and I were able to attend Sunday mass twice during our trip. We were able to hear mass in Lima at Capilla Jesus Hostia which was right in front of our hotel...

Capilla Jesus Hostia, where we heard mass while in Lima

..and in Paroquia Nossa Senhora de Copacobana in Rio de Janeiro which was about a block away from our hotel. (Side note: the singers at this church were incredibly good!)

Paroquia Nossa Senhora de Copacobana in Rio de Janeiro

I am still amazed that I was able to go on this South America trip of a lifetime with my mom. It took a lot of planning, effort, and resources to make it happen and we faced a lot of challenges but it was absolutely worth it. Not only did this trip allow me to see places that I have been wanting to see for a long time, it also allowed me to discover new, amazing places and things that I didn't know about before. I am extremely humbled that I was able to have this experience and I will remember and cherish this for the rest of my life.

Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro

Monday, October 29, 2018

Condor Travel, Journeyou, and Going on a Tour versus DIY

Most of my travels, whether local or international, have been do-it-yourself trips where I book my own hotels and transportation, determine which places I want to visit and figure out how to get there, and book my own day tours if any. In this case, I decided to work with travel companies - Condor Travel and Journeyou - to organize practically my entire South America tour, including most flights, hotels, and day tours. So why did I book a full tour this time instead of taking my usual DIY approach?

Iguassu Falls on the Brazil side

For this trip, I considered several things:
  • We would take a total of 12 flights, check in 11 times in 10 hotels, and visti several cities in 3 countries.
  • Not only is that itinerary jam-packed and exhausting, it would also be possible and even easy for something to go wrong, like missing a flight.
  • My mom is not that young anymore, and neither am I. A trip like this would be very physically demanding and potentially stressful to both of us.
  • The language barrier would make it a bit more difficult to get around.
Taking a tour would mean that all our flight, hotel, and airport pick-up arrangements would be sorted out and we would always be interacting with people who spoke English well. That said, it would also be a lot more expensive than a DIY trip. We would also have less time to explore freely on our own since we would follow the tour schedule.

Plaza de Armas in Cusco, where we had the most time to explore on our own

It didn't take me too long to decide, though. I determined that the convenience, comfort, and ease of a tour would more than offset the significantly higher cost. The question I then had at that point was from what travel agency should I book a tour?

La Ventana, where we enjoyed a fancy dinner and Tango show as part of our tour

Condor Travel
Since I knew what the places were that I absolutely had to visit, I started doing research on travel agencies that offered a tour of Peru, Brazil, and Argentina that included these places. A few of the options I found were expensive - as expected - and they didn't include a trip to Perito Moreno. A friend of mine who had previously visited South America suggested Condor Travel because she had a good experience with this company. I checked out the Condor Travel website and discovered a Peru-Brazil-Argentina tour that was cheaper than the other tours I found. This 2-week itinerary included almost all of the places I wanted to visit except Perito Moreno. However, their website did also have a Perito Moreno Glacier tour. I thought that maybe I could just book both tours or ask them to combine the two tours together. I then decided to contact them.

Condor Travel provided a tour to Perito Moreno Glacier.

Condor Travel and Journeyou
When I reached out to Condor Travel via email, they responded saying that they have partnered with Journeyou, which is their partner for custom tours in South America (I guess my trip was customized because I wanted to combine two standard tours together). Shortly after that, I was contacted by Angelica from Journeyou. After exchanging emails with Angelica for about a month or so, I no longer got responses from her. I then decided to use the chat function of the Journeyou website to ask if Angelica was still with them and I confirmed that she wasn't anymore. They then assigned Sara to work with me. I forwarded the itinerary that Angelica prepared to Sara and Sara took things forward from there.

Our tour included a visit to Ollantaytambo in Sacred Valley, Peru.

Why do I recommend Condor Travel and Journeyou?

1. They are very patient and helpful.
I mentioned this previously but Sara and I sent more than 200 emails to each other for about a year and a half. A lot of adjustments were made - including providing multiple itinerary options to help me decide, changing flights, rescheduling day tours, and reducing days and adding them back, among other things. In fact, for maybe the first 100 emails, Journeyou had no guarantee that I would book the tour they prepared and yet the continued to patiently communicate with me and make all the changes I was asking them to make. As if that wasn't enough, the price they quoted to me in November 2016 was still the same price I paid in 2018. (The original plan was for us to take this trip in 2017.)

Guides put on our crampons for our mini-trekking in Perito Moreno.

2. The entire tour is very well-organized.
All our airport, hotel, and tour pick-ups were on time. Whenever we would arrive in a new country, the guides who met us at the airport shared our tour schedule with us and what time we would be picked up each day (in Peru, our guide also gave us the train and bus tickets we needed for our Machu Picchu visit). Checking into and out of our hotels was always quick and easy.

Machu Picchu

3. Our guides were friendly and professional and many times, they went the extra mile.
The guides from Condor Travel, Journeyou, and their local partners were amazing. They were friendly, helpful, and punctual,. They had good communication skills and were very knowledgeable as they shared a lot of great information with us about the sights we visited. As if that wasn't enough, each time we were taken to an airport for a flight, our tour guide would always help us check in, either by doing it themselves at the LATAM check-in kiosks or by waiting with us until we had fully checked in. A couple of tour guides even walked with us all the way to immigration. Also, our tour guide in Peru, Karina, even tried to direct traffic when our bus was stuck in a traffic jam. These tour guides are definitely focused on giving guests as great an experience as possible.

Our guide in Brazil took us to Escadaria Selarón, which was not originally part of our itinerary

Our tour officially ended once we arrived in Buenos Aires from El Calafate. At this point, we needed to get our own taxi from the airport to our hotel and for the first and only time in this trip, we needed to check into our hotel by ourselves. It was at this point that I confirmed that I made the right decision in booking a tour; it was not cheap to book a taxi at the airport so I ended up going to a few airport taxi/car operators to compare rates and I had to confirm with passenger service if the prices we were quoted was accurate. There was also a bit of confusion during check-out because apparently my agoda booking required us to pay the hotel directly and I thought that I had already paid for it. I realized then that if we had to always worry about getting taxis - from the airport to our hotel and back - and checking into and out of hotels for our entire stay, we would surely have ended up a lot more exhausted and stressed and we would not have been able to do or see everything that we got to do and see. While booking a tour was very expensive (I did save for more than four years for this trip), it really was the right thing for us.

Sunrise in Patagonia

Condor Travel: https://www.condortravel.com/en
Journeyou: https://www.journeyou.com/en/home

Next: My South America Trip Summary and Final Thoughts

Saturday, October 27, 2018

Challenges before and during our South America Trip

Our South America sojourn was a truly incredible experience but with a trip as complex as ours was, we naturally had more than our fair share of challenges. The first came as a consequence of me booking the entire tour online. A friend had taken a tour with Condor Travel and I read many positive reviews about it online but I started to feel some trepidation the moment I had to pay a 50% deposit to lock in my booking. Once I made the full payment, my anxiety grew as I started to have paranoid thoughts. What if I got scammed by a fake travel agent? What if all my bookings were not confirmed and we would arrive at a destination with no flight or hotel reservation? What if our airport and/or hotel pick-ups didn't show up? Or what if we didn't get picked up by our confirmed tours? I didn't personally know my travel agent so if I ran into any problems, I wasn't sure I would be able to get help. In the end, I worried over nothing as our tour went like clockwork but it did add to the stress level prior to our departure.

Machu Picchu

Getting an Argentina visa was also not easy. We faced a few obstacles during our application. First, the Argentina Embassy in Manila is very strict. The first time I submitted our requirements, they were returned to us with details on what we needed to change. For instance, if a field does not apply to us, we shouldn't leave it blank nor write N/A; instead, we had to draw a line in the field, as if we were crossing it out. Also, the field for address in Argentina had to be filled with the complete address of the hotels; I initially wrote 'see attached list of hotels' since we were staying in four hotels in Argentina but I was told that we had to write the complete addresses of all hotels in the provided space. As such, we had to write in very small letters to make sure the full addresses of all our hotels would fit in the space. I also attached an itinerary of our entire tour but I was told that our itinerary had to follow a specific table format.

Caminito Street in La Boca, Buenos Aires

I also faced some scheduling challenges. Visa applicants can only submit requirements from Monday to Wednesday and only between 9AM and 12PM. Upon arriving at the embassy on a particular Wednesday to resubmit our revised requirements, I was told that they were closed due to a holiday in Argentina. That meant I had to go back again the following week. Even then, on this re-submission, I was told that the itinerary I submitted had to include our full itinerary including Peru and Brazil (and not just the Argentina segment). Thankfully, the consul said we could just bring that updated itinerary with us during our interview, which we did. The interview itself was very quick; I think it lasted only 10 minutes. We were then given instructions on how to pay for our visa fees at a nearby bank. Thankfully, our visas were approved. (I did have a back-up plan in case our visas were not approved: my mom and I could either spend more time in Peru and Brazil - both of which Filipinos can visit without a visa - or we could replace Argentina with Bolivia, which doesn't also require a visa.)

La Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires

I also experienced challenges booking our flight from Buenos Aires to Lima. Our Condor Travel/Journeyou tour started in Lima and ended in Buenos Aires but since our round trips flights were from Manila to Lima and back, we needed to fly from Buenos Aires to Lima to head home. I tried booking flights through the LATAM website since that was the most reasonable flight I could find online. However, I ran into two big problems. First, I somehow booked the wrong flight. I was trying to get the one that leaves Buenos Aires at 7:50AM. For some reason, my first few attempts to make the online purchase were unsuccessful. When my purchase was finally processed, I got confirmed on the 3:49AM flight. What??? I don't know if there was a glitch in the reservation or if I accidentally clicked on the wrong schedule due to frustration because my first few purchase attempts failed. The only way for me to correct this flight schedule was to call the airline customer service. Thankfully, they had a hotline with a toll-free number that I could call for free using Google Hangouts. LATAM's customer service was very friendly, helfpul, and efficient and because the flight I wanted had the same cost as the one I mistakenly booked, they could change my flight at no additional cost.


However, I ran into a second problem. Maybe because online purchases of LATAM flights using Philippine credit cards are rare, it seemed that my purchase wasn't approved. I found out because I got an email from LATAM saying I needed to complete my payment for my reservation to be confirmed. What??? I called my credit card and I learned that the charge was still floating and that it might go through soon. Eventually, my payment did go through, but only after a week. And then I got stressed out again because I received an email sayiong that my LATAM flight reservation had already expired so I got very worried that I had just paid for flights that my mom and I couldn't take. I called LATAM again and thankfully, our 7:50AM flights from Buenos Aires to Lima were booked and confirmed. Whew!

Basilica Cathedral of Lima

All that stress came before we had left Manila. :) When we finally arrived in South America, we still ran into some challenges. First of which was how exhausting our trip was. We were there for 17 nights and in that period, we had to take 12 flights and check in 11 different times in 10 different hotels. It didn't help that we had to fly for 35 hours from Manila to Lima and back. I had never before taken as many flights and stayed in as many hotels in two and a half weeks. Needless to say, we were physically spent by the end of our trip.

Inkaterra Hacienda Urumbamba, our hotel for one night in the Sacred Valley

My mom also ended up having a couple of bad injuries. First, she tripped in Aguas Calientes and ended up with wounds and bruises on her knees. Thankfully, she brought a full tube of Fucidin and a lot of adhesive strips as part of her medical kit. The next day, she experienced very bad back pain. We were in Cusco then and we made the mistake of deciding to walk from Palacio del Inka to Sacsayhuaman which was only 1 kilometer away. What we thought was a gradual slope turned out to be quite the uphill battle. The problem was that because my mom wasn't expecting such a steep climb, she wore boots with a bit of heel, making the long walk to Sacsayhuaman a lot more physically demanding. Later that afternoon, she started to feel pain in her lower back and it got a lot worse in the evening. Thankfully, she also brought a lot of Mefenamic acid which proved quite effective since she wouldn't feel her back pain for several hours each time she would take it. It was also lucky that her pain disappeared towards the end of our trip which was significant because it meant that she wasn't impeded by a bad back anymore when we did our mini-trekking in Perito Moreno.

Mini-trekking on Perito Moreno Glacier

I had already written about this previously but our trip to Iguassu Falls was marred by bad weather, preventing us from doing a few things like walking through the upper and lower circuits on the Argentina side and visiting the city center. We also were unable to try the boat ride that can take visitors right under the falls (that said, I'm not sure we would have tried it even if the weather was good because we were there during winter so it was quite cold.)

Iguazu Falls

The winter weather also caused my knuckles to bleed. I think the skin on my hands started to get raw in Iguazu because my hands were exposed to the cold and the rain. I did have gloves but it was difficult to take photos with gloves on so I rarely used them. Things continued to get colder after that. The temperature in Buenos Aires was around 10 degrees Celsius and it was close to zero in El Calafate. By then, my hands were so dry that the skin on my knuckles broke, causing them to bleed. My minor wounds were worth it though because I do love a lot of the photos I took.

My bleeding knuckles and the very dry skin on my hands

The maximum weight limit of our check-in luggage from Buenos Aires to El Calafate also made things difficult. All our other flights within South America were on LATAM and they allowed up to 23 kilos of check-in luggage. However, our flights from Buenos to El Calafate and back were on Aerolineas Argentina which allowed only 15 kilos of check-in luggage. This meant that we needed to pack heavier stuff in our carry-on bags. We also had to repack and reweigh our check-in luggage multiple times to make full use of the maximum allowable weight.

Perito Moreno Glacier

I also had the misfortune of losing my Ipod. I was listening to it during our flight from Lima to Rio de Janeiro but when I was sorting my stuff out at our hotel in Rio that evening, I couldn't find my Ipod anymore. I figure I must have left it at the immigration counter in Rio; I think I had it in my hand after getting off the plane and my guess is that I absentmindedly placed it on the immigration counter as I was being interviewed and I accidentally left it there after my passport was stamped. (I have since purchased a new Ipod Touch despite it being quite expensive because I need to have my music...)

View of Rio de Janeiro from Sugarloaf Mountain

It was pretty exhausting just trying to visualize and write about all these challenges we experienced. :) That said, our trip was still heavily positive and absolutely worth it. (Of course, if we could do this trip all over again, I'd make sure we take a taxi from our hotel to Sacsayhuaman and back down to prevent injury.)

Next: Condor Travel, Journeyou, and Going on a Tour versus DIY

Friday, October 26, 2018

[Argentina] Hotel Kosten Aike in El Calafate

We stayed in Hotel Kosten Aike for two nights in El Calafate. As I had previously written, this is a very charming hotel in a very charming city. The ambience is very warm, cozy, and inviting.


Kosten Aike is only two blocks away from the main street - Av. del Libertador - where you can find many restaurants, cafes, and shops. There is also a souvenir shop at the hotel lobby where I ended up buying several bookmarks (the price of souvenirs here is comparable to the souvenirs outside). I think my mom also bought some items here.


Our stay was made significantly better by the excellent service, which we experienced immediately upon arrival. We got to the hotel at around 9am and the lady at the reception told us we could check in already even if it was several hours before the normal check-in time of 2pm. Furthermore, she offered us free buffet breakfast - she said it was their gift to us - and while my mom and I ate, she had our luggage brought up to our room. Very cool! It wasn't just her, though; the lady at the souvenir shop, the lady at the hotel restaurant where we had dinner, and the gentleman manning the front desk in the evening were all very pleasant and friendly.


Our room which had twin beds was very spacious and comfortable.


There is a game area next to the lobby that features a pool table, a ping pong table, and a foosball table.


There are also a couple of other games set up in lobby the area that guests can play, including chess...


...and a pretty fancy marble solitaire game.


To add even more warmth and personality, there is a lot of interesting art in the corridors.



The hotel also has a really lovely wooden staircase.


One watch-out is the door lock of the hotel rooms. Unlike other hotels, the doors here don't lock automatically when you shut the door. You need to lock it with your room key in the same way you would lock the front door of your house.


Hotel Kosten Aike is a really wonderful hotel and I enjoyed my stay here. I definitely recommend this hotel if you are planning to visit El Calafate.

Hotel Kosten Aike
https://www.kostenaike.com.ar/en-us
Gdor. Moyano 1243, 9405 El Calafate, Argentina
+54 2902 49-2424
reservas@kostenaike.com.ar

Next: Challenges before and during our South America Trip

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

[Argentina] Loi Suites Iguazu Hotel

Loi Suites was our hotel in Puerto Iguazu in Misiones. This was one of the most beautiful hotels we stayed in during our South America trip. The lobby and the entire hotel is posh and sophisticated yet warm and inviting.


There is a lot of comfortable seating in the lobby area. My mom and I actually spent a couple of hours here in the late afternoon just lounging about while it was raining outside.


The rooms are in separate buildings. To get from one building to the next, you have to pass through wooden suspension bridges amidst the tree tops. Our room was two buildings away from the main lobby so we had to cross two bridges. I'm sure it wouldn't be easy to bring your luggage across - thankfully, our porter helped us - but these bridges do give guests a very unique and fun experience (and it provides a lot of cool photo opportunities).


Loi Suites has a beautiful set of swimming pools. Unfortunately, we didn't get to use them because of the bad weather.


Our room was built cabin-style, making it cozy and comfortable. It was also very spacious and had a beautiful bathroom. (I did find the lighting a bit dim.)


Before spending a relaxed afternoon at our hotel lobby, we enjoyed some coffee at the hotel restaurant. I also ordered a chocolate mousse. It was delicious.


I will say that the problem with this hotel is its location. There are no shops or restaurants nearby. As such, we had dinner at the hotel restaurant. Interestingly enough, there was another Filipino with her non-Filipino husband there and we talked a bit. They were going to Iguazu Falls the next day so we showed some of our pictures and we shared our experiences with them. The food at the restaurant was good and the service was excellent.


While this hotel is very high-end and provides its guests with a very luxurious stay, there is a downside. As mentioned, the location is not ideal since it is a bit isolated. You can take taxi to the city center and I believe the ride will take around 20 minutes. Unlike some other hotels, they don't exchange foreign currency. That said, I do think we wouldn't have felt these drawbacks as much if it wasn't raining heavily; if the weather was good, it would have been easy enough to take a taxi to the city center to exchange money, shop for supplies like water, and have a more inexpensive dinner.


If there are good hotel options at the city center of Puerto Iguazu, it might be better to book a hotel there just so that you can spend a bit less and explore a bit more. That said, Loi Suites is a beautiful place and our stay here was great overall. I also really like the experience of walking on the wooden bridges. If the weather is good, this is a very good place to stay.


Loi Suites Iguazu Hotel
http://www.loisuites.com.ar/en/
Selva Iryapu, Puerto Iguazu 3370, Misiones, Argentina
+54 3757 498300
iguazu@loisuites.com.ar

Next: Hotel Kosten Aike in El Calafate