How was your Explore Tour Leader?

 

Excellent.  He was well informed, helpful and patient with individual needs within the group.

What tips would you give to someone else booking this tour?

 

 

Be prepared to manage the extremely busy intinary.  It is unavoidable given the amount that there is to see and do.

Do you have anything else to add?

 

 

Breakfasts were not sufficient to start a long day travelling and wholly inadequate to support a day's trekking.

 

 

Buenos Aires isn't Patagonia, but our day there gave us a chance to do the ritual eye-ing up of group and leader, and to have an excellent tour of city highlights. [Brilliant local guide as nearly all were.] Plutocratic necropolis at Recoleta gave vibes of Argentina's tortured and tortuous history [Eva Peron's resting place in heavy disguise].  La Boca ridiculously colourful and fun. Pavements and over-consumption of beef the biggest health risks on this tour. After negotiating several strikes ['huelga' a national pastime] we hit Tierra del Fuego in typical spring snow and howling gale.  Wonderful. True end of the world, and worth every peso. A treasure for Darwin/ Fitzroy/ Beagle fans.  And don't miss the most bizarre museums in the world in a panopticon prison that even Bruce Chatwin couldn't do justice to.    Thence at Patagonian length [and they are long] to Chile, milodon cave, dodgy king crab and finally the overwhelming Torres del Paine.  Three days of scenic, naturalist [and fairly physically demanding] bliss.  And the best 'hostel' imaginable. [OK - the sunshine and occasional non-force-9 helped]. Back to Argentina and El Calafate's nadir of town planning. But a splendid spring-board for Los Glaciares National Park where the Perito Merino glacier took us in and spat us out reinforced with whisky. Well, why not?  More glorious wilderness, and further traces of Butch Cassidy and Co., to remote El Chalten, literal border-town. Mount Fitzroy remained a little coy but flashed son-of-Fitzroy brilliantly at us between blizzards and the by-now-nostalgic wind. And condors by the dozen[ish]. More beef,lamb and Butch Cassidy, and the Trelew splinter-group hit even greater Patagonian open spaces [and a meal so spectacularly chaotic that it remains a highlight]. Wildlife laid on a tour de force - knee-deep in right whale mums and kids, Magellan penguins doing egg-and-chick things, tarantulas [said the guide], maras [look it up], caracaras trained to defend the oasis cherries from other birds, etc. The piquancy of all this enhanced by the lingering Welsh traditions, astonishingly powerful political grafitti and murals [on Don Otto's bus garage - look it up] and the Hotel Touring Club [welcome, the Godfather]. Back to BA via  a few more huelgas and home.  Another routine Explore tour.  Splendid. (PAT - 6th November 2010)

Returned a week ago. Terrific trip -excellent guide and stunning scenery and more wildlife than we could ever have imagined (actually saw 2 pumas in the wild). Learnt loads! Only 2 gripes: 1 - It's definitely not easy walking, 2 of the walks were very steep for the first third and the pace was quite fast! I don't call any 9 hour walks particularly easy. Secondly - despite what the original details said, we ended up with a complete last day also free in trelew - the flight back to Buenos Aires was not booked until about 10 at night, so we lost out on a final afternoon and evening in B.A. Because of delays we didn't get back to the B.A. hotel until about 2 a.m. (PAT - 16th October 2010)