We are about to embark in a 6-week trip through Argentina with our 13-months-old daughter, Michaela (“Mika”). We are going to Argentina primarily because I want my 85-year-old favorite aunt to meet Michaela. My aunt has been asking me to have a kid for years, and she’s extremely happy that Michaela was born. Of course, she is greatly looking forward to meet her.
I also want Mike to see the country, and I want to reacquaint myself with Argentina. Go back to the places I visited as a child, feel the pulse in the veins of my country, figure out ... I don’t know what, something.
This trip is going to be a bit different from our usual ones. First of all, because we are seeing relatives, we are going to spend time in places we wouldn’t otherwise have gone: La Plata (my home city) and Mar del Plata (where my cousins live, a wonderful town but best enjoyed in summer). Still, most of our time will be spent as tourists in Buenos Aires, Bariloche, El Calafate, Ushuahia and the Iguazu Falls.
We are also significantly changing how we travel. If we were traveling on our own, or if Mika was older, we would probably travel mostly by bus. It would give us an opportunity to see the vast pampas and the arid Patagonia and go to out-of-the-way places. However, I don’t think a child Mika’s age can or should sit in a bus (or a car, for that matter) for long periods of time. She needs to move around, crawl (or walk if she’s that old), explore and so forth. We are therefore going to fly from place to place, and try to keep bus journeys to a minimum (there will have to be some, however, and you’ll be able to read how we fare in them here).
We are also likely to be more conservative in what types of local transportation we take. We are already planning on taking a remis (a type of taxi) from the airport, rather than a minivan or, the much cheaper public buses. We’ll probably rely more on remises than we would if we were traveling without her.
As backpackers, we usually stay in the cheapest available hotels (though during our last trip to India, we tried the luxury of staying in havelis). This time, we’ll be aiming for the 3-star, “family” hotels that abound in Argentina. For one, we want to make sure the place we stay is safe, we are willing to take risks by ourselves that we are not with our baby. Secondly, we need a refrigerator (even if it’s a mini-fridge) in our room, so we can keep Mika’s milk cold. Thirdly, we need places that offer double or queen-size beds, as we co-sleep with Mika. And finally, Argentina is cheap for us right now, so why not?
Rather than staying for a night or two in a town, and then go off to the next, we are planning to stay in several major cities, and go day-tripping from there. The locations in Argentina lend themselves to that, but we also figure that this will be easier on Michaela, as being always on the go can be terribly tiring for both babies and adults.
Where we go will also be affected by the fact that we have a kid. No trekking for us this year (it’ll be too cold in Patagonia anyway), and probably no tango-shows in Buenos Aires or plays in the Colon. We will go to special children attractions (zoos, parks, the Children’s Republic near La Plata) and probably sprinkle our strolls with stops at different plazas for a visit to the swings or the slides. That, at least, is what we plan. Come and join us.