A Look Back on How I Decided on Argentina and Chile
I can’t convey enough how excited I am to be heading down to Argentina and Chile, even with the lengthy list of things that I need to do before I go. I’d like to share some context of how I decided to take this trip in the first place.
Sometime in March of this year, the itch to spend the summer outside of the U.S. grew strong, probably because of the challenging semester I was experiencing in a small town in what seemed like the middle-of-nowhere. I knew that an extended vacation was possible, since the college I was working for would be on summer vacation (a lovely perk of being an academic, no doubt). By extended, I had figured 3 or 4 weeks, a perfect amount of time to immerse myself in a different language and culture. The cards were lining up for me in terms of the time needed to do it and, most importantly, the go-ahead from my partner Andreas. Andreas approved of my rationale for wanting to do an extended trip, which boiled down to something like, “Well, when would I have I have 3 months of vacation again?” As an academic in non-tenured position, the question is a resoundingly important one for me, and he saw it my way as well. But exactly would I go and for how long?
For days Andreas and I pored over Google Maps, trying to figure out possible destinations. My two big requirements was that airfare should ideally cost under $1,000 and that I would consume much of my time (or have a home base) in a city, which meant I needed to find reasonable and comfortable accommodations, a place where I could work on my scholarship while also being close enough to places of interests (bars, restaurants, parks, and the like). For the amount of time that I wanted to spend in one place on this trip, I decided that I needed to rent an apartment rather than go the hotel or hostel route. The timing of all this decision-making was also notable since it overlapped with our 10-day trip to Portugal and Spain, much of it spent traveling by car across both countries (an adventure that deserves some blog attention here in the future). I had fallen immensely in love with the two countries, the people, and the fantastic food, and I returned stateside with my eyes set on returning. The trip inspired me to learn Spanish, since I thought it could possibly compliment my research interests and scholarship more so than Portuguese. Once stateside, I obsessed about returning to Spain (especially after our heavenly foodie experience in San Sebastian), but getting to the country at the height of summer and on the cheap proved tricky, even with frequent flier miles.
Andreas, being a scientist who does field research abroad, had mentioned one day that his trip to Chile in August had been approved. It was fantastic news that turned most of my attention to South America. I consumed all that I could about Chile, Peru, and Argentina, and was pleased by the affordability of a possible extended trip to any of those countries and the innumerable amount of things I could see myself doing. Flights to Lima, Peru, were the most reasonable of the three countries. One my classmates in graduate school had spent years doing research in Peru and often spoke to me about how wonderful the country is. Flights to Chile and Argentina, on the other hand, were above my price range, confusing me since my travel plans would happen at the height of winter over there. Andreas pushed for me to think about Argentina, and Buenos Aires in particular, so did my dear friend Cali, who had spent 3 months in the city a few years ago and was set to return this fall for a prolonged stay. Cali highly recommended Buenos Aires, telling me it was the perfect place for me to study Spanish while also immersing myself in a cosmopolitan urban setting. The food, she said, was fantastic. The U.S. State Department report on Argentina had nothing too freaky or disturbing in it. I also liked the idea of being in a city that bordered the water, and so I was ultimately convinced: I needed to go to Buenos Aires!
Andreas had accumulated tens of thousands of miles through the American Airlines AAdvantage frequent flier miles program for his research travel to Chile and offered to donate 46,000 miles to my cause of going to Buenos Aires. I would have to pay $148 for the additional 4,000 miles. My itinerary would take me to Santiago, Chile, and from there I would hop on a LAN flight to Buenos Aires ($184 roundtrip). A direct flight from the states to Buenos Aires required more than 10,000 additional miles for some reason. But the itinerary that I snagged proved ideal given that I could meet up with Andreas in Chile in August, spending a week with him to explore Santiago and the surrounding area before he departed for his research atop the Andes and before I traveled back to the states. In total, I will spend 4 weeks in Buenos Aires and 1 week in Chile.
More on apartment hunting in Buenos Aires, Spanish lessons, and other pre-trip planning forthcoming.
