Argentina & Falkland Islands
Birding and exploration
2007 sees the 25th anniversary of the Falklands conflict, another sad example of hundreds of young lives being lost at the whim of politicians. But now it's time to move on and, to mark the anniversary, what better way is there than to celebrate the things we have in common rather than our differences? For a couple of years now Lan Chile has operated one flight a month to the Falklands via Argentina and so we're going to take advantage of this to offer a 16 night holiday starting in Argentina and then continuing to the Falkland Islands.
Our tour will start in Buenos Aires and a visit to the Constanera Sur nature reserve which is right in the centre of the city and where we would hope to see around 70 species in just a couple of hours - nearly all of them new to a first-time visitor to Argentina. From Buenos Aires we fly south to El Calafante in Southern Patagonia and Los Glaciares National Park - just the other side of the mountains from the better known Torres del Peine, and equally impressive. We'll spend four nights in the area - two just outside El Calafate and two in the fabulous El Chaltén which lies at the foot of the dramatic Mount Fitzroy and where we're more or less guaranteed to see the magnificent Andean Condor.
The Argentinian part of our tour finishes with a superb drive across the steppes to Rio Gallegos where we have a morning birding before taking the Lan Chile flight to the Falkland Islands. Here we are once again on familiar territory (at least for Island Holidays Plus - we will have been operating to the islands for 20 years by the time it comes to November 2007) with an itinerary which includes the islands' largest working farm,Port Howard, and Sea Lion Island as well as Stanley and Volunteer Point with all the delights which these fabulous locations have to offer - including at least four different species of penguin, Sea Lions, Elephant Seals, one of the world's rarest birds - the Striated Caracara - and typical Falkland Islands hospitality await us plus much more.
The tour is limited to just nine participants and will be led by the intrepid Andy Mitchell. Sign up and be a part of history - as far as we are aware this will be the first British tour to include Argentinian Patagonia and the Falkland Islands in the same breath!
Also see our Falklands only holidays