Some thirty resorts dot the Atlantic Coast of Buenos
Aires Province stretching from San Clemente in the north, to Bahía
Blanca, nearly 700km south of the capital. Ranging in size from
tiny Dunamar to the country's premier coastal resort, Mar del
Plata , the resorts are generally characterized by wide sandy
beaches, fringed by dunes. And with the exception of Mar del Plata,
which has some interesting historical buildings and is a thriving
city in its own right, the beach is the main reason to visit any of
the towns along this stretch of coast. Most of the resorts are
popular with families - San Clemente, Miramar and
Necochea are notably so. Still family oriented, but
attracting a younger crowd, too, Pinamar is the region's
most upmarket resort - though bohemian Villa Gesell , to the
south, makes for a more laid-back and enjoyable destination. Of all
the resorts, though, Mar del Plata is the liveliest, with crowds in
the city's numerous clubs and restaurants by night to match those
that pack its beaches by day. If you simply hanker after peace and
quiet, slightly more isolated spots such as sleepy Mar del
Sud or Dunamar , set among pine forests, are worth
checking out. Bahía Blanca in the far south of the province
has a port but no beach; however there are connections from the
town to the nearby coastal resorts of Monte Hermoso and
Pehuén-Có . By far the busiest months to visit the coast are
January and February, when you'll need to book accommodation - and
public transport - in advance. November, December and March are
good times to visit - though it's less lively at this time of year,
the weather should still be good and prices will be a lot lower.
March is traditionally the month when pensioners take their
holidays. Some 260km to the northwest of San Clemente, but lying on
the River Plate rather than the Atlantic Coast, is Buenos Aires'
provincial capital La Plata . Often treated as a day-trip
from Buenos Aires, La Plata marks the start of the coastal route
south; the city was founded in the late nineteenth century on
rationalist principales and houses one of Latin America's most
famous museums, the Museo de Ciencias Naturales.
Inland , the province of Buenos Aires - covering some
307,000 square kilometres to the south and west of the capital - is
dominated by the vast expanse of the Pampa , a region almost
synonymous with Argentina itself. This is the country's heartland:
birthplace of the gaucho and source of much of Argentina's
wealth - the grain and beef produced by this incredibly fertile
farmland constitute the bulk of the country's exports to the rest
of the world. The pampa is certainly not Argentina's most dramatic
landscape - its outstanding feature is its almost unremitting
flatness - but this unbroken stretch of land and sky has its own
subtle beauty. At any time the pampa's sheer limitless sense of
space is mesmerizing, but in dramatic weather, or when an
incredibly intense blue sky arches over the fields of ripe
sunflowers, the pampa is transformed into a vibrant canvas covered
with great sweeps of colour. This region is almost entirely
cultivated and the province - the country's most populated - is
dotted with strikingly similar towns whose main business is
agriculture rather than tourism. A major exception, however, is
San Antonio de Areco , lying just over 100km west of the
capital. A charmingly old-fashioned town of cobbled streets and
well-preserved nineteenth-century architecture, San Antonio de
Areco stages Argentina's most important gaucho festival, the Día
de la Tradición , held each November. Far less visited, though
with a modest charm of their own, the lakeside towns of
Lobos and San Miguel del Monte , both lying around
100km south of the capital, make possible stopovers on your way
south - or overnight trips from Buenos Aires. Around Lobos and San
Antonio de Areco and indeed throughout the province, you'll find
some of Argentina's most traditional and luxurious estancias
- great places to spend a night or two if you fancy a taste of the
high life.
The pampa's most dramatic and unexpected region is the Sierra
de la Ventana mountain range, lying 550km southwest of Buenos
Aires. Offering a welcome change of scenery from the surrounding
flat farmlands, the range is some six hundred million years old and
contains the highest peak in the province, Cerro de la Ventana
(1134m). Together with the popular resort of Tandil some
300km to the northeast, which is backed by a low range of hills,
this region offers the best opportunities for activities such as
horseriding, walking and camping in the province.
Heading southwest out of Buenos Aires, the RN5 is one of the
major routes towards the south of Argentina. Although it is a
largely unremarkable highway through cultivated lands, there are a
couple of towns worth visiting along its way. For a mass display of
religious devotion, head for Luján , some 70km to the west
of Buenos Aires. The town is named after Argentina's patron saint,
the Virgin of Luján, and her shrine here, housed in a vast
neo-Gothic basilica, attracts around four million visitors a year.
Just southwest of Luján lies the quiet and attractive town of
Mercedes , whose authentic pulpería offers a glimpse into
Argentina's gaucho past. The RN5 terminates at Santa Rosa ,
the modest provincial capital of La Pampa Province, which borders
Buenos Aires to the southwest. La Pampa Province is smaller and far
less populous than that of Buenos Aires and its scant network of
roads seems designed to do little more than bear the traveller away
from this little-visited region. Place names such as Arbol Solo
("solitary tree") conjure up an image of desolate lands punctuated
by frontier settlements and to some extent this is a fair summary
of this geographically transitional province, whose landscape
merges with the humid pampa to the northeast and the Patagonian
steppes to the south and climbs gradually to meet the foothills of
the Andes to the west. The province's main tourist attraction is
the Parque Nacional Lihué Calel , just over 200km southwest
of the capital, whose low sierras add some drama to this otherwise
gentle landscape.
As far as practicalities go, Buenos Aires is probably
Argentina's easiest province to get around: its 307,000 square
kilometres are dotted with towns and crisscrossed with roads and
railways, making it pretty straightforward to negotiate using
public transport . Bear in mind, though, that services to
the coast are greatly reduced out of season. La Pampa Province,
though much less populated and still with large areas untouched by
tourism, is nonetheless well connected by routes running south from
the capital into Patagonia. If you are planning on heading off the
beaten track, note that many of the region's secondary roads are
unsealed, and though easily negotiable in dry weather, they may
become impassable after heavy rainfall.