Dear Patty,
here are our replies.

As a guideline we ask you this questions:
Which hotel did you like the most?

Although the Torres del Paine hotel was certainly the most comfortable (but we suppose the most expensive), the one we liked best was the Palermo in Buenos Aires. But we also liked the hotels in El Calafate and El Chalten which we would certainly recommend.

Which was your favorite excursion?

The Perito Moreno and the Uppsala Glacier icebergs. But we also enjoyed the walking on the various trails very much.

What was the best of traveling with us? Is there anything you think could be improved?
The enthusiasm of the guides and the punctuality: we never waited for more than 5 minutes.
You should warn your clients that, in the Torres Del Paine park, there is no mobile connection, unless you have a pc or a satellite-linked GSM (which was not our case).

We love to know your opinion!

As we said before, we found your organisation marvelous. We will certainly recommend you to friends who would like to travel to Argentina. Congratulations.
We cannot remember the first name of the very kind guide we had at Perito Moreno. Can you retrieve that for us?
I have tried to put an opinion on Tripadvisor, but cannot find how to do so. Their site is quite messy!
All my best,
Jean-Marie

Ursula,
Hola! Or as they would say in Alberta, Howdy!

Thank you for your email and the recipe.

We made it back to Alberta, safe and sound, although tired after the long flight(s). Ursula and I decided, we should move Argentina a little farther north and Canada a little farther south, so it will make it easier for us to visit your wonderful country again! It was an amazing trip, where we met a great bunch of people!

In response to your hotel question, we thought all but two of the hotels were great. The Convento in Salta, L'Hotel Palermo, the Bohemia and the Killa in Cafayate were all excellent and we would recommend them. If we had to pick a favorite, Ursula liked the Killa, while I picked Amir's Bohemia. Our least two favorite hotels, the Jasy in Iguazu and Los Colorados in Purmamarca, were not in the same class as the a fore mentioned 4 hotels. The Jasy had some safety issues with its stairs and lack of railings, but did have a very good restaurant. Los Colorados had a great location, but presented a tired look.

Regarding excursions, Ursula loved the Iguazu Falls trip, while I enjoyed the two-day excursion from Salta to Cafayate and back.

We thoroughly enjoyed our guides Raoul, Vanessa and Gabriella. All were very patient and very informative.

Improvements that we think Say Hueque could make might include more options on free days. For example, because we did not see what we were looking for in Say Hueque's offerings, we booked a trip on the Tigre while in Buenos Aires with a company called Delta Unplugged. It was an amazing small group, day-long trip that really gave one a feel for the Delta. Also, the food we enjoyed that day was among the best we sampled in Argentina. The second day excursion, we booked on our own, was a trip out of Mendoza. The trip was to the Andes and included climbing to the 4,000 metre Argentina-Chile border summit. We booked this through Viator and were very disappointed. If we had known that Sak Wine tours offered such a trip with Gabriella and a H-1 vehicle, I think we would have jumped at the opportunity! And finally, our two excursions in Salta province would have been more comfortable if a larger vehicle had been available. Raoul eased the pain of being squeezed into a small car by stopping often, allowing us to stretch and walk around.

Overall, we feel Say Hueque did a great job putting our trip together. Argentina is an amazing country, with fantastic people! I wish we could return sooner!

Ursula & Steve Ramsey

Hola Carolina,
My apologies for not replying earlier, life just got in the way.

Thank you for your's and Mariano's help in organising what was a very enjoyable trip. Everything from accommodation, buses and flights went very smoothly. The only problem we encountered, for which you had no control over, was being delayed for several hours at the Strait of Magellan crossing and arriving in Ushuaia at 3 in the morning ( the cafe ran out of food and drinks and there is a serious shortage of toilets!).

Everything worked out well for our first part of a booking in Iguazu - the early morning flight worked well with us joining the Argentine side tour on our arrival in Iguazu. Our hotel was very good, with great views of the Triple Frontier from our balcony.

Our time in El Calafate and El Chalten was very enjoyable with lots of hiking and bike riding. I would like to particularly praise the staff at Hosteria El Puma in El Chalten, they were extremely helpful and friendly and were able to recommend many hikes as well as tours. We appreciated having the mini bus collect us from our hotel in El Calafate and take us directly to our accommodation in El Chalten and then the same for our return to El Chalten - this saved us having to lug our baggage back and forth to the bus stations, however you may like to ask the company who is providing this service to you to use larger buses as they buses they used were very small resulting in the passengers being squashed up against each other - it was very uncomfortable.

We had a great time in Ushuaia, there is a lot to do. We enjoyed the tours that were organised through Say Hueque but would have preferred to have not included the "Trekking and Canoeing in the National Park" - it wasn't all that interesting. The "Walk in Penguin Rookery/Visit Harberton Ranch" on the other hand was great! It was fantastic to be able to walk among the penguins - I would recommend this over the Trekking and Canoeing.

Thank you for organising our hotel in Buenos Aires, it was good to stay in a different area. The Esplendor Palermo Soho is a great location for a bit of nightlife and markets and is within walking distance of Recoleta. The hotel itself was very comfortable and the staff were good but the room we stayed in was tired and in need of some refurbishment.
All in all we had a great time in Argentina and we are very appreciative of how well everything turned out. It was great to be an "Independent Traveller" but to have had all the hard work done for us. I would definitely recommend Say Hueque to anyone who was planning to travel to Argentina.

Kind regards,
Kristina Catlin

PS Will definitely try to make the empanadas. And, yes, the Torrontés, my favourite is difficult to find.

Hello Karen,

Sorry but i didn't find the time to visit you after my trip !:)

Everything was really great except the place of the rooms into the hotels ! It was always the worst one !
Also, the hotel in El Calafate is not very good. I mean, the reception and the restaurant were very cool but the room was really not.
The hotel in San Martin de los Andes was a very good one. It was "La Cheminée".

Thank you very much for your job. I will recommend you. You are welcome in my place if you want to visit a day.

Best regards.

Professionalism, expertise, personal care and interest; I found these and more from the first day that I emailed Say Hueque about a five week holiday in Argentina. Patricio devised and arranged a fantastic itinerary; and Augustina Julia followed up with exceptional assistance while in-country. I can only thank them both for giving us such a wonderful holiday.
We did meet other people travelling with Say Hueque while in Argentina and they too sang the praises of this company.

Julia and Patricio - we really did have a wonderful holiday, and do thank you both so much for everything. It was all great.

The only thing (which is very minor) would be to let people know that for group excursions, that the noted pick-up time is the time that the bus starts it's round of pick-ups and may not reach your hotel until a little later. In the beginning we were getting worried that we were forgotten as the bus would not be there at the designated time. After a few times of this we realised that the bus just had other people to pick up first. It is a minor detail, but I think it would be helpful for clients to know this from the beginning.

Favourite places - so many beautiful places in Argentina - but I think we both loved the penguin rookery in Haberton (photo attached - I love the way he seems to be looking at the fantastic scenery), and especially the hikes around El Chalten. We were so lucky with the weather which was glorious. Photo attached. Sorry that the photos are sidewise - hope you can put them the right side up!

Please do use the testimonial and photos as you might wish.

Again, thank you both.
Susan and Nathan

Hi Patricia, It was a wonderful trip. Henry at Say Hueque put together a great itinerary, and after he left, Pia pulled it all together.
I liked a lot of the hotels. I liked the location of the hotel in Santiago, as it was in town in an interesting and fun neighborhood. Many of the hotels were beautiful, but the distance from the city was very big. I like to eat dinner in the city and walk around after dinner, and I could not do that when the hotels were so far. The hotel in Mendoza was lovely, as was the hotel in Puerto Varas, but both were very far out of town. The hotel in Bariloche and the hotel in El Calafate wre within easy walking distance to town, and I like that.

I love the estancia, Estancia La Candelaria del Monte. It was an exceptional experience. The staff and the food were wonderful. I would highly recommend this.

We had exceptional guides, particularly Frederico in Bariloche and Vincent in Mendoza. They were absolutely the BEST and made the experience. Antonio in Chiloe Island was also good.

My favorite excursions were
Bariloche when Frederico took us on a hike to “Enchanted Valley” and then for a wonderful lunch at an estancia.
Upscale Glacier. That was a wonderful experience. Seeing the icebergs floating in the water is magical.

I would recommend Say Heuque to my friends. I think you should ask whether people prefer hotels outside town with beautiful grounds or prefer to stay in town. Other than the distance of some of the hotels, I have nothing negative to say. It was a fantastic trip!

Myra Friedman

Hi Patty
Here are some of my thoughts:
Hotel Oporto is not that great. The location is far from anything to do and some of their staff were great but they let us down on the last day. We had a 7:30 pick up which is when breakfast starts so we asked for a 7:15 breakfast and they agreed. Well at 7:15 nothing was out and the guy there cleaning up said breakfast does not start till 7:30 When we explained that they promised us a 7:15 breakfast he went and got us a yogurt and went outside and swept the sidewalk instead of getting anything for us to eat. The floor in the rooms is old wood and almost impossible to clean so it looks dirty.
The hotel in Easter Island was our favorite. Great location and great restaurant. We had a great guide, Chris as well. Easter Island was one of the highlights of the trip.
Some friends had recommended the bus ride from Santiago to Mendoza. It was interesting but I'm not sure I would have picked it since we were going to Salta for 3 more long bus rides that were even better.
As you know, in Mendoza we had 2 problems with drivers. This is especially critical when catching a flight. We also mentioned that the bike tour was pretty lame; old bikes and cycling in town a short way. And the lunch that was on the itinerary never happened.
The guys in the hotel in Mendoza were great.
The wine tours were pretty good in Santiago and Mendosa. Although we did decide to stay for a third one in Mendoza on a day we had 2 booked. It was quite surprising to us what they did. It was expensive and all they did was bring lunch with a different wine with each course. But they did not say one thing about the wines or the winery. It was just an expensive lunch.
The excursions from Salta were good. It is a long time on the bus but you can't avoid that. The wine tours at Cafayate were very weak. No tour of the winery. All we did was taste one or two wines with large groups of people. We did not even sit down and the entire explanation of the wine and winery (or whatever they were talking about was in Spanish).
The hotel in Salta was great and Carlos at the front desk was really helpful.
Iguazu Falls was fantastic. Constanza was also fantastic. We liked that quirky old hotel there too. I"m not sure everyone would like it; there was a one inch gap below our front door that anything could have come in through and the bed is upstairs, but we liked it and liked the restaurant as well.
Collonia was okay but kind of boring. Rita was okay.
The map you gave us in BA was fantastic. We used that all the time. The list of restaurants we never used once because we didn't know where they were. If that came with a map it would have been great.
The Tango show was oversold. The itinerary said all the Malbec you can drink. First of all it was a very cheap wine. It was not Malbec. It was called 'Vino Tinto'. There was no mention of Malbec on the label anywhere. It may have had some in it but not enough to be classified as Malbec. In addition, we finished the bottle and wanted one more glass and they said that is all we get. The show itself was okay.
So that is about it.
It can't be easy coordinating so many stops at so many places and for the most part it all came together and we had a great trip. If I was you though, I would be careful about promising more than you are going to get on these excursions as that is when you feel shortchanged.
Often the highlights were when we got great service at a hotel or an excursion. So I recommend you try to keep using those people that were really helpful to us.
Dave

Hi Patty,

thank you for your email. Yes, we had a wonderful expedition to Antarctica and South Georgia Island. The passage to Antarctica was a little rough, but we survived. We saw some wonderful wildlife and the best of all was a close encounter with a humpback while. It surfaced about 15m from our zodiac, and then headed straight towards us before diving about 3m away from us.

I have made a post to Trip Advisor. Please have a look.

In terms of hotels, we picked Das Cataratas in Iguazu Falls, which was obviously very good, but in terms of hotels used by Say Huegue, we liked the Senderos in El Chalten. It was clean and the staff were really friendly and helpful, and the place was very homely. The Mirador in El Calafate was quite good too. As I said to you previously, we didn't like BoBo in BA much. Apart from it being old, the location was not the best, nothing much around for tourists.

Favourite Excursion - Iguazu Falls, Argentinian side. Great day, and the weather was good.

What was best travelling with SH? Well organised. For older travellers like us, the last thing we want are hassles, things going wrong, not met at airports, etc. This happened to friends of ours two weeks ago in Santiago, not met at the airport, and not told what time the day tour would start the next day. For us, everything happened smoothly, you met us at EZE, we were met at Iguazu airport by Roberto, and we were met at El Calafate by Eduardo. And the other thing which was best was the fact I could communicate with you all the time, using Whatsapp, and you always replied. It meant that I was never worried as I knew I could get help quickly if we were stuck.

I will definitely recommend SH to anyone going to South America, and if we do go back, and we probably will, I will use SH again.

Thank you very much for the recipe for empanadas. We tried a few in El Chalten, and liked them.

Attached is a photo from the visit to the Moreno glacier.

Warm regards,

Chon