Has anyone ever traded to Argentina &/or Chile? I modified an Ongoing Search with RCI that has been in place for several months already eliminating the previous search for New England for fall of 2018 to specific March weeks in 2019. Wondering if anyone has ever traded into a resort in either of those countries via RCI....
We had a fantastic month long trip to Argentina a few years ago. We used 3 week-long exchanges through II in Patagonia, plus a week of hotel stays in Buenos Aires split with a few days down in the icefields in the far south of the country. So I can't speak about RCI units, but can give you some tips on II units and Argentina in general.
Our trip was from mid December to mid January, which is the equivalent of mid June to mid July in North America. The weather was mostly sunny and very nice in Patagonia in the mountains, though a bit cool and windy at times, and not too hot yet in Buenos Aires. We stayed a week at Apart del Lago in Bariloche in the southern part of lake Nahuel Huapi, and two weeks in Villa la Angostura in the northern part of the same lake. The two weeks in Villa la Angostura were one at Bahia Manzano and one at Bahia Montana, which are run by the same company and located only a mile or two apart.
In all three of these timeshares we had fantastic upper level balcony views over the lake, which is as spectacular as any alpine lake in Europe. The units tend to be larger than a lot of the European alpine timeshares in Italy, Switzerland, and Austria that we've stayed at as well. Not as luxurious as Marriotts or Hyatts, but still pretty nice.
If you go, there are a few things to be aware of. Less English is spoken than in Europe, though still plenty of people do speak it at least basically. So brush up on simple Spanish if you need to. The people were really friendly and our interactions with them were typically very enjoyable. You also need to purchase a reciprocity voucher to enter the country, before you leave the US. They charge foreigners much higher prices for flights within Argentina than they charge residents, and we had to make a few of those. One other thing - public laundries are hard to find in Patagonia - we had to have the timeshare send them out for cleaning at a pretty steep price.
Drives are long within the country, and lots of gravel/dirt roads off the main throughways, so flights between Patagonia and Buenos Aires were necessary. But it's best to rent a car in Patagonia so you can explore far and wide. We rented one for 3 weeks from the Bariloche airport, but did not use one in Buenos Aires or at the icefields where we took a bus tour. We walked through a lot of the heart of Buenos Aires, and hired a guide to drive us to outlying areas one day. She gave us a great tour of areas we wouldn't have seen otherwise. We found excellent restaurants throughout our travels there, often with stunning lake views in Patagonia. We could walk or take a bus to the 3 different nearby brewpubs (up to a mile at most) from our timeshare in Bariloche, and the town of Villa la Angostura has a nice walkable mountain town feel with many restaurants and pubs.
All in all, one of our better and more unique foreign excursions to be sure, but it takes a bit more effort than areas that speak English more commonly.
