Trekking Through Argentina: A Memorable Journey with Great Hunting and the Best People

Just over a year since joining the team of travel experts at Trek International Safaris, I already consider Argentina my second home. Trek’s exceedingly hospitable local outfitters, the friendly clients I have met along the trail and the thrilling experiences we’ve shared in the field and on the water will always draw me back to this fascinating country.

For a total of 15 days, I spent time bouncing around the country seeing a few of our trusted, longtime partners, stopping by two new operations that we are excited to offer our clients, meeting up with a longtime group of Trek travelers for a nice dinner, and staying a few nights in Buenos Aires in-between. Here is a bit of a recap of my trip.

Arrival in Buenos Aires

My trip began with a flight from Jacksonville, FL, to Miami, followed by an overnight American Airlines flight to Buenos Aires. I arrived early morning, breezing through immigration and customs in under 30 minutes utilizing our FastTrek VIP expediting service. This streamlined process provides an outstanding first impression for our clients visiting Argentina.

Exploring Buenos Aires

The first day was dedicated to discovering Buenos Aires. It is important to us at Trek to stay up to date on new accommodations, new restaurants, fresh activities, and the most up to date information regarding the local economy and current prices. I was able to tour 4 or 5 hotels that are either new or that I haven not had the opportunity to visit to before. All were in different price ranges and are great options. My personal favorite of the bunch was the Mio Buenos Aires, a boutique hotel and spa in the heart of Recoleta. I had a wonderful lunch at Paru. Inkas Sushi and Grill, a Peruvian and Japanese fusion restaurant in Recoleta and then followed it up with a great dinner at the restaurant in the basement of the Mio Buenos Aires Hotel, Rufino Cocina Argentina.

Duck Hunting Adventures

The next day Cano Saint Antonin, one of Trek’s longtime partners and owner of Four Seasons Adventures, collected me from the hotel for a visit to our duck hunting operation at Villa Maria Lodge. Cano’s ability to stage his hunts across three lodges ensures consistent and high-quality game action. This is a great asset as the drives to the blinds are short and are not sacrificing the quality of the hunt. Villa Maria is a beautiful property with a main house and a guest house. The guest house has been recently constructed with modern amenities. We headed out to hunt the first afternoon on a lagoon in the middle of a pasture just 10 minutes from the lodge. The next morning we hunted over some flooded pasture around 15 minutes from the lodge. After our hunt we headed back to the lodge for a bit more breakfast, a siesta, some lunch, and then back out to the blind that afternoon. The last morning of the hunt, we were about 20 minutes from the lodge over a large body of water and was our best hunt of the four outings.  We were able to take a few varieties of teal, including the silver teal, yellow billed pintails, white-cheeked pintails, and wigeons amongst others. I then headed back to a night in Buenos Aires, which is around three and a half hour drive.

Big Game Hunting at Terra Pampa

The next morning, I traveled to Terra Pampa Lodge, a 85,000+ acre ranch in La Pampa province. Remigio Donnelly and his family have operated Terra Pampa for over 100 years. They have been offering big game hunts and hosting clients off and on for 20+ years. The lodge was constructed and finished in 2019 and is truly wonderful. The view you have of the ranch from the lodge constantly reminds you of just how much private property the ranch houses. The main draw here for Trek is the true free range opportunity for red stags, wild boar, and black buck. Over the two days I was at the ranch, we drove the property so I could see the wide variety of terrain the wild stags have to roam. We saw hundreds of free range black bucks and multiple groups of red stags in the free range property as well. They do offer a small 6,000 acre reserve where they can have their guest harvest larger red stags, axis deer, Pierre David, and fallow deer. The cuisine at Terra Pampa is nothing short of first class. They prepared a wide variety of meals from the traditional asado, to pasta, to a wonderful Red Stag schnitzel.

After my last morning of touring the property along with chasing some wild boars, we headed back to Santa Rosa where I boarded my commercial flight back to Buenos Aires for the night.

Dove Hunting at La Portenita Lodge 

It was a quick turn around as I headed out the next morning to Cordoba to visit one of our signature lodges and a client favorite, La Porteñita. La Porteñita is owned by Trek’s long time partners, brothers Alex and Zeke Hayes. La Porteñita is situated on top of a hill with magnificent views and is nestled in a beautiful country setting within the confines of a working Argentine Estancia, making for a unique hunting experience. La Porteñita never disappoints as the team never lets any small detail go unnoticed. There was a group of long time Trek travelers, representing the great state of Arizona, that were at the lodge and were nice enough to let me join them for dinner. It is always great to put a face to the name. A lot of the passport pictures don’t do anybody justice!

Fishing for Golden Dorado

The next morning Zeke Hayes and I headed north to Corrientes province and were met by our host at Jetu’u Lodge, where we fished for some golden dorados. I have always heard about dorado fishing and haven’t had the privilege to go after them yet in my career. Man do I know have a new favorite activity! I have rarely fly fished in my life and within 5 minutes of practice before getting on the boat, I had the casting down. We headed from the dock just steps from the lodge into the marsh to do some fishing. I missed my first bite but landed my second bite and first golden dorado within 20 or so minutes. We caught plenty more before we headed in for dinner. After we got cleaned up, we went into the main dining area for cocktail hour. To our surprise, the lodge arranged a traditional Argentinian tango show that included two dancers, a wonderful guitar player and singer as we sat around the wood burning stove and warmed up after a cool evening on the water.

The next day was a full day of fishing which included an asado on a private island in the middle of the Parana River. The lodge’s exclusivity ensured we had the waters all to ourselves, enhancing the experience. Be on the lookout for a special package as Trek is putting together for a combo trip with Jetu’u and La Portenita Lodge!

Dove Hunting at Inti Malal

After a short charter flight to Resistencia then a commercial flight to Buenos Aires, I had again a short turnaround before I headed to Tucuman to be met by our long time partner, Gustavo Olsen. Gustavo, the great host that he is, drove me to his dove hunting lodge called, Inti Malal. Gustavo’s daughter, Mel, and son-in-law,Pablo, are a perfect team that operate Inti Malal.

Mel hosts the hunters in the lodge with their every need. Each day you arrive back from the field to personalized cocktails, wonderful snacks, and a fun message on the whiteboard by the bar! She and her team truly know how to keep hunters and their non-hunting guests extremely comfortable and happy throughout your whole stay.

Her husband, Pablo, is the main hunting guide. Pablo works with his scouts, bird boys, and whole team to ensure each hunt goes smoothly. They are always making sure you have plenty of shells, two well running shotguns, and plenty of beverages in the blinds. All you have to worry about is pulling the trigger. I have been lucky enough to see our operations in Cordoba, Santa Fe, and Entre Rios, as well as, our folks in Bolivia, and not one of those destination compares to the amount of birds I saw at Inti Malal. Best part about it all, we did not ever drive further than 30 minutes to the hunts. Often 10 minutes to 15 minutes is the amount of time you are in the van heading to your blind.

Mel and Pablo go above and beyond your expectations. They take the time to take plenty of videos and pictures and on your final night they put together a video highlighting your group’s trip all at no extra charge. We are very lucky to have a great partnership with Inti Malal and look forward to sharing this experience with many more of our Trek travelers.

Culinary Delights and Farewells

After saying my goodbyes to the team at Inti Malal I returned to Buenos Aires where I met up with a couple of our Trek travelers heading back from Guayascate Lodge, another one of our signature lodges and a client favorites owned by Trek’s long time partners, brothers Alex and Zeke Hayes.

We had plenty of time before having to head to Ezeiza, so I lined up one of our guides in Buenos Aires and headed to Recoleta for dinner. We ended up eating at one of my favorite restaurants, Marcello’s. It is an Italian Cocina in the InterSur Recoleta Hotel. Pasta was a great choice to get us all warm and tired for the flight back to the states.

I opted for the FastTrek VIP service on departure and most likely will never decline it again. After being met by my concierge as soon as we got out of the car, we headed to check my bags. Once the bags were checked, I was through security, immigration and into the VIP lounge within 10 minutes

Reflections on the Trip

As I sat in the lounge with my last bit of Malbec before I headed to my gate to board, I reflected on my trip and asked myself what it was that made it worth being out of the office for 15 total days straight. It was a pretty easy answer. You cannot put a price on real first-hand experience. One thing I learned very quickly about Trek is that we take a lot of pride in investing our time and our resources to have the most complete and updated information to be able to ensure our clients trust us with their experiences, time, and money.  I enjoy being part of the  Trek Team and being a part of the reason our clients keep traveling with us across the world!

Cheers,

Tanner Palmore
Director of Hunting

For more information about hunting in Argentina and planning your own adventure, contact us today!