“What are you going to see in Puerto Rico?” People would ask when they heard we were going to San Juan (even though we said we were going to Argentina). So this became a bit of a joke with my Argentine friend and I.
“We’re going to San Juan. The desert area of Argentina,” I’d reply. Even when I did google searches, a lot of articles would pop up about San Juan Puerto, Rico and a tiny handful about the city in Argentina we were staying.
San Juan is east of the Andes Mountains, the capital city of the area, 2nd largest wine producing region, and home of Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (president of Argentina 1868). On February 15, 1811, Sarmiento was born in Carrascal, a poor suburb. San Juan is 650m (2,133 ft) above sea level. I wouldn’t have been able to plan the trip without my friend, R. I couldn’t find many tours in the area in English so I left all that up to her.
We flew down to Buenos Aires on Sunday and landed 12 hours later on a Monday. Our flight was weird, it flew out around 3:30pm which means we landed around 3:30am. So we added an extra night to our stay, the night before, so we didn’t have to kill time with our luggage. Plus you shouldn’t be wandering around that early killing time. R met us at the airport. She just relearned to drive so she could get over her driving fear. It was a covid pro; she felt so trapped she worked on her fear. She’s so happy she did and she picked us up in her car, we got to see her driving skills! We did feel bad because she woke up early to get us but she insisted. I’ll write about our first day in Buenos Aires later.
This was actually our second trip to Argentina. We visited Buenos Aires for 9 days that turned into 11 because of Hurricane Sandy in 2012. My Argentine pen-pal from high school visited NYC in summer 2011. We lost touch for a bit and she found me again on Facebook and messaged when we she was visiting. Then we flew down a year later to visit her. I was actually craving to fly far south before covid hit. Argentina was our very first big trip overseas, we’ve only been to the Caribbean before that.
R, her friends, and family wondered how we picked Talampaya because it’s mostly known to Argentine’s. I originally wanted to go to El Calafate in Patagonia, very on the gringo path. But when I read that blog about Talampaya, that was a sign to go. So R and I planned and booked it together. This was on her list of places to go too.
Our journey began as we left the airport in San Juan. It’s better to know Spanish for the San Juan area, not much English is spoken here. My Duolingo and remote classes with a teacher helped a little but not enough for me to fully communicate or read. I can understand maybe 20-30% of something, just a little, easy stuff. R what chatting with our cab driver asking for places to eat. He recommended to eat at the old Lebanese restaurant in town. He said they have very good food and they have an old Lebanese community. I wouldn’t have been able to figure that out without my friend. My Spanish wasn’t good enough and I barely found info about San Juan.
The restaurant is located in the Lebanese Social Club. We weren’t sure if we could go inside but my friend said we can ask someone if it’s ok to go in and it turned out, the restaurant was there. It’s a lovely building that was damaged in the earthquake on January 15, 1944. The food was different from the Lebanese we eat back home. It’s interesting eating international somewhere else, you can taste and see how it is modified for that region’s taste buds. I’m going to make this a thing now. It was R’s first time eating Lebanese. R tried a few new foods while we were in Argentina. It was very different for her. She liked it. Even her daughter ate a little and she’s a picky eater.
Our waiter has a relative that lives in New Jersey and he himself used to live in Canada. They were nice and welcoming. The restaurant was busy. He told us we could ask the security guard to show us around. I don’t remember what my friend translated when the guard was showing us around.
It’s a really really beautiful and built in Moorish style.
It’s definitely worth checking out if you find yourself in San Juan.
Jebus Mews & Andrea 
This isn’t a place I would normally consider traveling thousands of miles to, but the town has a European charm to it. I was told Buenos Aires and other parts of Argentina look as if someone took a slice of old Europe and dropped it on the pampas: the writer Jorge Luis Borges supposedly got his taste for Gothic fiction from the many old stone mansions and decaying estates built by once wealthy families in Buenos Aires. Yeah, I’ve been told by others who have visited Argentina that the place is unashamedly carnivore. Maybe it’s changed a bit with younger residents, but it seems like a lot of visitors rave about the steaks you can get there. I’ll pass on those, but Borges might tempt me to visit the pampas. 🙂
Their food is pretty mild. Not a lot of seasoning except if you eat ethnic. We saw some veggie places. The food scene seemed a bit more diverse than 11 years ago. We plan to go back often. They have a ton of nature things we wanna do.
I’ve been watching a lot of videos about Latin America, one said that Buenos Aires is Latin America light and I can see that. They also went on to say that if you’re from Europe or North America you’ll feel at home. We do. Buenos Aires feels like Spanish NY. They have a mix of old and new. Oaxaca feels more like Sunset Park or Jackson Heights.
What a great read, and I still am amazed at how you chose San Juan/Talampaya, Argentina, versus the more popular areas you mention like El Calafate in Patagonia. These decisions are always the ones that make for the best trips, so it is great you followed your intuition. I dream of one day visiting Argentina (still have the idea of riding horses in Patagonia), and I think there would be so many places to explore there… Also, very cool to have such a great, long term relationship with your pen-pal over the years. Cheers to all that is out there to discover (and re-discover!).
I’m still craving to see ice! Next time we’ll go to El Calafate. The glacier hike isn’t open in winter and we wanted to visit in July or Aug (their winter). I wasn’t sure if we were in good enough shape for the mini glacier hike but I recently read that the mini is ok for out of shape people (that’s us). We also never stepped foot in a desert till this trip. My allergies were awful out there. I didn’t expect that.
I like going off the beaten path even in NYC. For some reason, Vic’s family criticizing us saying we always go to the same places makes me want to explore even more off the beaten path. For the immature reason of saying, “I did x, y, z with the locals and you didn’t and they had Cheshire grins because not many tourists go there.” His bro went on a cruise to Alaska, they asked us what there was to do in Vancouver since we love it. For some reason they think we do the same thing and stay in the same place. They couldn’t believe we aren’t into Vancouver (we LOVE the nature not the city). We just fly there so we can explore the rest of BC. We travel very differently. Whenever we listen to his relatives suggestions we don’t enjoy our trips and recently decided we’ll never listen to them again. From now on the only folks I’ll listen to are WP buddies, backpackers we meet on vacation, and hippies. Those groups of people tend to hit our travel spot 🙂 You guys opened up our travel world. My list keeps growing!
Traveling is on pause. We can’t seem to stabilize my middle fur kid, Jiminy. He has either IBD or Lymphoma. Treatment is the same so we aren’t going to biopsy him, he’s semi feral so hard to treat and drag to the vet.
Cheers to more adventures! We may not be traveling anytime soon but I have some local day trip ideas to entertain me.
So glad to see both of you 🙂
I loved reading this post! I had heard so much from you and I finally made it to your site. Looks like such a lovely trip. I love the colour pops and the food is divine. I’m not sure if I ver tried Lebanese cuisine before. Argentina is on my list. Thanks for taking me there virtually. xo
You’d love the nature in Argentine! I can’t wait to get to Patagonia. Our exchange rate is really good right now. I just have to stabilize my cat and I can take off again!