David Siskind | Sunday, 25 October 2026
Big place, Argentina. Buenos Aires is also huge. Super livable and a charming place to hang. Clean, lots of cobblestones, coffee shops everywhere. The cops smoke cigarettes on the street on duty and the force seems to be almost half wonen. At least it looks that way. We dined at a couple of foody places that were great and a ‘sort of’ Vietnamese place with loud eclectic 90s music and where the chef really killed it. Yum. But I get better empanadas in LA and I don’t know how to order a steak. So overall the eating’s been spotty.
There’s some unique stuff to see - glaciers, big shallow lakes, big-extremely-deep lakes, in the south and waterfalls and the jungle north. Distances are long and we’ve flown a lot. Aerolíneas Argentina has good baggage handlers. Thank goodness. I thought touring before fishing would be less grinding than showing up at the river, jet-lagged and beat up by 15 hours of flying, but they’re making me check my rods on domestic flights. It’s not just the airlines - the federal security staff can be inflexible. I made a spectacle of myself in the airport begging. So I’m stressing on every leg of the journey but so far so good.
I bought some big, black-rabbit-strip streamers in El Calafate from a tackle shop catering to spinfishers - might work on dorado next week. They were tied for the big lake trout, rainbows, browns, and chinook. The latter apparently spawn in the headwaters of the Perito Moreno Glacier - Lago Argentina system, most notably the Rio Catarina. They were all introduced of course. The Chinook are the world’s only self-sustaining population of these fish living their growth years in the Atlantic. There are few outfitters servicing flyfishers here - clear waters with salmon runs are difficult to access and regulations apparently don’t favor any development making it easier. Probably for the best. However, I hear it can be done - it’ll take some effort to figure it out.
We’re now in a treehouse hotel near the Iguazu Falls up north and will be checking them out in the morning, then off to Salta where we’ll bang around a bit - there’s some painted desert and salt flats to see. After Salta, Jackie’s off to NY and I meet the Getaway outfitter to travel by bus to the lodge on the Rio Dorado. More on that next week. I’ve got my fingers crossed. Could be great.
I’ve missed my clubs and have improvised with big soda bottles filled with water. They’re not really heavy enough but sufficient to keep loose and my mill-stroke grooved and the proper sequence timed up the kinetic chain - feet to hips, then shoulders, arms and hand to load. The water bottles aren’t ideal but still allow for some learning.
We’ll also learn this week whether Basil will fall back into authoritarian rule and if not whether the US will tolerate it. No one talks about politics or the wars here much - not to me anyway - it’s surprising how few people speak any English and my Spanish is worse than childish. Argentines certainly gone through a lot over the years and maybe that’s a cope. I can’t let it go, even for a few weeks. :(
Happy trails,
David Siskind