WHO IS YOUR GUIDE?
This is a central question to which you should try to get an answer before you sign up for a trip. Even if you don't know any of the guides in a particular guide service, most of these services publish, as part of their advertising, a list of their guides, stating such things as years of experience, guiding credentials and other potentially useful information.
If you know you would like a specific guide, - perhaps you have heard good things about a particular guide or maybe you had a great previous trip with that guide - request him or her.
If you have a favorite guide, but that guide is not available, ask for a recommendation for another name. Ask your favorite guide, or someone else you trust. Most good guides have good relationships with their competitors. If they recommend you to a competitor, that speaks well of both the guide doing the recommending and of the competitor.

QUALIFICATIONS & TRAINING
In Argentine the climbing guides need some type of official guide training or certification to guide. In Argentine the AAGM ( Asociacion Argentina de Guias de Montaña) www.aagm.com.ar is the only guides association whose guide training and certification programs are recognized internationally by the UIAGM (IFMGA, International Federation of Mountain Guides Associations- www.ivbv.info). This is the only institution allowed to teach the UIAGM Mountain Guides and to provide the UIAGM titles.
There are two sort of qualifications.
The Trekking Mountain Guides qualification, Guia de Trekking y Cordillera or GTC( Condition sine qua non to be  High Mountain Guide) . They got a very good instruction for a non technical terrain. They shouldn’t be guiding on rock climbing, glacier progression, ski touring, or Ice climbing,. They have some limitation on the technical and altitude guiding trips.In Argentine if you decide to follow a more technical instruction you will become a UIAGM Mountain Guide. It’s a long instruction  but the only way to become a proper professional High Mountain Guide

By the  moment in Argentine there are only 17 UIAGM-IFMGA-IVBV  Mountain Guides internationally certified, so try to choose them if possible. Infinito-sur Expeditions is proud to have 4 among them. The AAGM offers a number of different types of certificiations, but of most interest to potential clients are the certifications in the disciplines of Alpine, Rock and Ski guiding. Those guides who are certified at the highest level in all 3 disciplines are awarded the internationally recognized credential of UIAGM  
There are about 1750 IFMGA Mountain Guides in the French guides association, the Syndicat National des guide de Montagne (SNGM) . The AAGM has a listing at the www.aagm.com.ar .
Getting  the AAGM high Mountain Guide certified is no easy task. It takes dedication, training and a strong commitment to the career of guiding. Guides must be trained in several disciplines:

• Alpine Guide
• Rock and Ice Climbing Guide
• Ski Mountaineering Guide

The AAGM has been certifying guides for about 22 years. Since it began, certification has remained controversial and not universally supported. Without going into the reasons for this I think it is important to say that there are many excellent guides who are not yet certified. If you can't hire a certified guide, the question you must answer is "how do I determine who these good non-certified guides are?" Recommendations from those you trust are really the best way.
For years many argentine guides have, in essence, trained themselves to guide. Because they came from a recreational climbing background they have tended to try to use recreational climbing techniques as guiding techniques. In countries with a more formal guide training system, guides devised and perfected additional techniques and skills specific to guiding, not recreational climbing. Only recently have many Argentine guides begun to learn and implement some of these useful and proper techniques. This is the stuff of the AAGM’s guide training programs. And these are the skills that a guide who has received formal training in guiding will demonstrate. My advice is to seek a guide who you know to have received specific and formal training in being a guide, preferably through an internationally recognized IFMGA-member mountain guides association. Look for a guide who has passed that association's certification exam(s). Be sure that they are trained and assessed in the basic discipline of your planned activity, either Rock, Alpine or Ski. 

CERTIFICATION: the IFMGA & the AAGM
There are a number of different credentials you might come across in your search for a guide or guide service in South America.
First, a few definitions. The International Federation of Mountain Guide Associations (IFMGA) and the Union International des Associations de Guides de Montagne (UIAGM) are one and the same, the former merely being the English translation of the latter. As the name would suggest the IFMGA is a federation of member guide associations. There are 19 different member countries, including; Argentina, Bolivia, Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy (Italy has 3 different associations), Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the USA. In November 2205 the Argenine became a fully qualified member of the IFMGA.
The 19 member countries of the IFMGA all have agreed to recognize the training and certification programs of the other member countries. In so doing they try to offer to one another reciprocal rights of access to guides. All member associations have guide training programs which have been inspected and approved by representatives from the IFMGA. These training and assessment programs produce guides who are called IFMGA (or UIAGM) Mountain Guides.

The training and certification exams of the Asociacion Argentine de Guias de Montaña have been completely inspected by the IFMGA to be sure that the standard for certification is at the international level. In the Spring of 2005 all of the AAGM's training programs and exams have been determined by the IFMGA to meet the international standards of the IFMGA.
In nearly all IFMGA countries guides must be certified IFMGA Mountain Guides to legally guide commercially. 
Argentine guides who have received their AAGM certification in all three disciplines of Ski Mountaineering, Alpine and Rock guiding are qualified as IFMGA Mountain Guides, and have gained the access rights accorded to IFMGA Mountain Guides internationally.
If I were shopping for a guide I would first look for an IFMGA Mountain guide. If I could not find (in the South America this may happen) then, if necessary, I'd find a certified guide who perhaps is not IMFGA certified but is at least AAGM certified in the terrain type for the trip Im planning.