Hello Buenos Aries- Welcome to Argentina
The flight was about 1,027 kilometres and 2 hours 30 minutes. Upon landing, at around 20:00 (Argentina is an hour ahead of Bolivia), we got through immigration quickly and only waited a few minutes for our luggage. The airport had a taxi desk in the arrivals hall, so we were able to get a taxi and driver, and pay for our destination, before we even left the terminal building. This is a great system, it minimises anxiety when arriving in a new city -especially after dark.
The drive from the airport was nearly an hour and we could tell straight away that Buenos Aires is a city on a different scale, and with a different level of infrastructure, than the other South American cities that we had seen so far – even Santa Cruz. We whizzed along three to five lane highways, with nice smooth road services, slip roads, flyovers, and plentiful road signs. Along side the roads, there were modern, well-maintained, well-lit, buildings with offices, homes and businesses. I saw no abandoned construction, dereliction, or pollution.
We located the hotel after only a little confusion, caused by the taxi driver having written the building number down incorrectly. The Sun Let Hotel, is a small boutique hotel with only sixteen rooms, and a tiny spa – with small pool, sauna, and massage room. We checked in and went up to our room, which was huge!!!! It had two toilets, a study area, a sitting area, and a massive bed. After quickly settling in, we went out again to get some food. The area we were staying in – Palermo – is famous for having a high concentration of cool cafes, hip bars, and trendy restaurants over a large area. We only walked for a few minutes down the road that the hotel was on, and we found a nice looking bistro sort of place called Brandons. Like nearly all such places in Buenos Aires it had a good selection of ‘craft beers’, from which I selected a ‘wheat beer’. All the food and drink was great.
Tuesday 20 – Day 52 – Buenos Aires
We woke up to a beautiful sunny day in Buenos Aires – the sun was shining and the jacaranda trees were blooming. After breakfast in our hotel we decided to catch a free walking tour of the Recoleta district at 10:30.
The guy hosting the walk was a young man called Fernando, who had a little headset hooked up to a loudspeaker strapped around his waist, which allowed him to speak to the group of about 20 without straining. We strolled around, stopping now and again at places or things of interest while he explained some of the background and history. We learned that Buenos Aires was designed to be “The Paris of the South” when Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world; how it became that; and what when wrong later. We also learned that the 9th de Julio avenue was seen by the Argentinians as the widest avenue in the world and they are very proud of it.
The comparison with Paris is not a crazy one. Buenos Aires really is a beautiful city with wide tree-lined avenues; many handsome buildings; and lots of plazas and parks. Indeed, it is a very green city, and, when the jacarandas are blooming, full of colour too. We finished the tour, after thee hours, in the “Parque Recoleta” and went for lunch at an adjacent cafe – Café La Biela (in English: The Connecting-rod Café). La Biela was popular for many years with politicians, writers, artists, actors and media celebrities, but it acquired its present name in the 1950s when it became a popular meeting place for racing car champions, including the five times Formula One world champion Juan Manuel Fangio. .The surroundings may have been interesting, but the food was only adequate.
After our late lunch, we entered the Recoleta cemetery, a very famous and interesting place, where all the rich families of Buenos Aires had their mausoleums and tombs. There is a fabulous range of shapes and styles – but most are very ornate. They range in size from garden shed to small house, and there are arranged in rows, like streets. Its like walking through a village of the dead. There are over six thousand of them, and amongst them is one that gets the most attention – that of Eva Peron – Evita!
We then walked towards the National Gallery, stopping on the way in Starbucks, for a Frappaccino. The National Gallery is an imposing red sandstone building that was looking particularly grand with the purple jacaranda trees in flower in front of it. We spent a couple of hours strolling around its halls looking at the nineteenth century art, impressionists, post-impressionists, and more modern stuff, but we also looked at the current temporary exhibition – a large collection of Turned water colours.
Wednesday 21 – Day 53 – Buenos Aires
We awoke to another beautiful sunny day. We had no definite plans got up, after breakfast we sorted at a leisurely pace, so it was 10:00 by the time we left the hotel. We hailed a taxi in the street and directed it to the National Gallery – we were starting our walk exactly where we left off the day before. Buenos Aires is situated on the estuary of the River Plate, but so far we had not had a glimpse of the river. One of our objectives for the day was to find it. We strolled around the park adjacent to the nearby University Law faculty, and took pictures of the famous stainless steel kinetic flower sculpture, by Eduardo Catalano, – a giant bloom that follows the sun, and opens and closes as the sun rises and sets. We took loads of pictures. Then we walked South parallel with the river, through the university area, appreciating the abundance of green spaces and the quality of the landscape design.
Eventually, we got to the British clock – a landmark that we had seen in the distance on our walk the day before. At this point we tried to take a line closer to the river, and ended up walking along a road behind a row of shiny new office blocks. There was a lot of construction going on and it was dusty and noisy. Partly to get away from this, and partly to try and get closer to the river, we crossed a bridge over the shipping entrance to the old docks and found ourselves in an area like London’s Isle of Dogs – lots of posh new mirror-glass office blocks, arranged around refurbished warehouses, lining the sides of the docks, which contained a marina full of yachts. There were lots of smart cafes, bars, and restaurants, filled with smart people having lunch. We randomly chose an Italian, and, being tourists chose to sit outside in the sun, rather than inside in the air-conditioning. The smartly-uniformed waiter brought us a basket of posh bread and a little pot of cream cheese and herbs. All the food was delicious, we Googled the restaurant to find out that it was highly thought of
When we left the restaurant, once again we tried to get closer to the river, crossing a couple of roads to enter a large green area marked on the map as “Reserva Ecologica”. This turned out to be a very large area of land, almost an island, only attached to the mainland in a couple of places, almost completely unmanaged and wild forest, with a path running around the outside and a path crossing the middle – it was forbidden to leave the paths. We decided to walk on the path around the outside until we got to the path across the middle, and return on it. We were hoping for some views of the river, and some wildlife. The paths were very wide, and were used by numerous other walkers, joggers, cyclists and nature lovers. It was very hot, and we tried to stick to stick to the
shady side of the path, but we were soon hot and sweaty. There was thick vegetation on both sides of the path, with occasional glimpses of swampy ground – we began to worry about mosquitos, and, indeed, got bitten before we had time to put on repellent spray on. Although the path ran around the edge of the island, the vegetation between us and the river prevented all but occasional glimpses of the river. Eventually we came to a view point, which, according to the notice board, provided panoramic views of the river. However, the river was a featureless expanse of brown water, that was so wide there was no sight of the opposite bank, which was Uruguay.
When we headed back towards the mainland across the middle of the reserve, we got both views ahead towards the city centre, of skyscrapers rising above the forest, and either side, of water birds flocking around pools of fresh water. Eventually, we returned to civilisation, and, very hot and tired as we were, we tried to find a street kiosk selling ice-cream and cold soft drinks, but we ended up with a beer for me and a water for Ingrid.
Then we grabbed a taxi and headed back to the hotel. On the way back, in the crazy traffic, the taxi was rear-ended by a FedEx van. The two drivers got out to inspect the damage, then shrugged and continued. In the UK, they would have been exchanging insurance details and taking photos for the next half hour.
Later, we went out for dinner. We grabbed a taxi on the street, outside the hotel, and headed to a district called Belgrano, Ingrid had Googled a kosher meat restaurant. The place was slightly hard to find – partly because it just looked like a house in a suburban side-street; partly because it had no external signage (you just had to know about it); and partly because of incoherent Argentinian street numbering. Even when we were buzzed in at the intercom provided, we found ourselves in a domestic hallway facing several closed, and apparently, locked doors. But after a short pause one of them opened (just stiff, not locked), and we found ourselves in a restaurant with a nice ambiance. Schmuel the boss assisted us with the menu which was in spanish and we ordered some chorizo to start; ribeye steak for me; and ribs for Ingrid. Food and wine were delicious, and we couldn’t manage a desert. We went home full and tired.