Benassini-Lyons Travels

Yes! It is time for the big city, Buenos Aires!  We flew from Neuquen to Buenos Aires (BA), to EZE airport (outside the city). I thought I was so smart to pre-book those taxis that hold up a sign with your name on it at the baggage claim (figured, we are headed to a +10 million person big city, let's keep things easy until we find our way around).  We need two taxis of course and my taxi was waiting; Scott and Alex stayed behind to wait for his while we three headed into the big city.  Sadly, they waited and waited and ...well, the GetYourGuide taxi's went one for two that day, the other one never showed up despite our phone calls and texts... Uber to the rescue!  Luckily, we arrived in our sweet, 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom big apartment well before Scott so we could get things set up :)  On the whole, Buenos Aires was surprising!  Much nicer and more prosperous that we had thought it would be, reading about it from afar. Seemingly busy and happy peopl...

We arrived in Colombia about a week ago and spent several days exploring Cartagena. It has a long and interesting history, but it's hot and the kids still don't do all that well in the heat (and, to be fair, neither do we Bay-Area dwelling adults). We had already decided to visit some islands off the coast of Cartagena, and narrowed our search to the main island (for cost reasons) of the Islas del Rosario. Getting to the island was a little chaotic at the tourist port in Cartagena. The speed boats hold about 30 people and leave from the center of town rather than the cruise ship port, so we had an easy walk over there about 8:30 in the morning, but there were a thousand (more?) people waiting for boats, it was not at all obvious which boat was meant to be ours, and eventually we just sat there until someone yelled at us and pointed at a particular boat. Anyway, after a pleasant 75-minute ride, we arrived at our small, boutique, 15-room hotel. Becca had done her usual thorough r...

From Bariloche, we were prepared to fly way north and then all the way to the east coast of the country for the bright lights of Buenos Aires!  But.. We looked over all that expanse of Argentina we would be flying over.. Not seeing..  Cordoba, the country’s second most populous city, nightlife, vibrant cultural scene!  Mendoza, the wine capital of the country, endless tasting opportunities!  Rosario, birthplace of Che Guervara and Lionel Messi!  Hmm, nope, what caught our eye was.. Neuquen!   Yes, it surely does not show up on “top lists”… But! It is a great dino-site. You see, a whole lot of dinosaur fossils have been found in Argentina and Neuquen is the closest city to TWO whole dino museums!  So, we watched an interesting dino nature show about Titanosaurus (Patagotitan mayorum) which is the largest terrestrial animal that we know about.   We traveled by bus from Bariloche on the last day of Carnival; Neuquen is a bigger city ~ 450,000 people ...