Buenos Aires, February 18-25, 2024

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 people

On our first day, we found a bike tour, our favorite thing if we can get it to work on our first day in a new city (I am picky, sometimes it is too expensive or they don't have kids' bikes and we can't do it).  Such fun though, the city is crazy and hectic but  nicely laid out, even when we crossed  road near streets with 20 lanes of traffic (not an exaggeration, a few of these streets put Wilshire and Sunset Blvds. to shame) we were quickly routed onto a bike lane on the other side.  This is the first bike tour we had with two guides, which was nice, one staffer was always either holding traffic for everyone or making sure stragglers kept up.   We enjoyed forming our initial impressions of BA (nicer city than we expected, many new buildings, many green plazas, ornate colonial buildings, relatively clean, and pleasantly busy).  We hopped off our bikes in La Boca, a fantastically colorful and authentic neighborhood; we learned that it was a very depressed, poor, and violent neighborhood; then, a local artist named Quinquela Martín painted the walls of one street bright colors and convinced residents to join him in making their surroundings more joyful. Also, this place is home to the nationwide favorite club team, Boca Juniors' futbol arena, where the beloved Diego Maradona played professionally for many years.   

 

Bike tour! 

Scott stayed to enjoy empanadas while we four followed our bike guide to take a photo with Dieguito. 

Luke and Alex, just taking a leisurely stroll in Boca.

Game faces on, in front of the arena. 

Posing in front of the Boca store.

The whole group.

Luke's the king of the world! 

Katie in front of the Puente de la Mujer, the Bridge of the Woman, which is designed to look like a woman in a tango-dance move.  Note the color of the Rio de la Plata, that classic brown color, not dirty, just the color from the silt.  

While the bike tour gave us many a great overview of places to later revisit, I had already done a lot of work to map out places for us to visit, which locations were closed on Sunday or random Wednesdays and that list was full!  Here is the quick rundown: 

El Congreso.  Many will know that Argentina elected a new president at the end of 2023; while in the midst of (another) grave inflation crisis (+220% annual inflation in 2023; imagine all your savings in the bank just losing value, so that that money you put side to buy a car suddenly wasn't worth the price of the car's tires.. that would make you pretty mad). So, they've elected a-new-to-politics- maverick, someone promising big economic changes; sadly, then he went to a CPac meeting and I lost any hope for his integrity. Ah, but for the kind Argentines' collective sakes, I hope that is wrong!).   I digress. My point is, we had to go check out the federal government building!  Luckily for all of us, I found the only English tour given that week and we jumped on the bus and headed for the beautiful, 1800s building.  We took the tour with a couple from Florida who had an apartment in BA (the man was Argentine).  Congreso has two bodies, Senate (72 members, 3 from each province + Buenos Aires) and the Chamber of Deputies (elected on population basis, currently 257 members).  A fascinating fact we learned is that Argentines 18 and over are required to vote; they must pay a penalty if they do not vote; after some number of offenses they can face other measures like loss of passport.  Wow, very real approach to democracy!     

Katie in front of the Congreso 

The fam in the Pink Room, so decorated by former First Lady Eva Peron.  That blue and white shroud in the case in the far right of the photo is the shroud placed on her coffin when it was part of the funeral processing through the city. 

Luke, in this great Chamber of Deputies room. 

Pink Room deserves another photo. 

Outside of Congreso, we noticed this green bird that had joined the pigeons; we thought it was funny that he was just mingling with them, down from his nest we saw up in the trees. 

Catredal de Metropolitana de Buenos Aires.  The remains of General Jose de San Martin, the Argentina independence hero, are in this Catedral; the three female figures around the mausoleum represent Chile, Peru, and Argentina which gained independence from the General's wars against the Spanish.  

Alex in front of the Catedral.

The fam in front of the very crowded mausoleum room in the Catedral.

 

Casa Rosada. BA's famous Pink House where Evita fans will know the beloved Eva Peron addressed adoring citizens after her husband Juan Peron won the presidency.  The house is the President's offices (not his residence though).  Guides say that the color of the building is explained either by: A mixing of white and red paints, to represent the two groups that fought in the civil war that followed independence to represent them ceasing the civil war or by the mixing of the paint with cow's blood, a practice intended to lessen the effects of humidity on the paint.  Unfortunately, I could not find any tours of the grand building (since Covid), so we settled for a visit to the Casa Rosada museum which tells some of the political history of Argentina (leaving out the Dirty War and the +30,000 disappeared). They had a great, big old convertible that the glamorous Perons rode in though, so that is good.       

Casa Rosada Museum, located in a Customs House (1800s) which itself is sited on an old fort (1700s) so you walked down into it from the street.  

In front of one of the presidential cars. 

River Plate. We visited Boca Juniors' archrival's arena, River Plate. It is here that I will admit of so many travel misses -- You see, I booked airplane tickets to Iguazu Falls on the Sunday of the Superclassico match, when the two Argentine titans meet in BA (Boca v River Plate).  I desperately tried to change flights and to find tickets to the match or to some match watching party but got nowhere.  It was so expensive and hard to do and we've found the kids don't really enjoy watching sports (they like playing sports, as they tell me).. I  did come across this funny website that takes tourists to futbol matches in BA, their website has a funny FAQs below. 

In front of River Plate stadium.  Katie did not find a scarf. Turns out soccer scarfs are less easy to procure in the tropics. 

Funny FAQ, see the one right after the blue, "Recommendations", "For the love of all that is holy..."  The match was held this year at River Plate. 

Reserva Ecológica Costanera Sur and Rio de la Plata.  We took at long walk around the a reserve in the City. It has an interesting history, the City had a promenade where people gathered to cool off and swim (women and men in separate parts of the promenade). But it fell into disrepair in the 1950s; then the City began a major project, filling in the low banks of the river in the 1970s to create green spaces and government buildings. The city abandoned the project but plants and animals colonized the newly filled land and in 1986, the BA city council established the place as a protected ecological reserve.  We tried to enjoy the walk, but sadly, the mosquitos were insane that day - Scott was wearing a black tee shirt and, I am serious, it was covered with dozens of mosquitos each time we walked through a bit of shade, sort of ruined the tranquility of the walk (heat and sweat is one thing, mosquitoes during the sunlight are just over the top!).  

Rio de la Plata, Luke was too hot to open his eyes.

Other random visits:  We visited a giant was a theater now a bookstore called the Ateneo Grand Splendid; made me think of a potential new life for the many 1-2 screen movie theaters that cannot make it and are closing.  We visited the Museo del Bellas Artes (not terribly memorable; portraits of rich or important Argentines or Spanish and the Museo de Arte Latinoamericana de Buenos Aires, MALBA (they had a interesting exhibition by an artist who had giant installations of cloth, meant to mimic Incan quipu, which is the Incan way of writing and communicating; quipu are sort of yarn-like weaves where color, stitch etc have different meanings, and Katie did a presentation for us on the the different looking Diego Rivera painting there).  

We were also staying walking distance to the Centro Cultural Kirchner (CCK), this stately. giant, 1800s post office converted into this fantastic cultural center with so many free activities. One night, they had free opera, free tango dancing, even a performance of the Vagina Monologues; they also have this killer-view, rooftop bar/ mirador.  Did I see any of these things..? No, not really.  We went there multiple times but kept getting stymied by crowds and disinterested children; we got in line to join the free, sunset mirador tour up to the rooftop; a man came to our back-of-the-line location and told everyone we we would not get in, that there were too many people ahead of us.  We and the other unluckies sort of milled around, like, what else is there to do here. I stole away and jointed a couple who got into the elevator; we took it right up to the mirador and got out and walked hopefully out, to catch of glimpse of BA from 80 feet up but then, a guard came over and said only those on the night tour could feast on the view.  We also came back for the tango dancing and managed to watch for a few minutes. Sigh, our CCK enjoyment was a fail, by my measurement. 

Overall, Buenos Aires is a highly recommended city to visit; it has all the good parts of great cities (many beautiful neighborhoods, parks & plazas, busses and a few trains, yummy food, and cultural centers) and we were impressed with its beauty and energy.  Sadly, we were hampered from being outside as much as we would liked by the unholy mosquito invasion  that lasted about 10 days, covering the whole week we were there. 

Great looking theater orchestra at the bookstore the Ateneo Grand Splendid; the cafe is on the stage... 

.. and the kids books are downstairs in the theater underbelly. 

Visit to Puente de la Mujer at night. 

Tango demonstration at the CCK; no, we did not join, not everyone in our group enjoys dancing:) 

Katie in front of her research piece, Diego Rivera, “Portrait of Ramón Gómez de la Serna”, 1915, at MALBA

Tango on the Puente de la Mujer. 

Just loved this simply named establishment. 

Took this picture of this part of the BA "waterfront".  Oh waterfronts can be just the best places in cities but gosh, the design for BA's is just atrocious,  This was one of three huge, rectangular "basins" that were just so dead; on satellite photos, they look like oversized identical ponds.  

We all took the opportunity to try mate tea (when our bike tour guide offered it); you drink what I would describe as a very muddy tea through these bombilla; these metal straws that keep the thick herbs in the cup and out of your mouth.