Buenos Aires

Sunday, March 13

I thought we’d never make it out of Bolivia. As an anxiety-ridden pessimist, I was certain the Bolivian government or Argentinian airlines would find something wrong with our paperwork and prevent us from leaving.

When we woke up at 6am, the plan was to get an Uber at 7am. Karen recommended we leave a little earlier, if possible. I crammed my things into my bag. I cursed and prayed to all the gods as is my bag-packing ritual and lo, we made it out of the apartment before 7. Something screwy was happening with the Ubers where they would pretend to not see us and then cancel our trip, causing us to have to rebook and adding delays. Two literally drive right by without glancing at the sidewalk where we were standing. Finally we got a ride and got to the airport at 7:30am. Karen had to check her bag and the line to do so was a mile long. We were supposed to start boarding in 1 hour. We should’ve left more time.

After about 15 minutes Karen sent me and Carl ahead because she couldn’t stand my nervous energy. It was for the best because then we could scout out the security lineS and the immigration checkpoint. There was a group of four foreigners going to Sao Paolo that were behind us in line while their flight was due to take off in 10 minutes. We offered for them to go ahead but then an agent made them go to the back of the line. We watched them struggle with the Bolivian bureaucracy…but they made it through. Not sure if they made the flight though.

We met a Bolivian man in line and spoke to him for a bit. I asked him what fee the four foreigners had to get out of line to go pay. He said he wasn’t sure. He asked us where we were from. We said US. With a chuckle and a smile he said we’d probably have to pay the fee too. We all laughed together but amazingly, no fee for us.

Finally we made it through and our plane was boarding soon. I got Karen an iced latte and croissant- more as a prayer that she’d make it through to be able to eat it. Finally she came running through the duty free shop and we hugged like we were reunited after many years. We went and boarded the plane, just in time as our group was being called.

When we got to Argentina I fretted over all the ways they would find to send us back: our birthdate wasn’t on the COVID test results, our insurance didn’t specifically say COVID, etc. But the migration guy was nice, and chill. He asked for our documents, gave a look, and gave us our prized passport entry stamp.

We had arranged to get a ride through a friend of the guy hosting us on Airbnb. He was very nice and spoke near perfect English. He gave us a few tips for the city before dropping us off at our Airbnb in Palermo, where the host met us. The host, Marcos, showed us around the apartment and also offered tips on how to exchange money (and later, where to get COVID tests).

Tired from a day of travel, we went to a nearby restaurant for linner and then back to the apartment. For linner we went to La Colorada, which is inside a beautiful two story building with huge skylights and bright red painted walls. We got the house special, a steak with lots of sides.

For drinks Carl ordered a bottle of beer and I ordered a glass of wine (so I thought). When the waitress brought our drinks we saw the beer bottle was an extra large size and the glass of wine was a bottle of wine. The prices on the menu had thrown us off. For example the bottle of red wine was 385 pesos (about $3.85 dollars with official exchange rate or $2 with the unofficial exchange rate). I asked for just a glass of red and she said they didn’t even sell that amount at the restaurant. So we decided to share the big bottle of beer (which was still only a couple dollars). Every meal after that we made sure to get a bottle of wine, reasoning that we would be losing money if we didn’t!

We opted to share a brownie for desert but the waitress told us they were all out. So we got the chocolate mousse and like a first-day-in-a-new-city-miracle it was one of the best desserts of our lives. We savored the fluffy chocolateness and talked about it for days after.

Monday, March 14

We took advantage of our unplanned week in the city and slept in really late before deciding how we wanted to spend our time.

The only thing we HAD to do was exchange our US dollars to Argentinian pesos at a favorable exchange rate. The official rate fluctuates around $100 pesos to a dollar but the unofficial rate (Blue Dollar) is at about $200 pesos to a dollar, because of the huge demand for a stable currency like the US dollar. We walked to the nearest western union and were able to exchange our US dollars (which we had already from when Bolivia wouldn’t take them for our Bolivian visa- thanks guys!!). We got 195 pesos to the dollar- not bad! After this trip though, we’d have several trips to western union (endearingly we called Club WU) where the fees made the rate worse (closer to 175), or they didn’t have enough money for us to take out that day.

We strolled to a nearby cafe, called Tilo, to get some coffee and food before doing any activities. We shared an empanada and the daily special which came with pork chops, fries, fruit salad, coffee, and -a glass of wine!
By the time we were done with ‘breakfast’ it was already after noon.

We decided to walk to the water – a good activity for getting bearings in any city. The walk took us through several large parks and over a major highway. When we got to the water, we were unimpressed. The water itself was a deep muddy brown, and there was not much for pier infrastructure.

Feeling a little disappointed, Karen took an Uber back to the apartment and Carl and I walked north along the water to a park called the Parque de la Memoria, a monument to victims of state-sponsored terrorism. The park was huge and had many nice, symbolic statues and signs. I was too tired to read all the Spanish descriptions and vowed to do some online research about it later.

We ended the day with a visit to a nearby brewery, La Estrella Federal. The IPAs were very good. We also split a burrata salad and a burger, which were tasty.

Tuesday, March 15

On this day we found Dos Escudos café which would probably be rated as our favorite of the area. Karen and I awkwardly ordered (pointing to tasty looking pastries in the window, pointing to outside where we wanted to sit) and got a couple pastries and some coffees to go. Carl met us after a successful trip to Club WU.

We got a taxi over to the neighborhood called La Boca. This area has a famous soccer stadium and a street called El Caminito which is famous for being colorfully painted, corrugated iron shacks reminiscent of the houses where immigrants lived in previous decades. In modern times, artists, performers and street vendors have taken the opportunity of the tourist-attracting bright colors to perform and sell crafts. As we walked along the market street, one man offered both- he gave us an art print he had drawn and then asked us to watch as he ‘turned’ our names written on the card into a picture of a couple tango dancing. He said he had been on Jay Leno and painted a picture with his feet while dancing tango.

We looked at the shops, and then the famous El Caminito street. At the corner where the market street meets El Caminito we stopped at a place that offered a deal on choripán and beer. Choripán is like a South American hot dog where chorizo (chori) is out between two pieces of bread (pan) with some combo of greens and spices. This place had a grill out front and we could smell the chorizo from blocks away. The sandwich was honestly one of the best sandwiches of my life. It was a little on the spicy side so I was happy to have a big (cheap!) glass of beer to wash it down.

After walking for a bit more we decided to sit down at a touristy cafe to watch some tango dancers. The performances at the cafe switched between a woman singing and a couple dancing on the tiniest little stage. The tango dancers were so talented and I sat there- jaw dropping in amazement and awe at their skill and beauty.

Wednesday, March 16

We went back to Dos Escudos for breakfast and this time sat outside and ordered the correct way. For about $3 each we got a pastry or sandwich and a coffee.

We took a taxi over to the Recoleta neighborhood to check out the famous cemetery. As a Halloween lover and Tim Burton fan since childhood I already get weirdly excited about cemeteries and their macabre decorations. This cemetery would have been astoundingly beautiful and fascinating to someone who thinks Christmas is the best holiday and so for me was near equivalent to a trip to Disneyland.

I wanted to get a tour but the timing didn’t work out so Carl did some googling and pinned the main tombs for us to see. He lead us around the cemetery to the different sites, occasionally switching to his creepy, deep tone voice to convey the spookiness of his tale.

The cemetery was designed to look like a little city for the dead with thousands of mausoleums organized along a grid of street-like paths. The cemetery was built in 1822 but became a popular place for the rich to bury their dead toward the end of the 19th century, when Argentina was a rising star in the global economy. Because of this timing, much of the architecture is Art Nouveau in addition to the typical cemetery architecture style of Neoclassical. There are several famous people entombed here, including Eva (Evita) Perón, the former First Lady of Argentina.

We strolled around and admired the mausoleums and tombs. It was a beautiful, hot day with clear blue skies which made it hard to get into a creepy, pensive mood. We still managed to get a shiver when we peeked into en open mausoleum and saw a gray-tinged, decaying piece of lace strewn over an unreasonably small coffin.

We took a break at La Biela, known for being the oldest cafe in Buenos Aires. We sat outside but the inside decor was all old wood, reminding me of old cafes in New York City. I decided to get a champagne with strawberry purée in the bottom and I did not regret it. Nicely dressed older women gossiped at tables next to us as I leaned back, sipped my champagne, and spied on them from behind by oversized sunglasses, feeling like an evil character from a telenovela.

From here we walked to the Bella Artes museum which had a random collection of art from the 16th century to modern art, from Europe and Argentina. Then we walked to the famous steel flower statue to take pictures before diving into the Recoleta neighborhood to explore. We crossed the neighborhood in search of a famous bookstore called, El Ateneo Grand Splendid. The building used to be an opera house and they did well to restore it and keep it maintained so that when you walk in you feel like you are about to see a show but then the stage is bookstore cafe.

When Carl and I got back to the Airbnb, Karen and I self indulged and got a manicure pedicure but we had to go to two different shops because of the timing. Explaining what we wanted in Spanish was good practice for me, and Karen couldn’t stop laughing at my cluelessness of being in a nail salon.

For dinner we walked from our Airbnb to Las Cholas and sat outside, enjoying the mild temperature and swatting away all the pesky mosquitoes. Carl and I shared a Milanesa, a flank steak that’s been pounded flat and breaded like chicken, and the Brochette Mixta, two shishkebabs of pork and beef.

When we got back to our Airbnb we finished watching the show, Lupin, about gentlemen burglar in Paris which I highly recommend.

Thursday, March 17

We celebrated Paddy’s Day with a good sleep in. We decided to branch away from Dos Escudos for breakfast, crossing the street to the gluten free restaurant, Eggs and Greens, that we were willing to give a try. Carl and I shared avocado toast and a dish called cloud eggs where they whipped the egg whites into a hardened nest and pillowed the yoke into the middle. It was more weird than tasty, but a fun experience overall.

Carl and I tested riding the metro into downtown. When we walked down the stairs underground we didn’t see anywhere to buy a new metro card. There was no one working at the booth but there was an attendant watching the turnstiles and she just told us to go through. Later we looked and the price for a ticket was about 20 cents so we didn’t save that much by sneaking in.

We rode down to the downtown and got off at La Catedral stop. When we emerged from underground we were surrounded by beautiful high rises very reminiscent of Manhattan’s city hall area.

We walked to the ‘pink building’ a government building that is the office of the President. In the Plaza de Mayo there was an area around a statue where people had put rocks and stones with names on them memorializing people that had passed away from COVID. There were a lot of rocks. Next we walked up to the capital building which looked like the US capital but as if someone had pulled up on the dome, stretching the whole building vertically. There were fences around the capital building and the streets leading to it were completely closed to cars. We realized that there was some sort of protest going on and got a sense of nostalgia for our previous home in DC as we walked past the street barriers to take pictures of the capital behind the high fences.

Taking the long way around to avoid the protestors (generally not a good activity for foreign tourists!) we walked to the city’s obelisk. It was shorter and a little more squat than DC’s.

We crossed the neighborhood and headed to the waterfront to check out a brewery. On the way we spotted an artesanal ice cream shop and had to stop. Carl got marcapone with forest berry next to Maracuya (passion fruit) mouse. I got coconut with Havana chocolate and it came with a alfhambra cookie. We savored the ice cream and even more so the air conditioning.

Then we made it to the waterfront and checked out the Puente de Mujeres (women’s bridge). Finally landed at Temple brewing (later learned it’s a local chain) and got two IPAs and a blue cheese empanada which was a gamble that paid off very well.

We decided to head back to Palermo to enjoy Paddy’s day dinner and drinks with Karen. It took nearly an hour looking for a taxi/Uber before we finally got one and it was thrice as expensive as earlier rides. Good reminder to not take taxis during rush hour!

With Karen we went to Palermo Hollywood, a neighborhood adjacent to Palermo $$$ where we were staying. The Irish bar, Slainte, looked packed so we went up the street to another bar for dinner. They had pizza by the slice and Carl ordered the ‘german’ style which came with sausage. The pizza was the weirdest food of my life. It was like naan bread with cheese wiz sauce and barbecue sauce thrown on top, sprinkled with three tiny sausage slices. Carl said it reminded him of the pizza he tried to make in the microwave when he was little and literally just dumped sauce and cheese on top of bread.

Feeling full of weird gross food we headed back to Slainte and pushed our way inside. They had some kind of weird bar ordering system and it seemed like I had to pay first to get a ticket before getting the beers but I didn’t understand this so the bartender handed me two cans of Guinness (because why would the Irish bar have Guinness on tap?) and pointed to the man at the cash register. He was working an ancient cash register with the handle on the side and it looked like he was arguing with about four customers over a bill. I waited for a long time, getting shoved left, right, up and down as people pushed past me to the bar and to the bathroom. Finally I gave up and we went to sit outside, reasoning we’d pay when we ordered again next.

We sat outside on a bench leaning against the building and ended up talking to a couple(?) but they may have been on their very first tinder date. The woman was born in Argentina but grew up her whole life in Australia. She was touring around for many months and she had great travel advice for both South America and Australia. Her date was an older guy from Peru and he had the biggest hunk of coca leaves shoved in the side of his cheek. It was so big that it affected his speech and the smell wafted off of him, impressive considering we were outside and surrounded by people drunk on beer. He was a little weird so when they offered to bar hop with us to the next bar we said we’d meet them there.

We eventually found Karen again in the crowd and were happy she had met some fellow Irish- even a guy wearing a Mayo jersey.

Friday, March 18

Marcel, our travel agent from Colombia, had sent me a list of recommendations for Argentina (he couldn’t help himself!) and on the list was a day trip to the El Tigre delta and town. He mentioned there was kayaking and Karen loves kayaking so I explored options and booked us an overpriced kayaking tour for the afternoon.

Tigre is north and updelta from Buenos Aires. The area is known as a natural getaway for city dwellers and there are many fancy guesthouses and hotels in the delta that are only reachable by boat.

To get out there we took an above ground commuter train. There was a station within walking distance of our Airbnb and the ticket price to the end of the line was 74 pesos round trip, about 74 cents with the official exchange rate.

Of course the weather had been perfect clear sunny skies, mid 70s all week- except the day we go kayaking. It rained all morning and it was colllllllld. The rain was supposed to stop at 11am, about the time we got to Tigre, so we continued with our plans. When we got to Tigre it seemed to be raining even harder. We ducked into a cafe called Boston Pizza and Carl ordered a coffee and sandwich so we could ‘pay our rent’ to sit inside and use their WiFi. We decided to cancel kayaking and just walk around the town.

We walked over to the artsy market area, but most of the stalls were closed. We decided to get some food at a place called Sweet Pepper thinking it might have vegetarian options. Of course it was a burger place but they did have veggie burgers. Carl and I split the house burger and it was so good. It might have been the best burger of my life.

Afterward we walked to the art museum, just to look at the pretty building from the outside. We were impressed with how high the delta water was. Every boat that went by created a wake that splashed over the banks and into the promenade. Many streets were flooded and we had to choose our path carefully and pray cars would slow down when they drove by through the ponds. The art museum had a beautiful, old terrace that we ogled at and took photos of.

We walked back to the train station and took the train back to the city.

For dinner that night Carl and I went to a steak place called Don Julio’s which is on lists of 50 best restaurants in the world. We didn’t have a reservation but had read that they gave out free champagne while you wait so we thought we might as well get some free bubbly out of it. They opened at 7pm and we arrived just afterwards and put our name on the list. She said she might be able to fit us in at 8:30. So we got some champagne and waited. It was cold outside and my one nice dress was not warm enough but we secured a nice park bench to sit while we waited. At almost exactly 8:30 a man came out to get us and – gloriously – led us to the warm inside tables.

They started us off with a teeny beef empanada that was amazing. We got some red wine, of course, and split a charcuterie appetizer, a steak, and sides of mashed potatoes, smoked eggplant, and arugula salad. Every year Carl and I celebrate the date we had our first fancy meal together in New York and we call it our steakiversary. We decided this meal was steakiversary 2022, and one for the books.

I was hoping they’d have tiramisu for desert but they didn’t so I said we would just have some coffee. Well the waiter brought us desert anyways! He brought out flan with a side of dulce de leche and a side of homemade coconut cream.

Saturday, March 19

We had a slow start to our day, Carl and I could feel the red meat, wine, and champagne from the night before and Karen was preoccupied with booking travel plans for Central America. We also got unlucky with Club WU and they had run out of cash for us to withdraw/exchange which was a bummer. We eventually made it to a cafe for breakfast and got another good deal on coffee and breakfast pastries/sandwiches.

From the cafe we walked toward the botanical garden. We happened upon the Ecoparque so we went in there first. A lot of the areas were closed but there was still many animals roaming about. We saw tons of peacocks and Patagonian Mara (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patagonian_mara) which looked like kangaroo deer rabbits. We didn’t see a Tapir this time but we did see a capybara, face deep in a bowl, munching away on some lunch. We later read that the city of Buenos Aires recently closed their historic zoo, released thousands of animals into the wild, and transformed the park into something better for animals and more interactive for people (hence the construction).

After the ecoparque we meandered over to the botanical garden and strolled around for a while. The gardens were pretty but we were all a little tired from the activities the day before so we headed back to Palermo.

We decided to get linner at La Colorada again because we couldn’t stop thinking about the chocolate mouse from the first night. I got s pink sauce pasta that was actually better than I expected and Carl got a rack of ribs and of course, wine!