Epic World

We caught a 9am flight from Ushuaia to Buenos Aires. The flight was only 3 hours but we were disappointed we didn’t get served any snacks as we had enjoyed the food on all other South American flights. We found at the cause was some sort of strike. On arrival, we hopped in a cab to our hostel (Art Factory Hostel) in San Telmo. We were really hungry at this point in time since we hadn’t eaten for 8 hours so we found a restaurant around the corner and ordered two ¼ chickens and a litre of beer. What a deal! This only cost $25. We leisurely strolled around San Telmo for remainder of the afternoon and stopped at a patio to enjoy the nice weather. San Telmo is a trendy art district. The main street is cobblestoned and filled with interesting art and antique stores. We found some delicious desert on the way back to the hostel and had a low key evening.

Being back in a big city is taking some adjustment. There are so many things to see and do and fit into a short time schedule. Over the next 4 days we did a couple city walking tours, Recoleta Cemetery tour, National Museum of Fine Arts tour, explored Palmero, Puerto Madero and the San Telmo market. What is interesting about the architecture in Buenos Aires is that it looks old but actually isn’t. In Argentina’s golden years, the rich were trying to build the Paris of South America and copied many style from Europe. However, the styles are all different, not quite cohesive and would have been out of style when they were actually built.

The next thing on our to-do list was try Asado. We had heard so much about it. Asado is basically an Argentinean barbeque. It can be served different ways. We found a good lunch spot and ordered an Asado dish for 2. What came out was a small charcoal BBQ and a heaping amount of meat. There was enough meat to feed both of us for a week. We ate and ate and ate. We did the best we could to finish the food but there was just way too much. In the end it was more of an experience than satisfying because the meal was really just cooked meat with no seasoning or sides.

We explored Palmero which is a wealthier more upscale part of the city. It contains a bunch of grand parks near the waterfront which were great for walking. A couple sites that we saw that I found interesting were El Ateneo Grand Splendid and Foralis Generica. El Ateneo Grand Splendid was an old theatre that had been converted into a bookstore. It is supposed to be ranked as one of the most beautiful bookstore in the world. We stopped in for a quick browse. It was neat, you could read in old theatre seats on the balconies. Floralis Generica was an impressive 23 meter high, 18 ton metallic sculpture of a flower designed to open and close like a real flower as the sun moves throughout the sky.

One of the must see in Buenos Aires is the Recoleta Cemetery. Its streets are lined with impressive mausoleums and graves. What is crazy is how much some of these graves cost. One small site they showed us cost $300,000. Each mausoleums seems to be trying to outdoing the next. You own the site indefinitely, so if everyone if the family dies the grave just remains. However, if members of the family are still alive they can sell the lot if they need money. The cemetery runs into issues with some of the degrading lots where there are no living family members to pay for upkeep.

One disappointment is we had planned a kayaking day trip to Le Tigre but because of poor weather we had to cancel. Le Tigre is kind of like the weekend getaway spot for locals (i.e. their cottage country). Next time I guess.

On the fourth day we caught a flight to Mendoza in the afternoon.Read more