Buenos Aires 1

We're back to reality now. The pricing in Buenos Aires is very reasonable and lodging is quite cheap. I sprung for a private apartment with a pool on the roof and it was only $43 a day. That's about what french fries cost in Patagonia. I'm only slightly kidding.

I added an extra night after spending 2 days here. I really like the feel of Buenos Aires. There's a ton of distinct neighborhoods and I'll probably have time to explore most of them. At least the ones that are safe.

I met Matt for a drink at a watering hole he knew about across the street from his hotel. We started doing our own thing here. He wanted to see some football games and I was more interested in checking out street fairs which are in several spots around the city on weekends.

I was walking through the trendy Palermo neighborhood and saw a poster for a live band playing the soundtrack of Amelie, a French movie that's one of my favorites and the soundtrack is amazing. So about 5 or 6 hours after seeing that poster I came back to the neighborhood to see it. It was a great show and they didn't miss a beat. My favorite was in the first song. The drummer was playing a manual typewriter for percussion, just like in the movie.

I'm not that into steaks, but this is the place to eat them. The quality is pretty high. I've had a couple so far and it makes for a quite reasonable lunch or dinner when paired with a glass of Argentine Malbec.

They say that Buenos Aires is the Paris of South America. I'm always wary when people make those comparisons. But there is some amazing architecture here. Their heyday was about 100 years ago when Argentina was one of the top 10 richest countries in the world. It's been a downward spiral ever since. Hopefully the recent economic policy changes are going to bring it back up.

My apartment was in between the Plaza Mayor and the San Telmo neighborhood. The first is where the city was settled and has government offices, including the casa rosada or Pink House where the president used to live. It still has presidential offices, but he actually lives in a rich suburb in the north of town now.

San Telmo is a traditional neighborhood just south of the center that is home to its namesake market. It used to be a fruit, vegetable meat and fish market and now it's a gentrified tourist market. It's a fun neighborhood to explore and there's a huge street market that leads between these two neighborhoods. That's about a mile of vendors selling arts and crafts. There are also several places that have tango shows for tourists and on weekends you'll see tango dancers in the street.

Many of the museums here are free and I popped into a couple of them. I'm putting on a lot of miles walking around and I'm also taking lots of buses. Buenos Aires completed their first Subway in 1913, a few years before Madrid. I have yet to take one since buses are more convenient and I to get to see more above ground.

There's so much more to see in this city so I'm going to break up the posts. My next stop is a beach town 5 hours south called Mar del Plata.

More photos and videos are here.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/X93YvET6pQD7J7DM7Weiterlesen