My first night in Buenos Aires was a flashback to my first night in Paris 6 years ago, no accommodation.  Apparently hostels in Buenos Aires don’t keep reservations placed over the phone, so I wandered the streets of the historic San Thelmo District asking various other hostels until a cyclist, back from his bartending job, saw me and asked if I was lost.  I explained my situation and he offered me the floor in his apartment.  Given the cold and rainy weather, I accepted his offer for the warm and dry place to rest.  Felipe and I chatted for a while before turning in.  He was a mechanical engineer from Colombia, bike commuter and adventure traveler, hoping to do a world trip like I am doing.  We had plenty to talk about, given our similar interests, so we resumed the next morning while he showed me around the area, helping me find a hostel and eating at one of his favorite Italian lunch dives.

Found an antique car while wandering the streets

Sun goes down over Buenos Aires

Like Paris, Buenos Aires is a romantic city from starting the day with a fresh cup of coffee along a cobblestone street to ending it on the dance floor with Tango.  The coast is never too far to enjoy a casual stroll along Mar de Plata listening to the crash of waves and feeling the cool breeze.  Rent a city bike for the day and ride through the neighborhoods looking at architecture, gardens, historical monuments and art, then cool off with a gelato and shop til you drop at street markets.  Browse pages upon pages of wine lists at a fine restaurant from numerous available international cuisines.  Music and dancing are popular throughout the day and night in halls and on the street, especially the case for Tango and milongas.

The Pope, Messi and Tango were themes all around the city.

Dancing in the streets

An island within the Delta

I didn’t have time for an escape to Uruguay, so I took the train to Tigre to visit the islands created by the branching out of the Parana River delta for a day.  As an engineer with riverine hydraulic experience, I took interest in that it is one of the largest deltas in the world and the only one that does not empty into a sea, but rather into Rio de la Plata, which is the river dividing Uruguay and Argentina.  It was a quaint town, much calmer than the city life of Buenos Aires, probably to the effect of Amsterdam or Venice.  It offered many kid-friendly activities, therefore a nice getaway for families living in Buenos Aires.  Along with commercial trade, Catamaran tours of the islands are big business, so I bought a ticket.  Among the islands of family dwellings were a lot of islands for rowing clubs and hotels.  It would be fun to spend a weekend out here rowing.  Returning to the dock I saw a theme park with roller coasters and games that would be popular for kids.  I walked around the town and took interest in the Matte Museum.  The curators collected mattes from around the world and from special occasions, which told the history of the traditional social drink.  They showed a short film walking through the process involved from cultivation to distribution.

Estacion Tigre, where jaguars once hunted

Tea time

“Cambio, cambio, cambio” echoed down Avenida Florida from ‘independent investors’.  The Argentine Peso has a history of an unstable, volatile and bad economic market.  The most recent financial crisis was in 2001 when people’s bank accounts were frozen and they could not make withdrawals, leaving people to rely on a barter system.   This has caused many people to lose trust in their economy and they prefer buying more stable foreign currencies like the USD, Euro, and Brasilian Reis for more than the current exchange rate.  This can be a great deal for a foreign traveler but beware you receive true Pesos since the transaction is not certified by an agency.  Aside from the unstable economy, the government offers little to no cost higher education and training opportunities to students.  Also, the free healthcare is great, which I used at a hospital in Mendoza to treat a stomach virus.

Praying for our Pope

From what I’ve observed, the Argentinian culture is very communal.  Like Felipe, they are very amicable and offer to help in any way, shape or form.  Family always comes first.  If someone falls ill, they will pull together to help bring them to health and pitch in with their usual tasks.  Business gets done, but the work schedule seems low stress, starting after a leisurely coffee and breakfast, then a lengthy lunch break and siesta culminating in the evening to go home for a late dinner.  Sundays are a rest day, on which day I enjoyed a church service at the Cathedral where Pope Francis served prior to his pontification in The Vatican. http://youtu.be/BRrm4djn2-c   Beer is poured in tasting cups or passed around as it is commonly sold in 1L bottles.  Matte is a traditional loose leaf tea that is served in concentrated small amounts from a gourd mug and sipped through a metal straw filter.  The matte is refilled with hot water from a thermos and passed around.

Among sites I really enjoyed was walking ‘El Paseo de la Historieta’ lined with characters from famous Argentine comics starting with Maltalda.  Each was sculpted as a tribute to how these characters brought to life Argentine culture and changed history.  There were a lot of other great art sculptures, including the Floralis Genérica (a steel and aluminum constructed rose) and a statue garden across road.  The Recoleta Cemetery had an impressive number of sculptures lining rows and rows of towering tombs as resting places for some of Argentina’s most important political, military and intellectual people.  http://youtu.be/LYvPk8H3Q9Y  Next to the cemetery is the Monastery of Saint Catherine of Siena, founded in 1745 and considered a world monument being the first to house cloistered nuns in Buenos Aires.

A little comedic relief

Stop to smell the flowers

Jesus reigns in Argentina

The well known multicolored houses of La Boca District were painted as such depending on the excess paint available from the ships at the port.  Also in La Boca is the famed Boca Junior soccer stadium, where many great players have gotten their start. The ‘Casa Rosada’ is the presidential mansion, perhaps colored pink from dried cow’s blood or the blending of white and red colors of the Federalist and Unitarist political parties. An Odalisque stands at one end of the widest avenue of the world.  I can imagine the amount of planning involved from a civil engineering perspective.  Of course no visit to Buenos Aires is complete without a visit to Las Bellas Artes.  I browsed galleries from famous artists such as, van Gough, Manet, Rubens, El Greco, Rembrandt and Picasso.

Colors of the rainbow, leftovers from the ships

La Casa Rosada