Activity Summary
Friday 29th December - Day 451 (continued)
Fly to Buenos Aires
Dinner at Grandes carnicerias del plata
Saturday 30th December - Day 452
Retiro & Recoleta free walking tour
Feria Artesanal Intendente Alvear
Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes
Floralis Genérica
San Telmo Market
Sunday 31st December - Day 453
San Telmo Fair / big market
Puerto Madero
Centro free walking tour
Chill New Years Eve in just the two of us
Monday 1st January 2024 - Day 454
Happy New Year's Day!
Chill day
Puerto Madero / Laguna de los Coipos / Reserva Ecológica Costanera Sur
Tuesday 2nd January - Day 455
Day trip to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay
Wednesday 3rd January - Day 456
Palermo outing
Tres de Febrero Park
Ecoparque Buenos Aires
Jardín Botánico Carlos Thays
Thursday 4th January - Day 457
Fly to Iguazu
Summary
Buenos Aires
Our favourite city in South America. Not as nice as the small towns in Argentinian Patagonia but the city had everything we would want and didn’t feel rough as hell.
Sure, it frequently smelt like urine and had bins all over the street from people rummaging but it wasn’t a deal breaker.
If there hadn't been a mozzie plague throughout our time here, Luke would have enjoyed himself immensely more.
Transport
Buenos Aires
Cab to Ushuaia airport
Flight from Ushuaia to Buenos Aires
Bus to Airbnb (SUBE card needed)
Accommodation
Buenos Aires - Airbnb apartment, Moreno 550
Number of nights - 6
Price per night per person - £21
Positives:
Whole apartment
Great location
Negatives:
Pool was terrible
Lift broke, but thankfully on the 1st floor
Cooking facilities were lacking
Pricey but it was across NYE so everything was expensive. A bed in a dorm was savagely pricey.
Recommend?
Yes
Diary
Friday 29th December - Day 451 (continued)
After touching down and exiting the Jorge domestic flight terminal in Buenos Aires we were delighted to have a local Mcds offering up easy lunching.
Luke ran around the terminal for 15 minutes trying to top up the SUBE card and in hindsight totally did not need to. At this point in time, buses and tubes are ~ARS80, so 8p per person per ride. The £5 he put on will stay there forever.
It was super easy to get a bus to our Airbnb, north of San Telmo in Monserrat. Argentinas public transport is on point.
We got our first insight into the Buenos Aires streets and they predominantly smell like piss and constantly have rubbish all over them. Street cleaners had such a job trying to stop people pulling apart rubbish sacks and around the Xmas and NY period they couldn’t keep up. Really was quite unpleasant but it is more than likely a horrible consequence of 130% hyperinflation and 40% of the population living below the poverty line.
Our Airbnb was nice, a simple 1 bedroom apartment that theoretically should have everything we needed but a lack of cooking items meant simple things such as having cereal for breakfast was impossible without using our own stash of cookware.
We were fairly excited about the use of a communal block pool on the 9th floor but on going up it was pretty grim, the water a murky green colour and surrounded by fat residents that would have creeped Nicola out to no end if she was there by herself. So we sacked off that ‘perk’ pretty quickly.
Argentinian dining times would cause us a problem. We had a lot of suggestions for food places but the majority of them opened at 8pm, which is far far too late for us who like to be fed and tucked away in bed by that time at the latest. Grandes carnicerias del plata however was open and we had a very nice steak and wine (for Luke anyway) dinner which was a lovely experience and it felt like we were back in the UK having a nice dinner date.
Prices wise, it was not cheap. The £50 meal for 4 pieces of fillet steak, a huge portion of chips, wine and endless free bread and dips is great value and if we were on holiday we would be smashing the food joints around Buenos, the steak is truly amazing. But the devaluation of the peso was now well and truly affecting the affordability of these experiences, Argentina and Buenos regularly mentioned as ‘so cheap’ by people we’ve met and sadly that parade was now over. We would have to be cutting down on the eat out experiences.
Saturday 30th December - Day 452
At 10.30am we met up with a super large tour group to do the Retiro & Recoleta regions free walking tour.
Our tour guide, Marinos, was not hugely exciting but it was a distinctly average walking tour. Not too much said about the political situation which Luke is a big fan of.
What is absolutely ruining Buenos Aires for Luke is the savage amount of mosquitoes that seem to have infested the city. According to the Google, this is unusual and some rains in the centre of the country created a mozzie hatching spree that is plaguing the masses, even local Argentinians. They are reported to be extra aggressive as are used to plundering wild animals and we can confirm they are gnarly. Clothes do nothing and Luke even got bitten through his shoe, sock and into his foot.
Plaza Lavalle & Teatro Colón
Templo Libertad - Synagogue for Argentinian Jews that apparently make up 1% of the world's population.
Avenue 9 de Julio - widest avenue in the world
Palacio San Martín
Plaza General San Martín
Monument to the Liberator Don Jose de San Martin
Monument to the Fallen in Malvinas - awkward 🐢 moment
History wise this is pretty interesting. The English claimed one of the islands without stepping on it (the French the other) then some Argentinians actually lived on the islands. The English didn’t like this and forced them off and for over 200 years people have been living there in peace. A recent referendum confirmed the vote to remain British at 99%, which seems very Russian but hilariously a news article jokingly said the 3 people who voted against would be bought a one way ticket to Argentina by the locals.
Argentinians continued to lay claim to the islands as a ‘disputed territory’. The idea of invading them in the Falklands war was the choice of the military dictatorship in the 80s without any choice from the people. It was subsequently crushed by the British and Thatcher and it is the source of some strong feelings from those who lived through the war. For Argentinians born outside of the 80s, it’s a far less contentious issue.
Throughout the city and also in places such as Ushuaia, the islands are always mapped as part of Argentina in all history / geographical information plaques. Awks.
Torre Monumental - a present from the British to mark the anniversary of something or other, potentially its independence. Naturally we provided a Big Ben esq clock tower and more hilariously the government decided the Falklands memorial would be well suited in front of it.
Recoleta - rich town vibes and
Escultura Atlas de Recoleta
At the end of the walking tour we parted ways and went to a couple other sites before heading home.
Feria Artesanal Intendente Alvear
Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes
Floralis Genérica - a bit spangled
Colourful bridge - also a bit spangled
To avoid holiday closures we had a washing outing and for dinner tried a pizza place but was let down once again by incorrect Google times.
The backup option was San Telmo Market, which was really nice and had boxpark sort of vibes. Luke really wanted a Choripanería sausage sandwich but it was absolute chaos, full of people sitting around the sausage bar and what seemed like people waiting for them to be done and claim their seats by standing over their shoulders. The whole system was far too stressful and we opted for an adequate pizza place because the rest was super expensive.
We had a short walk around the area where we got to witness some of the tango dancing the city is famed for, without spending a small fortune to witness a show, picked up the washing and called it a night.
Sunday 31st December - Day 453
We had a very chill morning before heading out to the San Telmo Fair / big market that sprawls across the length of a road in the city up to the Presidential palace.
It was huge, not too busy and a good way to kill a few hours.
Next we walked around Puerto Madero for a short while before heading back to the Airbnb. We were shattered, probably because of the heat, and we seriously considered cancelling on the 3pm central walking tour. Luke fell asleep for 20 minutes which settled the matter, or so Nicola thought, before he woke up with a spring in his step and ready to get out and about again. Nicola would end up flagging quite considerably having not had the same recharge.
Luke found the Centro free walking tour more entertaining than the day before. Nicola, naturally, didn’t as she was more tired.
Congreso de la Nación Argentina
Plaza del Congreso
‘The Thinker’
Palacio Barolo
Obelisco - apparently the street had 5 million people when Argentina won the World Cup and the team, trying to make it to the obelisk to celebrate as was the tradition, failed after hours of trying and ended up having to be helicoptered out.
Ducked into a Carrefour to do some shopping and rejoined as the guy was explaining the Argentinian Peso situation. Clearly some tourists had no idea about Western Union.
Museo Nacional del Cabildo de Buenos Aires y de la Revolución de Mayo Museo Histórico Nacional del Cabildo y la Revolución de Mayo
Plaza de Mayo
National flower of Argentina
Casa Rosada - presidential palace. Apparently the palace is pink because it was painted with a mixture including cow blood to help with humidity. Over time the red faded to pink and now is just painted pink.
Now having done sufficient activities with our day we were able to justify the cancellation of any drinking plans we had for NYE. There was very little chance of us making it out as we didn’t know anybody in the city (party hostels were double the price of our Airbnb) and with just the two of us drinking it would have been very forced fun.
So instead we settled for our cooked meal in, opening the bottle of the not so great Mendoza sparkling rose (with lemonade for Nicola) and had a nice evening watching a film, the London fireworks and just chatting. We gave up on the wine after 1 glass each.
There is no official firework display in Buenos so we had decided to make use of the rooftop to see any unofficial displays but we failed to make it to midnight.
We were very happy with our old married couple's decision.
Monday 1st January 2024 - Day 454
Happy New Year's Day! And we weren’t hungover in the slightest.
Most things in the city were expected to be closed so had little planned but did Nicola's tax return and went out for a walk. There was a decent coworking space on the 9th floor that we tried to use but Luke got bitten on his ankle within 2 minutes and said ‘fuck this’. The lift breaking also made getting up and down the 9th floor with the stench of people’s bins in the stairwells so undesirable.
Our walk for the day took us to Puerto Madero initially. We were surprised to find a Mcds that was open but it was absolutely rammed and they’d turned off all the machines, assumedly to accommodate for lack of staff. It ended our desire for a takeaway coffee but Luke ended up getting a replacement at Mostaza, a local fast food joint that is everywhere.
When we got to Laguna de los Coipos, the carefree walking experience started to go a little downhill.
Around the Reserva Ecológica Costanera Sur (which was closed) was an army of the overly aggressive mozzies. Every person we looked at was having problems with getting bitten or deeting themselves silly.
A really nice place but after Luke got bitten multiple times through his T-shirt and took 3 to the side of the head, he was done and tapped out. We more or less had to run away at one point, cutting into town giving some much needed respite.
With the day outing done, Luke sulked and played on Excel doing Nicola’s tax return and fiddling with his own finance spreadsheets based on his new found learning. Nicola was quite bored.
Tuesday 2nd January - Day 455
A nice day outing to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay.
Wednesday 3rd January - Day 456
For our last day in Buenos we went for an outing to the Palermo district of the city. Thankfully the SUBE card seemed to be working again.
Our first saunter around was to the Tres de Febrero Park. The recent storms had caused massive problems here as well, seemingly ripping out numerous huge trees from part of the park which was closed off and had people working to cut them down.
The wider lake was fine however and the classic stopping in some shade for a bite to eat led to numerous bites from mozzies.
What did take us by surprise was the Ecoparque Buenos Aires. It was free to enter and a massive array of animals.
Highlight was the rabbit / deer cross called a Patagonian Maru. Loads of them just chilling everywhere.
It made for a very pleasant day outing.
To finish we went to the Jardín Botánico Carlos Thays but it was a bit rubbish and didn’t last long here.
Again we spent our evening cooking and doing very little.
Thursday 4th January - Day 457
We do enjoy the bus networks in Buenos. It was super easy to leave the Airbnb, walk to the bus stop and get to Jorge airport. The hardest part was working out which Aerolineas queue to join, North or South.
With our bags dropped off, courtesy of an Aerolineas employee who was more like our mum giving us about everything we needed to know how to board a flight for the first time (not our first rodeo but it was cute), it was maccers again for some brunch and then through security. There was absolutely nothing on the other end as per usual.
Next up, Iguazu falls from every country we can see them from.
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