On January 2, 2023, we flew down to Buenos Aires to begin our Antarctica cruise that included a few days in Buenos Aires and 2-day trip to Iguazu Falls. We stayed at the Hilton in Buenos Aires which is in a nice centrally located area of the city and easy to walk around to see things. In general, food and other items are rather inexpensive there. Although we normally bring foreign currency with us on our trips, that was not possible in Argentina because US banks do not sell the currency due to the volatility of the exchange rate. It was strange to dress in shorts for weather in the 80 and 90’s when you were about to go to cold Antarctica.
We arrived early in the morning after our red eye flight and were fortunate to get a room in our hotel when we arrived. We had arranged a 4 hour walking tour through Tours By Locals for the afternoon. Our guide, Fabian, was very nice and informative. He showed us some of the sights around the center of the city including the “Pink House” which is Argentina’s version of the US White House although the president only works there and takes a helicopter back and forth to his house outside the city. We saw his blue and white helicopter several times while we were there. Fabian took us down a road decorated with various colorful statues of comic characters from Latin American comic strips. One was very popular and had a line of people waiting to take their picture next to the character. The main city park behind the government buildings was a gathering place for many people. In the park was a monument where people placed stones with the names of loved ones who had died during Covid. It was a very interesting way to honor the dead. Unfortunately, when Argentina won the world cup a few weeks ago, there was quite a bit of vandalism around the area and this monument with the stones was significantly damaged. You could see signs all around the city of Argentina’s great victory in the world cup. Pictures of Messi, their star player was seen all around the city.
On the second day we were supposed to have a city bus tour but unfortunately the driver did not pick us up as planned and we decided to just do a walking tour on our own. We went to the cathedral and spent some time looking at it. Although it was nice, it was certainly not as spectacular as some of the other cathedrals we have seen around the world. From there we went down a local pedestrian only shopping street and looked at what Buenos Aires had to offer. It was amazing to see money changers at every corner yelling out to you to get you to exchange your dollars for the local currency. There is a big black market exchange business there. We walked across Avenue July 9th which is named after their Independence date from the Spanish. There is a large monolith in the middle of this many lane road along with some large statues commemorating their independence. We stopped for some lunch at a restaurant known for their empanadas that was recommended at the hotel. They had excellent empanadas for a very low price and had some delicious desserts! Our last stop was the famous cemetery in Buenos Aires. It is an above ground cemetery with extremely expensive tombs created for the wealthy families of the city. The most famous person buried their (at least that we knew) was Eva Peron (who Madonna made famous in “Don’t cry for me Argentina”). The cemetery was in great disrepair, and we later found out that the city was going to great efforts to locate the families of the people buried there to maintain and repair the tombs of their relatives. Sharon meant a lady from America who was visiting one of her relative’s tombs where she had just had a stained-glass window installed. She had been contacted by the cemetery administration that she had a direct relative there that she did not even know about. After avoiding many of the calls, assuming they were some sort of scam, she eventually accepted a call and they sent her an airplane ticket to visit the tomb. After that she agreed to upgrade and maintain the tomb. Hopefully next time we see this cemetery it will look much nicer.
The next day we went to Iguazu Falls and a separate blog is being written for this trip. After our trip to the falls we came back to Buenos Aires one more night before our flight down to Ushuaia to start our cruise. During our last night we went to the El Querandí Tango Show. This is a tango show that is 100 years old and was quite entertaining. It included a very nice dinner prior to the start of the show. There were 4 or 5 different pairs of tango dancers along with 2 singers and 3 musicians who entertained us for over an hour. It was hard to take pictures of the dancers due to the lighting and their fast movements. The videos came out much better. If you have never seen a real tango, make sure you do that when you visit Buenos Aires!
We arrived early in the morning after our red eye flight and were fortunate to get a room in our hotel when we arrived. We had arranged a 4 hour walking tour through Tours By Locals for the afternoon. Our guide, Fabian, was very nice and informative. He showed us some of the sights around the center of the city including the “Pink House” which is Argentina’s version of the US White House although the president only works there and takes a helicopter back and forth to his house outside the city. We saw his blue and white helicopter several times while we were there. Fabian took us down a road decorated with various colorful statues of comic characters from Latin American comic strips. One was very popular and had a line of people waiting to take their picture next to the character. The main city park behind the government buildings was a gathering place for many people. In the park was a monument where people placed stones with the names of loved ones who had died during Covid. It was a very interesting way to honor the dead. Unfortunately, when Argentina won the world cup a few weeks ago, there was quite a bit of vandalism around the area and this monument with the stones was significantly damaged. You could see signs all around the city of Argentina’s great victory in the world cup. Pictures of Messi, their star player was seen all around the city.
On the second day we were supposed to have a city bus tour but unfortunately the driver did not pick us up as planned and we decided to just do a walking tour on our own. We went to the cathedral and spent some time looking at it. Although it was nice, it was certainly not as spectacular as some of the other cathedrals we have seen around the world. From there we went down a local pedestrian only shopping street and looked at what Buenos Aires had to offer. It was amazing to see money changers at every corner yelling out to you to get you to exchange your dollars for the local currency. There is a big black market exchange business there. We walked across Avenue July 9th which is named after their Independence date from the Spanish. There is a large monolith in the middle of this many lane road along with some large statues commemorating their independence. We stopped for some lunch at a restaurant known for their empanadas that was recommended at the hotel. They had excellent empanadas for a very low price and had some delicious desserts! Our last stop was the famous cemetery in Buenos Aires. It is an above ground cemetery with extremely expensive tombs created for the wealthy families of the city. The most famous person buried their (at least that we knew) was Eva Peron (who Madonna made famous in “Don’t cry for me Argentina”). The cemetery was in great disrepair, and we later found out that the city was going to great efforts to locate the families of the people buried there to maintain and repair the tombs of their relatives. Sharon meant a lady from America who was visiting one of her relative’s tombs where she had just had a stained-glass window installed. She had been contacted by the cemetery administration that she had a direct relative there that she did not even know about. After avoiding many of the calls, assuming they were some sort of scam, she eventually accepted a call and they sent her an airplane ticket to visit the tomb. After that she agreed to upgrade and maintain the tomb. Hopefully next time we see this cemetery it will look much nicer.
The next day we went to Iguazu Falls and a separate blog is being written for this trip. After our trip to the falls we came back to Buenos Aires one more night before our flight down to Ushuaia to start our cruise. During our last night we went to the El Querandí Tango Show. This is a tango show that is 100 years old and was quite entertaining. It included a very nice dinner prior to the start of the show. There were 4 or 5 different pairs of tango dancers along with 2 singers and 3 musicians who entertained us for over an hour. It was hard to take pictures of the dancers due to the lighting and their fast movements. The videos came out much better. If you have never seen a real tango, make sure you do that when you visit Buenos Aires!
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