Posted on April 10, 2024 by Elaine-iaK's Travels

ARGENTINA & CHILE #17: BACK TO BUENOS AIRES

Since this was a travel day back to Buenos Aires without much to write about, I will combine two days in this post.

As we prepared to bid farewell to El Calafate, we were greeted by this cutie as we looked one last time at the beautiful grounds of our hotel:

(For all photos, especially panoramas, click on the image for a full screen view.)

After a smooth flight from El Calafate to Buenos Aires, we enjoyed a relaxing afternoon before rejoining the group. It was a warm and sunny day, so we enjoyed our short walking tour at the river where we had our Welcome Dinner. This was our last night together on the main tour, so we concluded our walking tour and gathered one final time as our group of 16 at Villegas Resto for our Farewell Dinner.

The following day, we met up with Noe, our Buenos Aires guide at the beginning of our tour. For our last day in the city, we enjoyed a wonderful tour before saying farewell to five members of our group who were not going on with the rest of us on the Iguazu Falls post-extension.

Our first stop was La Recoleta Cemetery, the final resting place of the wealthiest and most famous Argentinians, including Eva (“Evita”) Peron. 94 of the 4,691 vaults in the cemetery have been declared National Historical Monuments. Many of the elaborate marble Mausoleums were worth up to $250,000, and many families are trying to sell them due to financial hardships caused by the unstable economy.

We saw this sculpture after leaving the cemetery.

Tigre City, north of Buenos Aires and situated on the Parana Delta, was next on our tour. Located 17 miles from Buenos Aires, it is a favorite weekend tourist destination for city dwellers as well as rowers and kayakers. There are several rowing clubs on the delta, and it is the training site of the Argentina Olympic Rowing Team.

The skies threatened to drench us during our boat tour, so most of the group stayed inside to listen to Noe’s informative narration. I was thankful for the boat’s speaker system because I opted to stay outside and listen while I shot photos. Nora was so interesting!

Tigre City is a group of islands about half the size of Switzerland. Since there are no bridges connecting the islands, boats are the mode of transportation. A network of beautiful 70-year-old wooden boats serve as water taxis—the way most locals get around. It is also the way mail and groceries are delivered, and the drivers know the houses not by numbers, but by their names. Leaving your house to go on vacation? Hail a water taxi, put your luggage up on the boat’s roof, take a seat inside, and off you go!

Following our tour, we opted to get dropped off at the weekend crafts market in the city square. I liked the colorful and whimsical paintings by this artist:

Four our last two evenings in Buenos Aires, Andrea’s husband, Julio, joined us. Also an Overseas Adventure Travel tour leader, it was a joy to have Julio with our group. The two of them were such a cute and fun couple!

Broccolini Ristorante Italiano, is where we enjoyed our last dinner together in Buenos Aires.

Next up: ARGENTINA & CHILE #18: INCREDIBLE IGUAZU FALLS

ARGENTINA & CHILE #3: MORE OF BUSTLING BUENOS AIRES

Posted on March 13, 2024 by Elaine-iaK's Travels

Our (very!) full day began with a city highlights tour led by Nora, an excellent local guide. The first destination was Plaza de Mayo (May Square), the main foundational site of Buenos Aires. This is where history is made. It has been the site of Argentina’s largest and most important political demonstrations.

(For all photos, click on the image for a full screen view. Desktop computer monitors are best!)

An afternoon view of the plaza when we returned following the city tour.

Plaza de Mayo is also the meeting site for Grandmothers of May Square and the location of their headquarters and museum of memory of 30,000 citizens who were detained during the military dictatorship of 1976 – 1983. We learned about the human rights organization and their work in trying to find the 30,000 young people who were “disappeared”— either kidnapped or born to mothers in prison, stolen, and illegally appropriated. Assisted by United States geneticist Mary-Claire King, the Grandmothers have located about 25% of the estimated 500 children kidnapped or born in detention centers. The kidnapped babies were part of a systematic government plan to have them appropriated to “correct” families that supported the dictatorship.

Our group met one of the victims, Guillermo, and heard his heart-wrenching story. He is one of the (now adult) “disappeared” children who had been born to a Jewish mother but stolen and given to a Catholic couple and given a new identity. He learned the truth at age 21. Both of his grandmothers were part of the original Mothers of May Square. He was found because his sister had provided DNA to find her parents. It was through that match that he was found as well.

You can imagine how the truth destroyed Guillermo’s relationship with the couple he thought were his birth parents. They had committed crimes by taking him, and then lied about it for 21 years. As a result, his “father” served seven years in prison, and his “mother” served three years. Neither sentence was long enough; car thieves serve more for their crimes.

Ultimately, he learned that his birth parents were “disappeared” for being student political activists who protested the dictatorship. They were kidnapped, tortured, and killed.

While we were at Plaza de Mayo, we saw the changing of the grenadier guard, marching from Plaza de Mayo to the monument of Argentina liberator San Martin inside Metropolitan Cathedral.

Next, we visited the colorful La Boca neighborhood where the Argentine tango was born. “Colorful” is an understatement, really, because bright colors pop from every building and mural throughout the streets of this neighborhood settled by mostly Italian immigrants. Blue and yellow are especially popular—the colors of their soccer team and neighborhood “futbol” stadium.

That’s a statue of Lionel Messi up on that balcony.

Everywhere we looked, there were these funky life-sized statues on balconies!

Several shops and houses were painted in the Boca Juniors team colors.

This newer business fit right in with its colorfully-painted facade.

Following the city tour, we opted to be dropped off back at Plaza de Mayo to shoot a couple of afternoon photos of the square before walking to San Telmo, the oldest neighborhood of Buenos Aires. We got a kick out of Paseo de las historieta, a four-block section of Balcarce Street full of street art dedicated to Argentina’s most popular cartoon characters.

Andrea’s Buena Onda OTT group: Notice what they are drinking! I’ll get back to that in a future post!

The posh and hip Puerto Madero was where our group enjoyed our Welcome Dinner. Argentina is world-renowned for their steak, but Bruce and I opted for Pacu, a local fish.

This was the first of many delicious varieties of dulce de leche desserts we enjoyed throughout the tour. I was hooked!

Coming up next: ARGENTINA & CHILE #4: BEAUTIFUL BARILOCHE

ARGENTINA & CHILE #2: BUSTLING BUENOS AIRES

Posted on March 12, 2024 by Elaine-iaK's Travels

For a quick Cliff Notes background on Argentina, I will shamelessly extract information here and there from the wonderful Overseas Adventure Travel guidebook Andrea gave us during our briefing: “Following independence from Spain in 1816, Argentina experienced periods of internal political conflict between conservatives and liberals and between civilian and military factions.”

Sound familiar? What country is not experiencing political conflict between conservatives and liberals? Like the U.S.A., their country is very divided, and that division played out while we were in Argentina.

Fortunately, none of the numerous strikes and protests had a detrimental affect on our group or travels, but a lot was going on while we were in Argentina. Javier Milei, the current president, has made a lot of people quite angry since being elected last December– especially those who don’t subscribe to his far-right point of views. It made for some interesting discussions with Andrea, our trip leader, and her insight and passion added so much to our experience in her country. As she explained, Argentinians are just as passionate about talking politics as they are soccer!

More about Argentinian culture will be revealed throughout my blog posts, but if I had to sum up my impressions in just a few words, I would describe it as passionate, eclectic, and European. Settled by the Spaniards and Italians, their influences permeate all aspects of Argentiniann culture. There is also a large Jewish community—one of the largest in the world.

Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, is known as the “Paris of South America” or the “Cultural Capital of South America.” It has a population of approximately three million people, but adding in the populated suburbs brings that total to ten million, ranking it in the top ten most populated cities in the world.

The safest area of this massive city was where our hotel was located, so Bruce and I focused on exploring the Recoleta neighborhood, since our feet were our mode of transportation during our first full day in the city. One of our 16 group members, Diane, needed to get pesos, so we offered to show her where she could exchange her dollars and asked if she wanted to join us on our walk. Andrea had given us a map with suggestions on what to see, so we set out on what proved to be the first of many beautiful days to come. (As cliché as it is to talk about the weather, our group couldn’t help ourselves, because the weather was amazing throughout our three weeks in Argentina and Chile—even in Patagonia!)

Here are some scenes of the Recoleta district:

(For all photos, click on the image for a full screen view. Desktop computer monitors are best!)

Avenida 9 de Julio (July 9 Avenue) is one of the widest avenues in the world. It has nine lanes with a leafy, gardened median between opposing flows of traffic. It is nearly impossible to cross it on foot on one green light!

This curious sculpture was in one of the medians

We passed by the French and Brazilian embassies as we made our way through the posh area of the city, in Recoleta.

I was surprised to find these two British-styled phone booths at Placia Francia!

This museum was located adjacent to the basilica.

It was summer in Argentina, and the flowers and trees were gorgeous!

We were too early to see the jacarandas in bloom, but the trees were still beautiful!

This professional dog walker had his hands full!

Before our group set out for dinner, we met with Andrea for our welcome briefing. We learned that throughout our trip, we would be traveling 5,000 total miles, crossing the Andes at an elevation of 4,000 feet, seeing 7 destinations, 1 capital city, 4 national parks, 1 UNESCO site, and 1 natural wonder. We also enjoyed our first “discovery” of many—a sampling of one of Argentina’s “adult” beverages, a glass of Argentinian wine. (We soon learned when Andrea announced a “discovery” that a local liqueur, wine, or food was soon to follow. I love discoveries!)

Speaking of discoveries, we all discovered that Andrea was not wrong when she said there was great pizza (and gelato!) in Buenos Aires, thanks to the Italians! Pizzeria Guerrin was muy bueno!

On the way to Pizzeria Guerrin, we stopped to see the world-famous Teatro Colon, considered one of the most important opera houses in the world.

The obelisk of Buenos Aires is a national historic monument and icon of Buenos Aires. It is THE meeting point for political protests and celebrations, including Argentina’s 2022 World Cup victory.

Pizzeria Guerrin, a popular theater district hangout for locals and tourists alike, was a fun and funky place. We passed through several smaller rooms before we arrived at our table in this larger room at the very back of the restaurant.

Their theater district is much like New York’s Broadway.

The Obelisk was lit up colorfully at night.

A night view of the opposite side of the opera house.

Next up: ARGENTINA & CHILE #3: MORE OF BUSTLING BUENOS AIRES

ARGENTINA & CHILE #1: BEGINNING IN BUENOS AIRES

Posted on March 10, 2024 by Elaine-iaK's Travels

When Bruce and I were deciding on a destination for our third small group tour with Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT), we wanted to travel somewhere we had never been. I contacted my fellow travelers from our Italy and Iceland OAT tours to ask them for their recommendations. There were a few tours that kept popping up in their responses, so we booked those tours for 2024 and 2025—the first being Argentina and Chile. I had never been to Argentina, so it would be my 72nd country to visit. And, I had only visited Valparaiso, Chile, and the nearby wine region for a few days before boarding a ship for a cruise, so I wanted to see more. Bruce had never been to either country.

Before our departure, we had received e-mails (with a cute photo!) from our trip leader, Andrea Salas. The emails were loaded with great information, sprinkled with humor and colorful fonts, and full of personality. It struck us both that Andrea was going to be an excellent and fun trip leader, and it was later confirmed during our pre-trip video conference with her on Whatsapp. What a hoot! We couldn’t wait to meet her in person.

On Valentine’s Day morning, we arrived in Buenos Aires for a day on our own before joining the group at Argenta Tower Hotel. Fortunately, there was only a two-hour time difference from Georgia, so jetlag wasn’t an issue; but, lack of sleep on the redeye left us looking forward to a good night sleep. Until then, we filled the day by getting our Argentinian pesos, taking Andrea’s advice to partake in Argentina’s awesome gelato at Rapanui, and exploring the city.

Argentinean pesos. Now, that’s a loaded topic—literally. $100 USD converted into a tall stack of pesos! Splitting the wad with Bruce, neither of our wallets could close easily. At the time, we received slightly more than 100,000 pesos—almost all in 1,000-peso notes, worth about $1 each. (The extra was in 500 notes.) Try cramming more than 100 bills in your wallet! At least it was an easy conversion to calculate when pricing an item. Knock off a bunch of zeros, and you have your dollar amount.

Their currency is quite attractive. Here is the front and back of a few of their notes.

(For all photos, click on the image for a full screen view.)

This lovely 20 peso note features a guanaco (llama)—we saw a lot of those cuties while on the road. This attractive note is only worth 2 cents now. It probably cost more than that to produce it!

What is going on here? Argentina has been experiencing 200% annual inflation! You think the U.S. inflation rate is high? Hah! I will happily accept our 3.1% inflation rate, thank you very much.

As a result of the Argentinean peso’s value, expenses for extras not included with the tour were very low for us. Take the (amazing!) gelato at Rapanui, for example. Our medium-sized cup of two scoops (dark chocolate and dulce de leche (carmel) of gelato set us back only $2.60 USD. Ohhh, and it was sooo good! (Andrea was spot-on when she claimed Argentinean gelato was just as good—or better—than Italian gelato. After all, Argentina was settled by a lot of Italians!)

Thoroughly pleased with our first (of many!) Argentinean gelatos, we secured our bulging wallets and headed to the bookstore Andrea recommended visiting. Now, this isn’t your ordinary bookstore. El Ateneo Grand Splendid Bookstore, formerly a theater, was gorgeous!

After a casual dinner at a little Argentinean restaurant frequented by locals, we were ready to call it a day.

This was just the first of our three-week adventure, so I have many more posts to come! Would you like to see more? Go to my home page at www.ElainesTravels.com, scroll down to the “Sign me up!” button, and enter your e-mail address. You will receive an e-mail when each new blog is posted. Rather than reading the post in the e-mail, click on the blog title to read the post at my site for a better experience. I do not monetize my blog, so you won’t see any dreaded ads! If you would like to see a larger image of each photo, just click on it to view it full screen, better viewed on a desktop computer! Although you can unsubscribe from my blogs at any time, I hope you will stick around for more adventures to come. We have a lot more travel already scheduled for 2024 and 2025!

Meanwhile, I will leave you today with a few scenes from near our hotel at San Martin Square.

Located on San Martin Square, Palacio San Martin dates back to 1905.

Coming up next: Argentina & Chile #2: Bustling Buenos Aires

Elaine-iaK's Travels: A Traveler's Tales of People, Places, Photos, Pools… and CHOCOLATE!

Tag Archives: Buenos Aires

ARGENTINA & CHILE #3: MORE OF BUSTLING BUENOS AIRES

ARGENTINA & CHILE #2: BUSTLING BUENOS AIRES

ARGENTINA & CHILE #1: BEGINNING IN BUENOS AIRES