Nine days after returning from our trip to Hawaii and a Christmas weekend with the family, we are ready to head to South America and Antarctica. We arose at 0200 so
that we could travel to New Orleans, park the car, and pass through security to make a 0600 flight to Miami. Fortunately we had packed the car the
previous night, because as we stumbled around the house getting ready to leave,
we both forgot to brush our teeth. This would haunt us all day long. No telling
what we might have left behind had we delayed packing the car. The flight to
Miami was smooth and on time, and we had a 2 hour layover before boarding a
wide-body for the 9 hour flight to Buenos Aires. It was going to be a long day
with the added irritation of filmy teeth.
 |
| Nice digs! |
Our flight to Argentina was smooth until we got over the
Amazon rainforest where we encountered thermals. A little further south we
witnessed some highly elevated, black, flat-topped clouds that are indicative
of intense storm cells. Our pilot detoured around the clouds, but it was
surreal to be so seemingly close and watch the discharges of lightning flash
through them. After we passed this area the sky cleared and we watched a
beautiful sunset before giving way to nighttime stars and a 98-cent moon which helped
us cope with the long flight. After touching down at the aeropuerto
(see how fast we learn!) we were told to follow the yellow line that shepherded
us to immigraciรณn
registrales (we’re rolling),
 |
| Jane's happy |
an area with no fewer than 30 cubicles staffed
with immigration officers. Here we had to show proof that we paid an Argentine
tax to get into the country. Without the proof, you don’t enter and it has to
be paid in advance online. Some were calling this a visa, but we learned
from one of the flight stewards that it’s a retaliatory tax paid by U.S.,
Australian, and Canadian citizens only, because these countries started to
charge fees for Argentinians to enter their country. And America must either
charge a lower fee or Argentina really wants U.S. dineros, because it’s good
for 10 years for Americans, but Canadians and Australians have to pay on each
entry. The tax was $160 pp. It was a little unnerving because all foreigners
had to be photographed and have their thumbprint digitized before getting their
passports stamped.
 |
| View from our room |
We're off to baggage claim, and of course our bags were among the
last to find their way onto the carousel. Next came customs and a new
experience. Everyone had to have their bags x-rayed for prohibited items.
Everywhere else we’ve traveled a simple declaration and a possible bag search
if you looked shifty, but in Argentina all bags coming off the plane are
x-rayed.
 |
| The mini-bar's in there |
|
And of the seven lines in which bags were being checked, only one,
naturally, was dedicated to foreigners. Now another new experience, we pass
through a gauntlet of waiting friends and family members looking for our ride
to the hotel. Low and behold we spot a man holding a sign with Capt. Larry’s
name on it (no it didn’t say Capt. Larry).
 |
| His (right, no seat) and hers |
We never had that experience before.
He grabs our bags, but it’s immediately obvious that he doesn’t speak a lick of
English. We estimate the distance from the airport to the central district of
Buenos Aires to be about 30-35 mile, because it took 30 minutes to travel that
distance at very-light-traffic speeds of 60-70 mph. We arrive at our hotel,
Park Towers, dog-tired, and are in our room around midnight. Our travel agent
was gawking at the room rates when she booked. This hotel is used by the cruise
line and she wouldn’t let us pay the exorbitant rates they wanted to charge to
fly us down, but we did want to stay here to make it easier to connect with the
line. Without a doubt it is one of the swankiest places we’ve stayed at and is
definitely a cut above Motel 6. In our room Jane finds a book which describes
the bucket list idea of staying in the world’s top 100 hotels- and our hotel is
in it. So, we scratch one down and 99 to go.
The next morning we get up and have the breakfast buffet
before heading out for some exercise and exploration. Our hotel is conveniently
located in the heart of the government district, so many landmark buildings,
monuments, and museums are within walking distance.
 |
| Old clock tower |
The trouble for us is that
all of the describing plaques and signs are in Spanish, so we have little or no
idea what the landmark’s significance is.
 |
| Motorcycles everywhere |
All we can surmise is that there was
an awful lot of fighting throughout Argentina’s history and there are statues,
portraits, and memorials to many military bigwigs, many of whom were the
country’s rulers.
 |
| Plaza de Mayo with Christmas tree! |
We make our way to the Plaza de Mayo which was bordered by
what we assumed to be the U.S.’s equivalent of the White House. T
 |
| Mmmmm...triple bacon! |
he entire
compound was surrounded by a heavy wrought iron fence, with many military
guards watching us take pictures.
 |
| Protest banners in the plaza |
Nearby we found the Ministries of Defense and
Education buildings. The center of the plaza was barricaded and a score of
police officers monitored the flow of people into and out of the area.
 |
| Interesting architecture |
 |
| G.I. Jane |
The iron
fence around the center was plastered with lettered banners which we couldn’t
decipher, but we were pretty sure they carried a message of protest. And the
beat goes on with generally young people getting disturbed over something the
older people have done.
We returned to our hotel and got ready to go to dinner and a
tango show that we had purchased through our travel agent. Our voucher said the
show started at 1945 and that we would be picked up from our hotel at 1945.
 |
| Let's tango! |
We
had checked with earlier in the day with the concierge about this discrepancy,
and were told not to worry since most of the shows didn’t start until around
2200. So, thinking that we had all kinds of time, we decided to have a drink in
the hotel’s lounge.
 |
| The tango club |
We went to the concierge’s desk at 1915, thirty minutes
before our printed departure time to find out where the pickup point was, only
to be told that the driver had already come and gone, and since we weren’t in
our room, there was nothing the hotel could do but get us a cab.
 |
| Christmas tango |
We were upset
and let the concierge know that we had confirmed this reservation with the tour
company, and when we earlier prevailed upon their experience to clarify our
pickup, were essentially brushed off and told ‘not to worry.’ The best laid
plans… So, we end up taking a cab to the hall and were entertained by our cab
driver who used to live in New York City. She told us more stuff about downtown
Buenos Aires in 20 minutes then we could have learned in 6 months on our own.
We met a cute couple from England ‘on holiday’ who sat at the table next to
ours, and we enjoyed trading stories with them.
 |
| Killer tango shoes...a MUST! |
Our dinner was unremarkable,
except for the never ending bottle of red wine, but the show was very good.
There was a cast of several dancers who performed wild dance moves which caused
Capt. Larry to decide not to add learning the tango to the bucket list. Now if
he had good legs and knees… Upon leaving we found a tour bus that would take us
back to our hotel, but the ride turned out to be a wild affair with the driver displaying
his talents for squeezing the bus through very narrow passages at very high
rates of speed. We enjoyed the evening even though our cabbie had told us it
was not the best venue and wasn’t in a very good part of town. New York-style frankness!
 |
| Beating traffic |
On our morning walk the next morning, Jane decided that we
should venture off the main thoroughfare we had explored and see some of the
side streets. The city streets of Buenos Aires lack defined lanes. The larger
boulevards are about 3 lanes wide, but the drivers tend to weave between two
and three lanes of traffic at a moment’s notice. It is akin to watching NASCAR
drivers jockeying for position.
 |
| A pregnant tree |
And the numerous motorcyclists seem to risk
their lives by creating a special lane for themselves that is usually a small
slice of roadway taken from the lane of oncoming traffic.
 |
| Famous monument at far end |
This allows them
skirt around the slower automobile traffic, but we have no idea how they avoid
being hit.
 |
| The days are longer here! |
Sometimes they even leave the road and travel on the berm or median,
if it gets them through traffic faster.
 |
| A Zanella 150 |
Sidewalk repair is ubiquitous, and our
walks took us over some pretty rough patches of sidewalks being repaired, but
with no barricades or anything to keep pedestrians from stumbling over a patch
that was torn up by the repair process.
 |
| Repair in progress |
We guess that unlike Americans who
would sue over and injury caused by such a site, Argentineans must figure that
if you stumble and hurt yourself, you should pay more attention to where you
are walking! As we were walking, we happened upon a movie set in the street
where filming was about to occur. We watched the crews setting things up then headed
on until Capt. Larry told Jane it was time to head back toward the more
‘refined’ part of the city.
 |
| Our hotel entrance |
Da’ hood was changin’ real fast! The side streets
we were on did give us a chance to see some interesting buildings, and we noted
the city has very old and modern buildings almost equally mixed together in any
given block. We meandered back to our hotel and checked in with the cruise
line’s courtesy desk about the charter flight down to the ship tomorrow. We
were told that a breakfast would be served at 0430 and the buses would leave
around 0530 for our two-hour flight to Ushuaia (oo SCHWHY uh) departing at 0730.
It sounded like we were in store for another long day.
 |
| Mmmm...Cuban rum! |
 |
| Tango stage |
Amazing pics!! :) Greetings..
ReplyDelete