Buenos Aires has a Washington Monument style structure too. A flower market is being setup along our walk this morning...
12:47pm, cafe San Juan, San Telmo, Buenos Aires
We're up at 7:45am, grab breakfast downstairs (more dulce de leche on bread), bring our luggage downstairs to the desk for day storage (as we need to checkout), and head out to walk to Puerto Madero. Victor had another late night, and will meet up with us for dinner. As we leave our hostel at 9am, we see a club across the street opening their doors (letting out loud pulsating music) and letting more people in! Wow, that is a late night of partying! I see a grocery store near our hostel, and notice it is open, even on Sunday, and make a note to go there later to buy more dulce de leche to bring back.
Buenos Aires has a Washington Monument style structure too. A flower market is being setup along our walk this morning...
Puerto Madero is a long riverwalk not too far from our hostel. The sun is hot, and we seek shade at every opportunity. The water is a solid brown, as is all the water in the sea next to Buenos Aires. There is a cool white bridge spanning the river which we cross and investigate.
Wendy take a pic of a tree near the docks, and me walking across the riverfront, with the cool white bridge behind...
More pics of the white space-age bridge. The water actually looks kind of blue in the second pic...
A boat passes under the bridge. Wendy seeks shade from the sun as we cross...
A big ship is anchored nearby. It's a museum, in fact...
Endless orange brick buildings full of restaurants run for miles in both directions along the river. Christine frames an artistic shot of the bridge...
We then walk to San Telmo which has a large market going on today. We reach a street that has vendors lined up for half a mile it seems. Wendy buys a nice serving spoon made from Patagonian wood. We notice that they don't haggle here. They let you walk away... There are plenty of street performers around, and lots of antique stores along the street.
A couple of looks from the market street in San Telmo...
Just a block or two past the market was our lunch cafe, but we got there too early and headed back to look at the entertainers. A woman on stilts was handing out flyers...
Our lunch cafe is nearby, and we arrive there at noon, but find out they aren't open until 12:30. We revisit the market for awhile, and come back for lunch. This is another place recommended in Christine's book. We sit outside at a table on the sidewalk (inside is reservation only!), and peruse the menu. This is our last big meal here, and they are giddy as always as they pour over all the excellent options on the menu. I formulate an analogy in my mind: Eating at fine restaurants for them is like a sports nut going to the big game. Nothing beats the pre-game (or pre-order) anticipation at what might be one of the greatest sporting outcomes, or meals consumed. Once the game/food finishes, it could be a loss or dissapointment, or triumph, but the excitement at the beginning is always something to savor and appreciate. I lean back and let them handle the menu decisions. Wendy and Christine order us six tapas dishes! And one main course (salmon) for us to share. The waitress says it's a lot. But given it's the last big meal, why not?
The tapas arrive, and there are 3 to a plate, which is perfect and easy to split up. They are excellent! They also bring out olives and bread. We now are waiting for the main dish. Wendy and Christine could stay and eat at this place forever. The prices are cheap too. Buenos Aires certainly has a lot of great food at inexpensive prices. In general it's half the cost of something at a similar restaurant in the US. They are in their element here, and I'm enjoying the ride...
Mega tapas! Mushrooms, salmon, ham, tomatoes, eggplant, and lots of cheese all stacked on excellent bread. Look at the size of the brie cheese! The main course salmon was good too, but the tapas were the highlight...
Wendy orders another of the tomato, cheese, and basil tapas to go, after our big meal. She's crazy! The salmon was good too. 115 pesos for the whole meal, which is ~$38 to feed all 3 of us a huge gourmet lunch! I could get used to that...
After lunch we walk back to the market. Christine wants some more time to shop and look at the antique stores. Wendy and I wander separately and will meet up in an hour. We find more markets at a park a few blocks away. We also find an ice cream place, and even though we just ate, we gotta have some ice cream here, so we split a .25kg (.5lb) container, 1/3rd of it fruitilla, 2/3rds of it dulce de leche flavored (I ended up eating most of the ice cream). We taste plenty of samples too. After finishing the ice cream, we head back to the market, and see some street tango, but it's pretty slow and dull compared to what we've seen already.
Wendy and I stumble on another market in a nearby park with wild wavy trees. We see some street tango as well...
Christine took these next several pics of the market. Sure was bustling...
Plenty of live music in the street. Birds too...
We meet up with Christine and walk back to the hostel. Wendy and I stop at the grocery store and buy four more 1lb. containers of dulce de leche (8lbs total to bring back) and four more packages of the tasty cake bars. We know how much room is left in our packs, and there's nothing I'd rather bring back than dulce de leche...
We meet up with Victor and Christine at the hostel, and walk to a nearby cafe, but then decide to take a taxi to a mall that Victor said was cool and that has an ice cream place. It's a mega 3 floor mall, and everything is super expensive. We get some ice cream downstairs in the food court. Another .25kg (.5lb) of mostly dulce de leche ice cream for me (Wendy has a bit of fruit flavored ice cream too). There's a TV on in the food court showing the local BOCA soccer game, and there's a good crowd watching it. Would have been cool to go to the game, but not enough time to fit it in today. Wendy and Christine shop while Victor naps at the table, and I write this log and watch the game. We're planning to leave here at 6:30. Our flight is 10:15.
A quick pic at our table in the mall as we eat ice cream. Several onlookers in the background are watching the soccer game on TV...
Victor says the sports bar last night was cool, and there was a good crowd rooting for Duke and UNC. He went to some clubs after the game (since UNC, his team, won), and was back at 5am. Wendy and I have just 80 pesos left, enough for a cab ride to the airport.
The home soccer team, BOCA, just gave up an own goal, and there was a collective reaction of disappointed surprise from the crowd around me.
A little before 6pm, Wendy and I realize we need time to repack our bags, take out contact lenses, pack our groceries, and change clothes for the flight, and that we might run out of time. So we take a taxi at 6pm ourselves, since Christine is still somewhere unknown in the mall. On the way out, we see more street tango outside the mall. We get back to the hostel, and start prepping downstairs near the washing rooms, and soon V & C show up early at 6:30 too. My pack has 8lbs of dulce de leche, and 8 packs of cakes! It's very top heavy.
We inquire about taxi info at the desk, and find out it's $21 for a taxi to the airport, but that can't fit 4 people and 4 packs. It looks like we'll need to hire two taxis, but someone else behind the desk recommends a larger single taxi, for $31, which is perfect. We have them hire the taxi, and pay at the hostel, which is convenient. It picks us up just before 7pm, and we travel through the city with very little traffic, going 125km/hr on a 80km/hr highway (matching the traffic). The driver asks for an extra 3 pesos to pay for the tolls, which seems like it should be included in the price, but we pay anyway. The soccer game is on the radio.
We arrive ~7:25pm (amazingly fast), and there are long lines to check in. Fortunately, Wendy and Christine had Premier status when they bought the tickets last year, so we go to the short line, and then find out there is a $18 departure tax we need to wait in line to pay like in El Calafate. After our boarding passes are stamped with the exit tax mark, we wait in a long line for security, followed by a very long time for immigration. It's good we got here almost 3 hours early. My passport doesn't scan correctly, and I'm detained 15 minutes in an office until a supervisor explains the situation and grants me a waiver. My passport was brand new too, and worked throughout all the border crossings the past 2 weeks...
Finally at 8:45pm I'm through security, and we have 45 minutes until boarding. Good thing we had premier status, and could bypass the initial long line. Now we have just enough time to spend our 22 remaining pesos on dinner. The credit card machines are down, and we only have enough pesos for one sandwich. Christine only has enough to buy some chips and donuts. (We later find out they take US cash too...) Victor has Gold Club access, and can bring a guest. Supposedly there are snacks and food in the lounge. Christine and Wendy opt to stick with their food (Wendy keeps the sandwich), and I join Victor. The lounge is stocked with drinks, nuts, bread, cheese, and dulce de leche! They also bring out some fancy hor'dourves and mini sandwiches from time to time. Very luxurious.... We stay there until 9:30pm, eating good food, and then meet up with Wendy and Christine at the gate. No water is allowed on board, surprisingly, so we dump our water bottles.
I was lucky to have Victor take me as his guest to the Gold Club lounge, where we ate salmon and steak hor'dourves, and cashews and dulce de leche with bread...
Our seats are in the economy plus section, with lots of leg room. The plane just took off now at 10:30pm. Smooth flying so far. Not many good movies listed today. No Country For Old Men looks good, as I heard it was nominated for best picture before we left. I actually have energy to watch a movie, unlike the flight 2 weeks ago.
The flight was great! Watched No Country for Old Men (weird movie ending), ate dinner (chicken wasn't as good as on the way out), and slept soundly for the next 6+ hours. Woke up for a breakfast snack and landed an hour later. The flight seemed shorter than some of the Denver to Washington D.C. flights I've been on...
After we deboard the plane, Victor departs, as he's a local D.C. resident and has a separate line for customs. My passport scans correctly here, and they don't give me any attention when I mention that I brought back "Toffee" (not sure they would have known what dulce de leche was). Since we had to claim our luggage for customs, we have the ability to fly standby on the earlier flight to Denver (that Christine is flying back on). We'll see if it works. They say the flight is full...
We got standy seats on the 8:30am flight to Denver, and landed 10 minutes early under "severely clear" conditions (according to our pilot). It's good to see the snow capped Rockies again. We're coming from peak summer mountain conditions to peak winter mountain conditions now. The in-flight movie was Enchanted, and I did watch, though it's cheesiness almost caused me to puke several times.
The trip is over! Time to drive back to Fort Collins, do some grocery shopping, and start downloading pictures. I took over 2000 pics and Wendy has over 1500. Gonna take quite a while to write up this web journal... Yikes, I'll be going to work tomorrow too. At least it will be a 4 day week.
It's been a most triumphant adventure, and I'm very grateful for the good company and weather over the past two weeks. Staying in Buenos Aires a few days made me realize how much I love Fort Collins. The clean air and water here, along with a healthy dose of mountains and nature will remind me Patagonia. In this land, adventure is always just a short drive away...