2 7 BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA

We were very surprised when we got to Buenos Aires.  We expected a large city.  We were right about that.  Since neither of us are real fans of big cities, we did not expect to enjoy ourselves here.  And we had 2 whole days here.

Well, 2 days is not enough.  We were warned about the crime in the city.  To be very careful.  As it turned out, there were at least 4 incidents of trouble to our passengers.  Two men were jumped for their Rolex watches. (you would think, after the first mugging, that no one would go ashore with a Rolex, but NO.)  Neither was hurt badly.  A couple of other couples had liquids poured on them.  This was done so the vandals could volunteer to clean you up, as they cleaned you out.  Luckily, our shore guide, on the ship, had warned us of this possibility, so the passengers were aware, and no real damage was done.  They chased the would be pickpockets away, and the liquid washed easily out of their clothes.

Now having said all of that…nothing bad happened to us and we had an enjoyable time.

The morning started out with pouring rain.  We went into the terminal building to send out the last blog postings.  Duane kept going outside to see how the weather was.  We ended up spending the whole morning at the dock.

The weather cleared up enough, in the early afternoon, for us to venture out with umbrellas (kindly provided by our ship….wish we had known in advance and we wouldn’t have packed ours.:)

Even cloudy weather can be beautiful.

We did not take any excursions into the city, but chose to walk around.  A shop selling high end jewelry offered a shuttle from the ship to their shop.  We took it the first day, to get more into the center of things.  The city is very modern, but it still has lots of beautiful old architecture.  We both enjoy interesting looking buildings.

This is Florida street.  Actually a pedestrian mall.  We started our adventure here.  One of the first things we, and I’m sure you, noticed was McDonalds.  But, did you notice the second McDonalds?  (look under the flags)  That second one is about 5 blocks away.  There was a third and a Burger King on this mall.  You are never far from signs of home;)

Now for some sights of Buenos Aires. 

This was our first view of the city from our cabin.

Not far from the port are these beautiful old brick buildings.  There is an equal amount of these to the right, across the street from where we are standing.

Notice how the newer buildings are interesting.

 

People are the same everywhere.  That is probably the most important thing I have learned from my travels.

New buildings built right next to old ones.  I love this shot of the old one in the new one.

Look at this picture.  It is not out of an ad.  Duane took it.  I think it is GREAT.

One of the Dikes in the new improved port area.

  The streets that cross the Dikes are actually bridges that turn to let boats through.

After we walked around a bit, we decided to walk back to the ship, rather than using the shuttle.  We came upon this lovely walk.  Did I mention it was Sunday.  Well, it was.  Couples and families were out enjoying what turned out to be a lovely day.

  The walkway ran along the edge of a huge park.  We were too late to enter it.  This is the view of some of the native grasslands in the park.  Just lovely.

 Everywhere you go in southern South America, you will see mattes.  The bowl in this picture is the matte.  You put Yerba into it.  It is a very strong tea.  People sit around sipping this tea all day.  The thermos is there, because when you add hot water to the ground up tea leaves, it thickens up.  You sip it for a while, then add more water.  As we traveled around the city, we found that people actually do drink this.  You would see people walking around with their matte and thermos in their hands.

(continued on the next blog.)