In Buenos Aires

Day 2 & 3

January 24th and 25th

Our flight from Columbus to Atlanta was on time.  The flight leaving Atlanta for Buenos Aires was completely full and departed close to the departure time.  However, we were 3 hours late landing because of heavy air traffic and winds in Buenos Aires.  Air Traffic Control said that it would be a hour before we could land.  The pilots decided we would need fuel so we were diverted to Uruguay!  We sat there for quite a while trying to get the fuel.  Once we had refueled, we took off for a 35 minute flight back to Buenos Aires!

We felt sorry for our driver who came to the airport twice!  We were only about 150 miles from Buenos Aires when we took our little side trip!  Hector, our driver, was a good sport and dropped us off at our hotel.  It is a beautiful hotel and our room is very spacious but we weren’t in it very much at all.  We were happy to be able to check in immediately and one of the first things we did was to shower and change clothes.  You feel pretty gross after 32 hours!

Once we felt refreshed we had some lunch!  The hotel has a beautiful outdoor space with a restaurant.  We chose to sit outside in the warm sunshine!

While enjoying our lunch, Kay wanted to take a picture looking out from the patio and showing the blue skies.  Well, she took her phone out of her purse and it wouldn’t unlock or accept her passcode!  She knew she had it right and even checked on her secure password site just in case she was wrong because it had been over 36 hours with only about a couple hours of sleep.  A very, very long story short, the phone is useless.  We talked to the front desk about an Apple Store nearby.  They marked the closest on the map.  We ended up going to two and each is an authorized Apple resale store, not an actual store where they would fix my phone for free or replace it because it is still under warranty!  What an unwanted adventure!  We did a restore hoping to fix what we think is a software issue but to continue with setting up the phone after the restore, the phone needs an authorization code which they send to one of her other Apple devices which are at home!  What a royal pain but you learn to just go with the flow!  We got back to the hotel in time to get ready to a Dinner/Tango show.

We went to the Rojo Hotel for their Rojo Dinner and Tango show.  It was fantastic!

Buenos Aires time zone is 2 hours ahead so when the show ended we were thrilled that our driver was there to pick us up and drop us off at the hotel.  We crashed not too long after our return.

Thursday morning after a short but much needed night’s sleep we were up and out for a 4 hour private tour of Buenos Aires.  Our driver was Hector who had picked us up at the airport and our English speaking guide was a young woman named Nayla Gallo.  We enjoyed her sharing and history of Buenos Aires.  She is a guide full time.

Just a few of our highlights included:

Floralis Genérica which is a sculpture made of steel and aluminum

The Recoleta Cemetery contains the graves of notable people, including Eva Peron, presidents of Argentina, the founder of the Argentine Navy, and many more.

We visited the El Ateneo Bookstore.  This was a beautiful and famous South American book store because it was a theater that was converted into the bookstore.  The stage is a cafe. Where you would have purchased concessions for the theater, that is now where you check out.  We found it very interesting that there are many bookstores are in Buenos Aires and that is because taxes are very high on tablets and Kindles!

We walked around the neighborhood of La Boca.  It is known for its colorful houses.  El Caminto is the cobblestone street in the center of La Boca.

Later in the afternoon we visited The Colon Theater  and the tour was well worth the time.  We had another excellent guide!  It is famous around the world.  It has exceptional acoustics and performers do not need to wear a mic.  They boast that there isn’t a bad seat in the place.

It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed every minute exploring and learning more about Buenos Aires.  This post just touched the surface of what we experienced today.  Tomorrow we leave for Ushuaia and say goodbye to Buenos Aires!