On the Quest to see pingüinos

[VPS]

So this it the room they moved me to with a balcony overlooking the park. It was much nicer but also quite a lot noisier.

 

[love_the_life]

Sounds like it was the Mercado del Puerto in Montevideo - lots of restaurants and parillas.

And yes, that early morning last day is a killer.

 

[VPS]

Sounds like it was the Mercado del Puerto in Montevideo - lots of restaurants and parillas.

And yes, that early morning last day is a killer.

That is indeed what it was. Looked great.

 

[VPS]

So onto Buenos Aires. Someone once told me that if Paris and London had a love child it would be Buenos Aires and I must say I did find it a very enjoyable attractive city.

I had arranged a walking tour of BA with some others I had met on the boat. The guide was Joy from Joy of Buenos Aires - Authentic & Local Experiences. She was very pleasant and knowledgeable.

She met us at the hotel and we caught the local bus to pick up the other group and then caught another local bus to start the tour.

I loved the weather in Antarctica but of course here it was low to mid 30s with about 80% humidity – the weather I hate the most and I had organised a 5 hour walking tour.

I always like to check out how the local police behave. I'm not sure whether a cop in Australia is allowed to smoke in uniform in public.



The Torre Monumental



These trees were everywhere and flowering beautifully



The Falkland Islands or should I Malvinas Islands war memorial



The Kavanagh Building

Corina Kavanagh lived for many years on the 14th floor in the largest apartment, the only one that occupies an entire floor. There is a legend that says that the shape of the building was designed as a revenge. Corina, who was from a wealthy but not an aristocrat family, fell in love with the son of the Anchorena family, who were both wealthy and aristocratic. The Anchorenas, who lived in a palace on the other side of Plaza San Martín (today known as the San Martín Palace) and had built a church that they could see from their palace, disapproved of the engagement. In revenge, Corina made only one demand to the architects: that it would block the Anchorena family's view of their church







I love the little 711 that have booze for sale



Quite a mixture of old and new buildings in BA

 

[VPS]

I like looking at different bits of architecture




The Pink Palace - office of the President of Argentina and where Eva Peron gave one her famous speeches





These are buildings around the square in front of the Pink Palace








This monument was to the Mothers of the children who had "disappeared" during the military dictatorship. The white symbols are representative of the white scarves they were to represent the nappies of their children that had been taken. I actually found it quite moving.

Mothers of Plaza de Mayo - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[VPS]

More from around the Plaza de Mayo










Inside the Cathedral





The obelisk erected in 1936 to commemorate the quadricentennial of the first foundation of the city

 

[VPS]

There were statues of some famous football dude everywhere



There is a street market on Sundays so we walked along there (cobbled streets - great for your dodgy knees - NOT)







But there was a fantastic icecream store at the end - just what the doctor ordered

 

[VPS]

Back to the hotel. Some other comments about the Palladio that I forgot to mention.

Palladio had a nice big thick curtains that were electronically opened and closed and actually had windows are open and close which would’ve been nice if it wasn’t so damned hot and of course the weather was changing when I left to much more reasonable temperatures. Their quilts were very thick and not top sheet so really tough to remain cool; They come around every afternoon to give you another free bottle of water

I love that Argentina has actually got Australian plugs just makes life so much easier.

I did email them when I got home to give them some feedback about having to move rooms at midnight and they essentially said you got a bigger room so tough. I don't think they handled it particularly well. At no stage did anyone say oh we're really apologise for messing you around and thought they might have just waived my dinner bill but nope.

Anyway by the end of that day I was hot and peopled out and just had dinner in the hotel which was fairly ordinary but the staff were lovely and the wine choices were good and not expensive.

 

[VPS]

Next day we had organised a bus tour with the same guide so a few photos of the buildings as we drove around.

 

[VPS]

The white cards under this bridge are names of people that were killed or disappeared under the military rule



The onto La Boca

The famous blue and yellow of Boca Juniors is down to a shipping company. The club agreed to adopt the colours of the flag of the first ship to sail into port, which was the Swedish Drottning Sophia. Blue and yellow it was, originally as a diagonal stripe and then, since 1913 to the present day, as a horizontal band.




The colours and the street art were fantastic

 

[VPS]

I loved all the colours so lots more photos - feel free to skip over if you get bored

 

[VPS]

And more La Boca - did I mention that I like the bright colours

Il Papa

 

[tgh]

Boca was a no go zone for Gringo's in 2009.
Our tour guide was quite confident about our safety but we did see a whole group of stall keepers go after a young bag snatcher who was roughed up.
The guide said that the stall keepers want the tourists and try to keep the streets quiet.

 

[VPS]

Boca was a no go zone for Gringo's in 2009.
Our tour guide was quite confident about our safety but we did see a whole group of stall keepers go after a young bag snatcher who was roughed up.
The guide said that the stall keepers want the tourists and try to keep the streets quiet.

When we got there our guide was very specific about the area we could go. She pointed out the streets we could not cross.

When I was at the market on Saturday I was grabbed by a guy and just told him to eff off (I was walking separately to the group for a bit) but he was quite persistent. A couple of the stall holders came up and apologised and were really nice to me

 

[VPS]

OK the last of La Boca. At no time when I was there did I feel threatened or unsafe and generally the people in the shops were friendly and welcoming.

 

[VPS]

We then drove along the river and then past the slums area. Our guide was very adamant that we could take photos of the buildings but we shouldn't take any photos of the people.

 

[VPS]

Some views driving around



The Nereid fountain which sadly had to be enclosed because of vandalism





Who remembers this guy



Joy took us to this row of food trucks where we were going to have a typical pork sandwich. We said we wanted empanadas but she said none of the trucks sold them it was just these special sandwiches.

So we had a very ordinary pork sandwich with dry bread and who would want to add mayonnaise that had been sitting outside in the 30 degree weather (not me)

As we were walking back to the bus we went past one of the trucks selling empanadas but we refrained from getting aggro.

 

[VPS]

The area along the river was great - I liked the bright cranes and the funky bits of art.













Birds nests in one of the cranes.







Floralis Genérica is a sculpture made of steel and aluminum located in Plaza de las Naciones Unidas, Avenida Figueroa Alcorta, Buenos Aires, a gift to the city by the Argentine architect Eduardo Catalano. Catalano once said that the flower "is a synthesis of all the flowers and, at the same time, a hope reborn every day at opening." The sculpture was designed to move, closing its petals in the evening and opening them in the morning.

If you read Wikipedia it says that opening and closing was disabled in 2010 and that it was functional again in 2015 but according to our guide it doesn't open and close any more.

 

[VPS]

Then on to Recoleta cemetery - some beautiful architecture. Some beautifully maintained and others in a very sad state of disrepair.

 

[VPS]

And more of the cemetery








And of course that one that everyone comes to see Eva Peron