Blogs from San Antonio de Areco, Buenos Aires, Argentina, South America

This is the first of a serie of three blogs coming in the next few days. If you are wondering, yes, we are having an amazing time...in Buenos Aires...around Buenos Aires...and actually all over Argentina! Argentina is not a gem, it's a mine of gems...left, right, up...down, everywhere we are digging for our adventures, it's all...simply brillant, simply amazing! The week-end is over...I'm slowly going through the pictures....and these souvenirs will stay forever...trust me...next is way better....but for now, we give you San Antonio de Areco. To make it easy I rented a car for the week-end starting Friday just after lunch. First surprise, we landed a 4 categories upgrade. It first didn't make me happy, but we had no choice, they had nothing else available. I tend to love to stay below the radar in ... read more

Before heading south from BA, we went up for a weekend in San Antonio de Areco. It is a small gaucho town and although this cowboy lifestyle is now waning in most of the country, it has proud roots in this town and the nostalgia in the air is palpable. It was a welcome change of scene after the bustle of the city and we enjoyed a hostel located across from the green belt at the edge of town. The residents were robustly friendly and we saw more bike riders then cars on the cobble streets. We visited the Museo Gauchesco "Ricardo Güiraldes" to learn about the gaucho ways. Güiraldes was an author who wrote one of the most iconic books in Argentinian culture, Don Segundo Sombra. The old estancia holds artifacts (ponchos, saddles, pistols, etc), ... read more

As with any family outing, our day trip to San Antonio de Areco included laughs, good food, dirty pit stop bathroom breaks, near-death experiences, "Kodak moments", and the creation of memories which we all hope to remember 20 or 30 years down the road. I'm quite sure that a typical trip from Buenos Aires to San Antonio would be quite eventless, however, we had a chatty driver (who continuously forgot that it was his job to watch the road) AND we were traveling through clouds of smoke.. literally! Argentina was on fire, and had been engulfed in grass fires for almost a week. As our van sped along the "Panamericana" we just about plowed into 50 or so STOPPED cars (which our large van would have smoked!) but were saved by my mom's habit of backseat ... read more

After going to Uruguay (Colonia del Sacramento), we got on a bus (at Buenos Aires’ giant bus station) bound for a nearby town of San Antonio de Areco. This town is famous for its gauchos, or Argentine cowboys. Theresa had really wanted to visit an estancia (or hacienda) and our book said this was the town to do it. The town of San Antonio de Areco is very small and quiet. Our book had said that the bicycles outnumber the cars and we think they might be right. Everyone is riding around on bikes!! The homes in the town were very suburban looking with “moats” of land around them and one story - reminded us a little of California but walkable and without the cars. We walked to an estancia nearby where we had a wonderful ... read more

San Antonio de Areco is a couple of hours away from BA on the bus (allow an hour or so more for puncture stops). It is a small town famous for its Gaucho festival in November, but we went on a sunny July weekend when the temperatures defied the fact that it is the middle of winter. The steak we found there was unbelievably good, and we have become experts at finding good steak so that's quite a statement! I also tried a wonderful crab stew which is, apparently, a Basque recipe. No ill effects so far!! On Sunday there was supposed to be a calssical music concert in the main plaza at 1500. By 1530 we got bored and went for a coffee. At 1550 we left as we had to get to our bus, ... read more