Buenos Aires Day 1

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Geo: -34.6118, -58.4173

Well here we are in an industrial port with the city in the background. This city is actually on the river. It is the widest river in the world. So the water is nasty brown.

Today is Fat Tuesday so no one is working other than shuttle services and tour operators. Carnival is a BIG thing down here. We are here for three days. Part of our crew gets off tomorrow and new folks board . That should be interesting. Some are even changing rooms. So glad we don't have to do that. We have a great cabin steward so that is great as well.

The temperatures for the next three days is expected to be in the 80 and 90's. Dave has gone investigating with few others. I have decided to stay on board. We have definitely left cool temperatures behind us. The pool,is open and people are sun bathing. And as always there are some who shouldn't be in bikinis myself included. I am sitting in the shade on deck 15 and sweating. I am soon to find a cooler place.

Dave and Bonnie got off the ship to do the local "hop on - hop off" tour. There was a shuttle from our ship to the terminal. They leave frequently and it was only a couple of minutes ride without air conditioning. It was easy to find the spot where the tour tickets were sold - it was where there was the largest crowd of people. It was was about an hour wait after purchasing $40 one day tickets. We then took a shuttle bus that dropped us off at stop 16 on the red line. We were instructed to get off at stop 14 of the red line when we were going to return to the port. It was a bit confusing when delivered via speaker system in an accent. We waited less than 10 minutes for the combined red and blue line bus. We were lucky in that Bonnie and I were the last two to get on this bus before passengers were turned away. We were also lucky that it was Fat Tuesday as almost nothing was open and there was very little traffic. The reports from the next day indicated there was a lot of traffic and slow going on hot streets. We saw many points of interest but the descriptions were recorded and short without opportunity to ask questions. Since it was a holiday most people stayed on through the first 8 to 10 stops of parks and memorials. Buenos Aires is beautiful with its many parks and tree lined streets. Avenue 9 de Julio is impressive with 18 lanes of traffic and three or more green spaces dividing traffic. We switched from red to blue line near the shopping district (closed for the holidays) by sitting on the same bus in the sun for over 20 minutes. Bonnie and I were wilting. The blue line took us to the district of La Boca with the Tango and futbol which is a working class neighborhood or much poorer. From there we went to a totally modern district that was reclaimed from an old port area. It was glass sided high rise buildings and expensive restaurants & shops. From there it was only a few minutes back to the port district.

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