Buenos Aires

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Buenos Aires...

Now, I'm not going to pretend to be some kind of expert or anything like that, as I've spent less than 3 days here. But here are a few things that I found interesting and thought may be of interest to others...

1.When you arrive at the airport it seems a bit chaotic. Especially after a long flight, when you are quite tired. I needed to stop, take a breath, and relax... You have to fill in an immigration form thing, get your bag, change your money, go through customs (which involves another form being filled in, a big queue and a bad scanning session) and then you're free to explore the city.

2.We stayed at a really good hostel called America del Sud who will pick up from the airport. Really clean place. Good location, although the city is massive, so there are probably lots of good locations... It is worth checking out anyway.

3.The city seemed very safe and secure, from what I saw. There were a few political things going on here and there and there are poorer areas dotted around some of the attractions like La Boca, but I never felt unsafe.

4.To me, the city lacked a certain Latin American feel that for example Lima has. It is like Barcelona in style and art, a lot of Italian influence on the food, very USA on the grid system thing and the massively wide roads... There are many different languages spoken on the streets. However, wandering into San Telmo, to one of the squares with Tango shows and flee markets, this element comes out a little. Very pleasant. I think to have discovered the real Buenos Aires I would have needed a while longer.

5.Places I visited... San Telmo, as mentioned above, was great. La Boca was very interesting. Very colourful. Great for photos. A good day out. Although if you walk there, like we did, be prepared to see some rather run-down looking areas, or at least which look run down to us lot... I'm not saying don't walk there though, as I think it is good to see all aspects of a city, or the real city, if you like. There are some nice buildings to see off Plaza de Mayo. Recoleta is... well... strange. Or was to me anyway. A cemetery being a tourist attraction doesn't seem quite right somehow. This is where the grave of Eva Peron is which is why we went (David loves her 😊 ). Florida is a big shopping street off Plaza de Mayo, we didn't do any shopping but I'm guessing this is the place to go if you want to buy things... It is VERY busy!

Anyway, this is all for now. I hope to go back and explore more sometime in the next year. 😊

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