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Published: January 27th 2009
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Exploring Buenos Aires, the “City of Faded Elegance”
PS. On the last entry I attempted to enter a video of Igauzo Falls. Apparently, this attempt failed, so I am attempting to enter the video again on this entry. hope it works.
As you walk through the streets of Buenos Aires, it would be easy to sort of squint, blur your vision, and imagine that you are walking through any number of European cities. First of all, the residents don’t look like indians or natives; they dress in a more Euopean/western fashion. The architecture of the buildings, the layout of streets, public squares, and so forth evokes a very different feel than that of Rio de Janeiro. Not quite European, but not South American, either.
The main street is 9 Julio; reputed to be the widest street in the world. It is two 7 lane wide streets separated by a wide center median. Then on either side, is another 2 lane frontage road separated by a median. So this street is 18 lanes wide, with 3 medians. It is a real hike to get across it in one walk light cycle!!
In the main shopping part of downtown
Ruins of the community
Jesuit community was partially restored in the past few years, restoration continues as a World Heritage Site there is an armed policeman on nearly every downtown corner, and at all banks, money changing places, and most big building and hotel entrances. Didn’t see any crime, but I did see a lot of policemen and guards.
Much of Buenos Aires seems run down; there are lots of buildings which appear to have been quite elegant when they were new, but are now just old and poorly maintained. On the other hand, there are new well maintained buildings, and there seems to be a lot of street and sidewalk maintenance taking place.
Argentina is the home of the Parrilla, a restaurant specializing in grilled meat, although all Argentine restaurants seem to specialize in meat dishes. We ate at several and were not disappointed. One lunch, for about $5.00 US, included about ¾ lb. of roast prime rib with fries. What a deal!!
Buenos Aires is also famous for the Tango, so Oasis (our Truck Tour operator) arranged for tango lessons for the group at our hostel one evening, and then the party animals on the Truck went out dancing. It was also our truck guide’s birthday.
Other than eating meat, which was in scarce supply
on the Truck Menu, we used the 4 days we were here to catch up on laundry and internet. We also visited the Belle Arts Museum, which has a fine collection of European and Argentine art. Some of the group took an overnight bus trip to a big soccer game.
On Saturday, some of us bought ferry tickets to Uruguay to visit the town of Colonia de Sacremento. Colonia is a 3 hour ferry ride across the chocolate colored Rio de La Plata from Buenos Aires.
A one day trip from one country to another is sometimes a struggle at the border, but the Argentine and Uruguay governments seem to have worked that out pretty well. They stamp you in and out at the same time before you get on the boat. Argentina has xray machines for luggage, but it is clear that they aren’t paying any attention to the contents of your luggage, and the metal detector I walked through didn’t do anything.
We took a short bus and walking tour of the city, looked at the old city wall and some scenic cobbled streets and a very nice old church. That pretty much covers it.
9 de Julio Street
The widest street in the world, 3 medians and a total of 18 driving lanes The city seems prosperous, clean, and safe, but frankly I think we covered the whole city in an hour.
Colonia is the oldest city in Uruguay, was founded around 1700 by the Spanish, later occupied by the Portuguese, and at one point invaded by the English. The city is in the process of being restored and promoted as a tourist destination. It was a pleasant little community without really having anything to make it much of an attraction, other than being right across the river from Buenos Aires (it is still a 3 hour ferry ride to get there, however.) Our guide promoted the city as having fine beaches, but frankly they looked a lot like mud flats, and the water along the beaches, being river water, is sort of a chocolate brown. There were people swimming in the water but it didn’t look particularly inviting.
So we had a nice early dinner at a touristy place called “The Drugstore” and caught the ferry back to Buenos Aires with one more country stamp in our passports!!
Tomorrow we leave for another long, 3 day drive to the Southernmost city in South America, Ushaia (sp).
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