Blogs from Buenos Aires, Argentina, South America - page 23

My friend had to replace her passport so we followed her to a local airport to do so. It was my first time seeing an airport with a centre, albeit a small one, providing passport services. Maybe they do exist in other countries and I've just never seen them before. It made perfect sense though, to have a centre in an airport. After all, that's where people need passports the most. Then, we drove through parts of downtown to Peru beach, which I thought was ironic since we were in Argentina. It was a small secluded area overlooking Rio de la Plata, the widest river in the world. It has a maximum width of 220km (!!) As mentioned in one of my previous post, it had a dirty yellow colour. Despite that foreboding and uninviting colour, ... read more

Took a bus tour today around Buenos Aires. I really enjoyed it. The city centre (or downtown, as my friend calls it) is very different from the Buenos Aires that I've seen in the past few days. One thing I've learnt from today was that BA has great architectures. The buildings are made from the French era and whatnot, reminding me of upperclass areas in developed countries. Trees line every street in the city, giving shade to the streets and its passer-bys. Sitting on the rooftop of the bus, the streets look very picturesque. We passed by various monuments and key buildings of the city. As BA is a huge city, I thought the bus was a good way to see the city. The only downside is that you only have 5 seconds or less to ... read more

We went to Paraná Delta today and had lunch there. I went to my first of many (hopefully) parrilla. I had a delicious beef sandwich called lomito. The delta was filled with shops and restaurants. There were many stalls selling trinkets and furniture and glasses and anything you could imagine. Throngs of people stroll about, afterall, it is a nice sunny Sunday in winter. We took a cruise along Rio Parana de las Palmas. The river is a dirty yellow colour but ironically, the colour isn't caused by dirt, but rather that is its natural colour. There were many houses with their own piers along the rivers. There are many established rowing clubs along the river as well. Canoes, rowing boats, speed boats, other tourist boats like ours could be seen along the river. The houses ... read more

Spent the entire previous day travelling and waiting. From Edinburgh to London to Paris and finally Buenos Aires. I like travelling. As in the travelling part of travelling. Waiting around in airports, queuing up to board the plane...I feel at home for some reason. We touched down in Buenos Aires in the morning and got picked up by friends who flew here earlier in the week. It was exciting, being in a continent that I've never been to before, yet when I look out of the car, it feels the same. It looks like the streets in Jakarta, in Moshi, in Phuket. They are the same, yet vastly different. We spent the whole day doing nothing. I exercised, napped, ate, planned to go out but ended up staying in to sleep more. What a productive day. ... read more

Nick: As wonderfully refreshing as the near-freezing beers routinely served up in Brazil are, it is certainly not a country in which it one can easily lay hands on a good glass of wine. Consequently, after the best part of two weeks in the country we did find ourselves hankering for our preferred tipple; what good fortune, then, that we should now find ourselves in Argentina, the land of Malbec! We arrived into the country via Buenos Aires international airport late on Thursday evening. Finding a taxi service and paying our fare up front was straightforward enough, but we somehow contrived to spend a hot and bothering fifteen minutes or so locating the car and driver! In fairness, we were not helped by the frenetic nature of the airport, which was a fairly busy and cramped ... read more