Buenos Aires, back to my home town for a year in 2012....

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Back to home! I have now lived on 4 different continents. If you have followed this blog for year, you know we lived in Buenos Aires from July 2012 to July 2013. I actually just realized that this blog has been now going on for the last 11 years!



Great year we had in Buenos Aires. It is just my first return in just 5 years...crazy to think that not a lot have changed since than...same restaurants are still opened as most shops I used to enjoy. What has changed solid is the exchange rate. Back in 2012, the "blue rate" just surfaced. This was a black market exchange rate. When we arrived, one usd was 4.5 at the official rate, and close to 6 on the black market one. A year later, the official rate was at 5.6 pesos to the USD, and the black market rate close to 9. Today, there is no more black market, but that rate is at 30 pesos to 1 USD...only 5 years later. This means most Argentinian are forced to live in constant poverty, just battling with super inflation that hit them month after month.



We stay a total of 7 nights over two stays. Imagine, the metro went like that, in one day from 7.5 pesos...to 12 pesos...how do the normal person can deal with it...they don't! On a dollar base price, it's business as normal as prices are actually pretty stable. This was the economist in me. I only managed to experience such black market rate back in Uzbekistan!



It's winter time here, we spent 7 days in Buenos Aires, but had only a single day of rain, not bad for the middle of the winter! We first had just over 36 hours in between Rio and San Pedro de Atacama. On both stay, our little crib is the Sheraton on Florida, bang in the city center next to the Pacifico shopping center. Not my prefered place in the city, but nice hotels in Recoleta are way more expensive...and on our second stay, we landed one of the three Presidential suites for 5 nights at the Sheraton Libertador. Not bad to have your own sauna in your bathroom! Would have wished to have a private kitchen, but that one didn't have one!



So we actually didn't do much. I showed the main sites to Tanya, showed her where we used to live...funny point, our landlady just went out of the flat when we were in front of the building...so we say hi and went to visit again our former flat.



Obviously, there was a lot of food and wine involved...and why not! We stopped in every single restaurant I used to like few years ago...they were all still right in action!



The bags are full of food, to bring back to home and to Russia. From here, I'm going north...and pretty soon underwater...and Tanya went back to St Petersburg for few weeks....tender kisses at the airport and we were on separate flights...it's a small world...and there is always skype!



We are planning to come back to South America in 3 to 4 years...We really need to go back to the Salta region for more wine tastings!

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Comments

[Home and Away]

It is amazing how fast time has passed!!!
I think I've been following you for most of those 11 years, and even had the pleasure of meeting you at the Denver airport in the middle of one of your marathon journeys. Keep On Blogging!

[Maisondubonheur]

Thanks a lot for your kind words Bob!
I hope your wife is doing way better. I'm just out of 10 days with zero internet connection, trust me, it feels great! Just late on something like 4 blogs....it's a small world! Yes times fly and I remember very well our dinner at Ted Turner. I realize I'm a lucky guy, my global wishlist is getting shorter by the month!