South for the Summer: Buenos Aires

I arrived in Buenos Aires around 10am, at which point I had to take another bus to the Ezeiza int’l airport to meet my mom. I was so fortunate to be able to see my mom after being so sick in a foreign country; it was literally the most consoling thing.

My mom and I spent our first week in Buenos Aires in an apartment we rented located right downtown, in the hustle and bustle of it all. Our studio apartment’s only window, a sliding glass door, looked out on the pedestrian walkway Calle Florida, lined with all kinds of shops, street vendors and restaurants. Unfortunately, the first three days I spent in Buenos Aires, I had to spend watching my mom enjoy the food and drink…while I ate white rice and drank water and juice. However, after three days on the meds, and spending nearly an entire day sleeping, I was feeling better, and we went out for our first official dinner together, and it was an awesome return to eating real food! I definitely realized that I would never be able to starve myself…I was just so hungry the entire time. I certainly made up for the not eating with all the eating I did as soon as I could eat. Honestly, most of my BA pictures are of food, and meals, haha!

My mom and I spent the first few days relaxing, and walking around some of the historic/tourist sights around our neighborhood, mainly the Plaza de Mayo, Gallerias Pacifico, the obelisco, and Plaza San Martin. We then decided to try out this tourist bus, that operates by a hop-on, hop-off system and has 20 different stops at the most touristy sights in the city. I DO NOT recommend this bus to anyone, it was called “Buenos Aires Bus,” and it was big and yellow. First of all, the bus was always late, but never late on a consistent time interval, it just basically came whenever, regardless of the advertised schedule. The company says the bus comes every 20-30minutes, however, there was one morning when we waited for over an hour (after that I tried to get my money back, which didn’t work, but they did give us an extension). The timing thing wouldn’t be that bad if it was spring or summer, however, we were in BA at the end of winter, and it was freezing cold and rainy there for a couple of days, it even got to below 0ºC during the night. Not pleasant when you have wait for a bus. On top of all that, the bus was horribly designed, it had an open top with tons of seats, but the lower level, which was inside, only had about 12 seats. The bus workers were sending people up top even though it was freezing and raining…so not cool. The actual tour on the bus itself was ok, but not the best, they just gave you headphones and you’d listen along as the bus passed some important landmarks. The bus tour that I did in Arequipa was way cooler, despite the cold at night!

We did manage to get to a couple of cool places on the bus, when we first used it. Namely to the Caminito in La Boca, the casino, which is on a boat! The Caminito is one of the oldest parts of BA, where early immigrants settled. It has a ton of character due to the colorful tin houses, the cobblestone streets, and the belle époque style restaurants and buildings; all of this lining the waterfront. I can only imagine how nice it must be to hang out their during the summer. My mom and I had a really nice set lunch there at a restaurant called “La Perla.”

Buenos Aires truly has good food and great restaurants. A lot of them offer a set lunch for around 40-60 pesos Argentinos ($10-15), which is usually at least three courses, if not more, with wine included, and they have healthy options on their menus….I was quite happy!

Anyways, check out my first week pics:

View of the pedestrian Calle florida outside our apartment

First thing my mom did - headed to a hotel (the marriott, which was actually really nice) for a cosmopolitan. Any beverage you ordered there came with all those snacks.