ok, i had it all basically planned out. i was going to get up, have breakfast, go to the opera house, then go to the Evita Museum for a visit and lunch.

well, i made it to the opera house, but they didn’t have any open tours for today, so i bought a ticket for Saturday. while i was in line i started to feel a bit faint, so after the purchase i sat down in the lobby for awhile. after hanging out for about 30 minutes i felt better and decided to make my way back to the apt. thankfully the subway ride was fine and i made it back safe and sound.

it was really humid and warm today so maybe that’s what made me feel ill, i’m not really sure, but after a long nap, shower and meal i am feeling better now. tomorrow i have plans to check out a ranch, so although i missed a day of sightseeing (again), i still have high hopes for my last two days!

i couldn’t have a post without a photo, so thought i’d show a little neighborhood flavor. old meets new.

it seems like just yesterday i started planning for a month long trip, and now the month is coming to an end. crazy how quickly time flies.

i have seen and done so many wonderful things during my time in Argentina, it’s been hard to capture it all, but i think i’ve managed to hit most of the highlights. of course when you talk to a local they ask if you’ve seen all the things you haven’t, and you start to wonder about all of the places you missed. guess i will just have to make notes and visit again some day.

today i had lunch with a colleague who lives here in Buenos Aires, which was a lot of fun, and that pretty much sums up my day. i caught up on email, chatted with friends, and spent some time hanging out at the park reading, which really made it feel like vacation. i’m midway through book one of the Game of Thrones series………yep, sucked me right in, and i’m going to have a hard time reading anything else for awhile.

but i only have three days left here and there is still so much i’d like to see. the Teatro Colon is the recently renovated opera house and has some of the best acoustics in the world. they offer tours, so i’m going to try and get there tomorrow. there is also the Museo Evita and the Casa de la Cultura, which someone told me i should try and get to. i’d also like to try and get out of the city to visit one of the ranches i’ve read about.

sounds like i may have to get up early the next couple of days. or, maybe i will get up when i wake up, enjoy some coffee, and see what each day brings.

side note – the photo is of some finger puppets i saw in a kids store in Colonia. there was a whole wall of them and i couldn’t resist taking pictures.

today’s activity was taking the high speed ferry over to Colonia, Uruguay. the high speed ferry takes an hour, the slow ferry takes three hours.

i didn’t know how crowded the ferry would be, so i bought my ticket last week. the buying a ticket part was pretty straight forward. since i was buying in advance i was ushered to a nice onsight travel office. when my number was called i went to the ticket agent, sat down, booked my ticket, went to the cashier, paid, and took my ticket home.

getting onto the ferry was a little more time consuming. you need to be there an hour in advance, so you have time to go through customs and check-in. the thing is, it’s not really clear what you do first. now i know you check-in downstairs, get a boarding card, then go upstairs, fill in the customs form, go through customs, get your passport stamped, and then board. plenty of coffee and snacks aboard the ferry, which was good since i missed breakfast. leaving port reminded me a little of home.

 i didn’t sign up for a Colonia tour of any kind, it looked liked it was doable via a walking tour on my own. since i was walking, i kept to the old town, but there was enough to see and do for an afternoon.

Colonia was first controlled by the Portuguese, then the Spanish, and it changed hands eight times in the 19th century. there are eight tiny museums throughout the town you can visit that talk about the town and it’s origin. the photo below is of the Convento de San Francisco ruins and the still functioning faro (lighthouse). and what trip to a lighthouse is complete without an interior stair shot?!

i just liked wandering the streets, hanging out by the water, and enjoying the quiet. my apt. in Buenos Aires is nice, but it is really loud all the rime. i had lunch at a great place called El Drugstore, very cool decor and tasty food!

lunch was so good, i saved my leftovers for dinner. when i got back to Buenos Aires i had to go through customs and sadly my leftovers were flagged, and had to be thrown away. but not before they took down my passport number and had me sign a form. am i now on some kind of list of bad US citizens that try to bring leftovers into Argentina? if i can’t get back in the US on Sunday, it is most likely due to the Great Gnocchi Conspiracy 2011.

some people seek out museums in every city they visit. i’m not that person. but that doesn’t mean i don’t enjoy the occasional visit now and again.

i was a little sore from my million mile walk yesterday, so i decided to keep my sightseeing simple and close to home today. according to the map, the Evita Museum was the closest, but closed on Monday’s. so i picked the second closest attraction which was the Malba Museum.

there were two exhibits, one by Carlos Cruz-Diez and the other was the Arte Latinoamericano display, which contained pieces from a variety of different artists. the photo below is part of the Carlos Cruz-Diez exhibit and it’s made of plexiglas.

there was also this cool bench which joined the second and third floors. sorry for not giving artist credit, i forgot to write down the artists name.

in addition to a little artistic enlightenment, i also enjoyed lunch at the outdoor cafe. a nice way to spend part of the day.

i feel like i walked all over the city today. i started the day by walking through the San Telmo flea market.

the market started around 10 AM, so i headed out around 9:15 not knowing how long it would take me to get there. i managed to get there a little before 10, so i was in good shape, i got there ahead of the swarm. it was more a combination of a flea market and arts & craft fair. it felt like a mile of Telegraph Ave. with all it’s street artists, ending in a plaza with a flea market. there were lots of antique shops and art galleries along the way as well. the paper mâché fish caught my eye along with the brightly colored seltzer bottles.

 after wandering through a ton of antique stalls and being overwhelmed by too much incense, i figured it was time for lunch. i headed to El Americana, a place known for……you guessed it, empanadas!

i was a little directionally challenged after leaving the market and ended up going completely out of the way before i finally found the place. at one point while walking the wrong direction, i turned around to look for a street sign and surprise, there was the National Congress building.

the empanadas were mighty tasty, i tried a choclo (corn) one today in addition to the verdura (greens/spinach) which seems to be my go-to empanda.

i got home without any trouble and took a short rest before heading out once again. this time i was off to find the El Alamo sports bar.

on the way to the bar i happened across what seemed to be a human statue contest. you know, like the guys who paint themselves silver and when you put money in the hat they move. there were a bunch of them and you could vote on your favorite. random, but fun to see.

i enjoyed watching the Raiders beat the Jets with two other Oakland fans. after three weeks of being the lone English speaker, it was odd being in a place that was completely full of people speaking English watching a US sport. odd, but felt like home.

another nice thing about not being on a tour is that i didn’t have anywhere to be at a certain time. it took some time for me to get into the true vacation mindset, but once i did i embraced it fully.

i slept in late, had breakfast of a non-cornflake variety, and enjoyed some coffee while reading on my balcony. the photo below is the view from my balcony. i didn’t enjoy as much coffee as i would have liked, i thought the coffee provided was instant, it wasn’t. total waste of good coffee.

i finally made my way out into the world around 1 PM to seek out a vegetarian restaurant called Bio i had heard about. i found it without a problem, and finally had a good meal that didn’t have any bread or cheese included. if i was staying closer to Bio i’d go back for sure.

it was a nice day, so after lunch i went to the zoo. i like going to the zoo in other countries because they have different animals than we do. there were a ton of these guys, which are Mara and they’re like rabbits.

the cutest little things i saw were Mono Titi, a kind of spider monkey and they were hilarious. i couldn’t get a good shot, but grabbed this one off the internet.

lots of llamas, ostrich, flamingos, monkeys, big cats and bears as well. they also had some penguins, i knew i’d get to see them on this trip somehow!

Mono Tiki photo courtesy of fotonostra.com

touring around is a lot of fun, but i have to admit, being in an apartment and unpacked is awesome. for the first time in 20 days i have clothes in drawers and hanging in the closet.

i have a cute studio in the Palermo district, and the only downfall i can see so far is that i’m on a fairly busy street. there seems to be a constant stream of traffic throughout the day, which i’m hoping will die down later in the evening. it’s also not super close to the subway, but the walk isn’t too bad.

after i got settled in, i made my way to the La Recoleta Cemetery where Eva Peron is buried. now here is where i thought i’d hear Don’t Cry for me Argentina, but it didn’t happen, everyone was most respectful.

i do love walking around a cemetery, especially one like this. it sounds a little odd, but i could spend hours wandering, and i did.

 

my hours of wandering made me a little hungry so i stopped off at San Juanino, a little spot recommended for it’s tasty treats from different regions. i stuck with this region and had a couple of empanadas and a salad.

i meandered back toward home and stopped off at the market to pick up some staples. shopping was a bit of a challenge, the labels weren’t always clear and i didn’t bring my dictionary. i think i did ok, guess i’ll know for sure tomorrow when i make breakfast!

the last scheduled tour of my trip was dinner and a tango show. i knew going in it was going to be touristy. but i figured it’s ok, i’m a tourist, and i usually enjoy a little dinner theater.

the pick-up was scheduled for 8:30 PM, and knowing everything runs late, i wasn’t too concerned when they were 15 minutes late. 15 turned into 30, 30 into 45, then i figured i’d better check in. thanks to Doris at the front desk for getting to the bottom of the situation.

well seems the shuttle driver went to the wrong hotel, and i needed to take a cab to the show. i got a surly taxi driver who overcharged me, but got to the show in plenty of time, and the restaurant paid for the cab.

i was supposed to order off a preset menu, but since i’m a vegetarian they had to make some accommodations. i didn’t go hungry, but i’m pretty sure i’m a walking cheese ball. cheese plate & salad for a starter, followed by cheese ravioli for dinner. dinner was accompanied by a half bottle of a decent red wine and a glass of champagne…..nice.

the show was actually pretty good, but my pictures are terrible. hard to get good moving shots in the dark. just pretend these are “artistic”.

 

earlier in the day i went on a boat trip through the Tigre Delta. Tigre is a town in the Buenos Aires province, not to be confused with the city of Buenos Aires. the town received the name because if you see it from the air it looks like a tiger head. that is one story, the other is that at one time there were tigers (actually jaguars) in the region, brought in from North America.

it was a fun little trip in spite of the rain. it´s been a long time since i´ve been to our Delta, but this reminded me more of swamp land and the houses are built up on stilts like you often see in Hawaii. you can purchase a home for as little as $25k or go really big for $125k.

 

 

seems like a good deal until you have really bad weather, then you could end up with this.

 

people living on the islands can only get to/from via boat, and there are no businesses on the island. they either work in the city or they make goods and sell them at the port.

interesting place to live, but i think i´ll stick to my place on dry land.

first things first…… today is the 21st, which means, Happy Birthday Dad!!

today i head back to Buenos Aires. if i´ve understood everything correctly, the airport is open, my flight is confirmed, and i have a shuttle to the airport.

in theory it all sounds easy, let´s just hope the reality is just as easy!

post flight update:

the flight was only 40 minutes late which was pretty good all things considered. what wasn’t great was the fact that the Buenos Aires airport was extremely short staffed and it took over an hour to get our luggage. had it taken any longer you might have been watching luggage riots of Buenos Aires on the news, it was getting mighty heated and ugly in baggage claim, let me tell you.

tomorrow is the last day of my tour, i have a boat ride and a tango show on the agenda. on Saturday i’m off to my apartment in Palermo. the time has really flown by, i can’t believe week three is almost over, seems like i just got here.

photo courtesy of myfoodgeek.com

the journey today was from Bariloche to San Martin de Los Andes, a mere 225 miles each way. oh come on, after a 28 hour bus ride this was a piece of cake.

originally i was supposed to be in Bariloche for two nights, San Martin for one, and then back to Buenos Aires. due to the airport closure and the lengthy bus ride, my plans were changed. i’m staying in Bariloche three nights and they gave me this tour to San Martin so i could see the area.

it was all very picturesque, but sadly a great deal is still covered in ash. we stopped off in a little town for a stretch and a coffee before we hit the first national park, and they are still trying to recover from the volcano.

 

at first you don’t realize it’s ash, it almost looks like dirty snow. then on closer look, you see it’s a very fine dust. it kind of reminds me of the Nevada desert, baby powder like, chalky in color, and gets everywhere. the govt./military are still there helping people clean roads, land, and uncovering buildings.

we went through three national parks and saw seven different lakes along the way. here are two of the seven.