Jen had pre-booked a city tour with an English speaking guide. The documents said it started at 9am outside this cafe/bar place so we had an early start. We successfully obtained cash from the ATM and successfully hailed a taxi. We had not really thought much about language issues before we came. Everyone speaks English don’t they?  Well no. Not in Argentina. They speak Spanish here.  Jen had found that the map reference for the address on the city tour documents didn’t quite match the location, which was lucky. She showed the driver the address and he did his GPS. All good until it got to the GPS destination but that was 5 or 6 blocks seaweed from where we were going. The driver was quite old but really really nice, especially when he found out we were from NZ. Eventually we got to a cafe, which is part of the Buenos Aires Mercedes franchise.  It was 9.05am. There was no bus. It was freezing.

After several attempts Jen managed to contact the bus company who advised the pick up was at 9.45am outside that cafe. The pick ups began with the fist hotel at 9am. Fortunately we were outside a cafe!  At 9.40 we went outside. Almost all streets in Buenos Aires are one way. This one was 5 lanes wide and there were bus stops on the other side outside this building that looks like a cross between the Acropolis and Auckland museum. Evidently it is the university law school. Sure enough the bus came to the bus stop and the driver frantically waved us a cross the road. Everyone else unloaded for a leg stretch and to see the giant metal flower in the park next door. It is operated by solar panels and on a fine day completely opens out. It was cloudy so just a bit open but very cool.

Our guide was a pleasant young woman with very good English which she used sparingly. We were the only non Spanish speakers in the group of 15 travellers. We got the English translation of the main themes interspersed with the Spanish commentary but clearly we missed much of what was going on. Nevertheless we had an interesting view of central Buenos Aires and its traffic.

There are numerous monuments, most of which seem to have been gifted by other countries in 1910 for the first centenary of the republic. Many presidents and admirals and what have you. There are also lots and lots of parks and the streets are lined with trees. Mainly Plane trees. It’s all very leafy and rather grand in places with large French and Spanish palaces dotted here and there.

There are also heaps of dog walkers with their clutch of up to a dozen dogs on leads. They find themselves a bit of park and either let the dogs play or tether them to posts in the ground. Some parks have fenced areas for them to run around in. There were quite a few large retriever sized dogs and they all seemed quite happy and relaxed. They have a lot of dedicated dog parks also which are fully fenced and have a pooping area.

The drivers are not particularly relaxed. The traffic is horrendous and the lanes seem to be just for guidance. The main central road is the widest avenue in the world and is about 20-30 or so lanes with half in one direction and half in the other. Evidently they demolished an entire grid block of buildings that extends about 2 kilometres. Still they get clogged and everything grinds to a halt. 

We passed the Recoleta cemetery and church (see separate post) and numerous embassies. We went to the football stadium and then to this very colourful neighbourhood called Caminito which was cool. It was a poorer neighbourhood on either side of train tracks that fell into disrepair when the railway closed. A local artist decided to rejuvenate the area by painting everything as public art and it clearly worked. It is now very touristy with loads of arts and crafts places.

We bought an empanadas (like a Cornish pastie) which was nice but could have had another 30s in the microwave. Still it was plenty for lunch.

We also went down past the dock area which is Buenos Aires’ equivalent to the Viaduct Basin. Our guide thought it was the most beautiful and safe neighbourhood and clearly had aspirations but Jen and I were not entirely sure which buildings she found so pretty.

We also went past some pretty squalid brick ‘apartments’ under a motorway which looked uncomfortable even if they did have satellite TVs. No commentary was offered re them.

We finished the tour outside a large shopping mall but they dropped us closer to Recoleta so that we could walk back to the cemetery. That was probably a 15 block walk which did us good. We negotiated crossing the huge road ok. There are plenty of controlled crossings. Then checked out some bag shops. Prices are quite reasonable here even in the higher end boutiques. Haven’t committed to buy anything though!

Jen had read about this bookstore that is in a converted theatre so we took a slight detour and went in for a look. It was worth it.  What a beautiful space. If I had found a book in English I’d have bought it