Heaven on earth and other things..

The previous post on this series is here..

Our original flight from Iguazu to Buenos Aires was supposed to leave at 6PM to a local BA airport. We were to go from that aiport to the hotel, sleep and wake up at 5AM and leave in the morning for our flight to Rio.

We had just rested after a long day of seeing both sides of the falls in one day (being wet all day) and woke up to news that our flight in the evening is delayed or possibly cancelled because of severe weather. 

Martin came to the rescue and said "just go to the airport now and see if any flights have seats left". So we packed in a rush from the Airbnb and went to IGR airport. The other airlines said they will give us a refund but that wasn't going to solve our problems if we were stuck in Iguazu! So we went to all other (two in total) airline counters at that airport and found that one local airline had 4 seats left for the next flight. We booked it right there and took off to BA. It was the best decision we made.

We got to check in and spend an evening on the Ricoleta side of Buenos Aires. We took a local map and walked around. I really wanted to see at least two places.. the Colon theater (which was ruled out as we needed prior arrangements to go inside) and El Ataneo, which we did walk and see.

Buenos Aires is beautiful. People are nice. We walked around the parks, took a "bench photo"

saw pitcher plants being sold on the side of the street in carts (nice natural way to keep out insects in the homes! this would be a big hit in India was my thought)

walked past beautiful buildings

had some hot drinks in the local cafe's

went and saw the bookstore that got the title of "worlds most beautiful bookstore" from National Geographic..

For a book worm who loves the smell of new books, this was defnitely heaven. This store used to be a famous theater where the likes of Carlos Gardel had once performed..(you can go read up on Gardel.. he features in my Ph.D thesis dedication). They have retained most of the theater and made an amazing book store! This is a must see if you go visit Buenos Aires..

Then we walked back to the hotel and took an Uber to eat at one of the best local Indian restaurants in BA. I liked it. The family had very high expectations and the waiter did mess up our order and got us one wrong dish and claimed this was what we ordered. Eventually they got us the right dish. Masoor daal is not a fav in this house and that was completely wasted. Yello daal tadka, we will devour any day! It was also too dark inside. Candlelight may be good for a romantic atmosphere but you still need to see who you are romancing. 

All said and done the family gave the restaurant an above average rating. For a guy who was already craving desi food after 4 days in Argentina, this was great! I gave it an A. 

After that dinner and debate on the food, we Ubered to our hotel and had a nice rest. The flight change worked in our favor. The next morning we had an uneventful trip from BA to Rio!

will pick up the travelog in Rio tomorrow..

Old city charm and an odd Obelisk

The previous post in this series on our travel in Buenos Aires is here..

For some reason, I decided to use iPhone photos for the most part, that too without any processing and my FIL promptly told me that my photos are usually a visual treat and my standards are going down.

Given few people still read this blog, decided to use nicely cropped, edited photos for this post. It is still mostly iPhone photos. Hope it gets the bar back up again..even if slightly..

After the cemetery visit, we drove to La Boca, which is not an upscale neighborhood but is one of the oldest places in Buenos Aires that was populated, mainly by waves of immigrants. There is an old world charm in this place that is very unique! Parts of it, the walls, the doors and windows reminded me of walking around old neighborhoods in Mylapore. In fact one of the steets brougt back memories of TSV Kovil street. My brain does a number on me when in new places and connects random things. So walked around in a daze absorbing the sights, sounds and smells.

one of my favorite shots on this trip!

Caminito was interesting.. with the center piece being an ice cream shop. There was a long line so we skipped the ice cream. We were also on the clock for the private tour. 

this photo courtesy of our tour guide who was trying to direct folks to be out of the shot.. he did a great job!

Then we moved on to San Telmo area and the market. The entire place was full of antique shops. Old books, LP's, cameras that went extinct, Simpson's bobble head dolls, crazy stuff that used to be in the last bottom row in Navarathri golus when I was a small boy.. it was amazing!

we went into a lane that had these umbrellas.. it had more of a French vibe to it than the Spanish vibe we expected.. the place started getting crowded, given there were offices there.. we managed to take a few photos 

Once the crowd saw what I was doing with the next shot, everyone was trying to copy it.. was telling the family that I take it as a compliment and am not the least bit offended.

After the family decided to eat some empanadas at one of San Telmo's hottest places, we made a move to see the Obelisk and what is dubbed the Times Square of Buenos Aires.

There was no parking, so our guide stopped the car on the road side and said "10 minutes is all I can wait if you want to run across and take pictures".. and we did manage to do that and get back, jump in the car and go back to our hotel area. 

this whole obelisk thing was weird. It was in the middle of the busiest part of the city and the barricades and barriers around it made it less appealing. There were too many walking signals around and the pedestrian and car traffic was a disaster waiting to happen. Also there is no way to get a decent shot of us and the Obelisk given the short distance in front of it. The locals seemed to be very happy with the monument.. we were all wondering how it fit with the rest of the area.. it stuck out like a sore obelisk!

the kids never share their pics with me.. and I am definitely not allowed in their social media circle.. but I do have these type of memories.. watching them grow into confident young women!

we stopped at a few more places to take photos of monuments (our time was up and I made a request.. so it was nice of our guide to do this!) 

we even stopped by the area where all the big hotels are.. the lobby decorations in Buenos Aires are interesting..

We thanked our guide who was a really nice person and ate leftovers from what we had packed for lunch at the hotel. Had to finish the food anyways as we were to check out. We had two hours to spend before our ride to the airport. San and the little one stayed in the hotel restaurant after checking out.  Jr. and myself decided to go back to the waterfront to get a taste of the famous Luciano's ice cream. It was a 40 minute walk one way but we made it, had ice cream and got back in time to catch our ride to the airport... only after coming back to the US did we realize that this ice cream is from California but has become very popular in Buenos Aires!! 

the dulce de leche here is apparently a hit.. so we had to get a taste of it. It was yummmmmmmmmyyy!

we walked past the boats (which were museums .. didn't realize it the previous evening!)

We made it in time for our flight.. but it was late. So we ended up in the crowded airport for an extra two painful hours before finally boarding for Porto Iguazu..

A video for the last part of the city tour. We covered a lot of places in 4 and a half hours! 

Would definitely recommend this private guided tour of Buenos Aires through Viator. Our guide was Martin and he was a really sincere guide! Not sure if you can ask for him through Viator tours. . . 

We said bye to Buenos Aires as there was not going to be any more walking around the city.. we had no idea.. 

The whole trip was all about Iguazu falls. Have way too many photos and videos to process from the next day of the trip. The next post on this series will have to wait..

A beautiful flag and an interesting Cemetery..

The previous post on our visit to Argentina is here..

The second morning in BA, we started with some pictures in the hotel room (the attention to detail and the decor in our hotel was lovely!), had a nice breakfast at our hotel (they had really good yoghurt.. katti thachchi.. as it is known in our house) and were picked up on time by our private tour guide in his car.

We drove first to the Plaza de Mayo, the historic square. We got a history lesson, saw a really beautiful flag with the sun in the flag masking the real sun behind it. Then our guide gave us 20 minutes to go inside the cathedral and come back. 

The place was not crowded at all given it was a week day and a busy end of the year working day. This cathedral is beautiful!

Took a good 10-15 mintues to try and get the real sun to overlap the sun in the flag.. also my eyes started watering after staring at it through the lens.. our guide and the family was getting upset with this obsession to get a picture.. had to walk off.. sometimes time constraints and photography conflict.. went with the flow and moved on.

This was followed by a drive through the city to the Recoleta area. This place had a unique one of a kind cemetery where all the rich and famous were buried or entombed. It was like a collection of miniature Taj Mahal's in one place.. No simpler way to describe it. We did have to wait a few minutes to get entry tickets for the Cemetery (it was not included in the tour price and the ticket was pricey!)

War heroes to miliary generals to popular businessmen and their families.. you can find them all here in row after row of tombs!

The highlight was a Chemistry Nobel winners tomb and Eva Peron's tomb which came with a long story. I was impressed that both Jr. and the little one knew who she was! My tour guide was impressed with my knowledge but once I mentioned the movie Evita, he was not impressed..maybe I should have said "I learned that in history class!"

Apparently these tied up toilet papers were a sign of luck.. as was touching the nose of a dog statue.. the nose of the dog was shining because of all the folks who had rubbed it! (you can see it in the video)

After that we walked across the Cemetery to a 200 year old rubber tree and the "Before-After" picture collection that was in front of the tree. Watch out for dogs not on leash in this area. San had a tough time running all over the place and hiding behind me at the sight of every loose dog. 

A short video of the places covered in this post..

We were off to our next stop on the private tour which was also interesting.. will cover that in the next post. 

An evening in Buenos Aires

The first post on this trip is here..

Before I start writing about our first evening in Buenos Aires, a few things for my fellow travelers. We went to BA with a stop over at Mexico city from SFO. 

For some strange reason, there is no concept of transit in Mexico City airport. Given every page in my passport is precious (and every renewal costs time and money), I like to avoid unnecessary stamping. We were not given a choice after landing in Mexico city and were directed to go through immigration. Luckily there were no baggage to transfer or we would not have made it. All we had was carry on bags! 

We stood in a long line (which moved okay) and there were most confused international travelers and no one to answer their questions. I asked the immigration officer why we had to get a stamp when we were clearly transit passengers and he acted like he didn't understand me. The family was pulling my jacket saying "don't start something you will regret. Let's go to the next gate as fast as possible!".. so off we went. 

Mexico city seems to be sprawling and beautiful from the sky! Someday we have to visit the place and see what sights are there to see around it. 

We did get to spend 30 minutes in a lounge as our connection was a little late. There we were introduced to what I call "Corn kuzhal".. basically thenkuzhal made with corn flour. It was tasty! Surprisingly have never had this before in the US.

We landed in BA and it was raining like crazy! Took an Uber to our hotel, Faena, which was located in what was being described by the cab driver as kind of a Bandra of BA called Porto Madera.  Land reclaimed from the water and fancy residences, and commercial real estate built on it. Apparently Messi had his apartment in this area (we were thinking.. sure Messi probably has apartments all over BA)! Our kids are not easy to impress as the driver soon found out. 

The hotel was fantastic. There was a catch. No microwave, hot water kettle or Fridge in the room. The staff brings you hot water, warms up any food you give to them to put in their common fridge.. you get the idea. They were very courteous and nice, but you had to give them a 10 minute heads up. It still worked out okay. 

We had warm idlis and packed pulav for lunch, made an early dinner reservation at Marcelos , a fine Italian place on the river front (where we were told there are veggie options) and had two hours to spend to walk around the riverfront. 

We sat at a local restaurant chain called La Panera Rosa (with pink umbrellas!) and had tea and hot chocolate.. interestingly, in BA, they call it a SubMarino where they give you frothy milk and a bar of Cocoa which you have to drop into the tall glass and stir.. it drops to the bottom and rises like a submarine is our guess... 

They put locks on the wires around the bridges.. we didn't get to ask anyone on why.. it did look pretty.

It was very windy and nice and we walked on both sides of the river, had a great dinner and headed back to the hotel. 

The view from our table was amazing!

The little one had had enough and wanted to rest.

We still had the rest of the night. So we made plans after dropping her to go on a night to remember.. 

Buenos Aires is beautiful! 

A short video of the evening..

The day before we flew out, the Peso had dropped to 50% of its value. We did not know how that would impact our trip. We did find that most things like Uber rides were really cheap. Food in fancy places were as pricey as expected. The people we interacted with were going about their lives, but they were very hospitable and extremely nice to tourists. We really enjoyed the local people and their culture. It was lovely. Just for that alone, would recommend folks visit this city!

Independent India

We left Mumbai in the wee hours of Independence day. Every trip to India, especially the metros shows how rapidly the country is changing (On this trip we visited Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai).

The Mumbai we visited 3 years ago and the Mumbai today shows a marked difference. The "goshala" which was visible from the apartment window is now an 18 story building. The sunset from the 6th floor window is not an available sight anymore. There are 4 high rises between the window and the sun.

There is a 6 story mall in Chembur that beats the local mall here in Cupertino hands down. Similar stores, similar prices, same "sales" and "deals", International food courts with popular Indian food chains thrown in, movie theaters with seat reservations and reclining seats and digital projection, Cleaning crews that regularly clean the floors every 5 minutes, paid parking lots, super clean restrooms, etc. etc.

India has also caught up or gone farther than the USA on some of the bad stuff. There is a security check with two metal detectors and a guard and a frisking booth to enter a mall. Same thing for any big restaurant, public park, etc. etc. The population should have gotten used to being checked and frisked at least 4-5 times a day as part of the daily routine.

The big cities have also learnt how to segregate the poor and hide them from the eyes of visitors for the most part. In the US, you don't see poor people in the suburbs. If you go to San Francisco you see homeless folks and beggars but not in huge numbers. The last visit to Mumbai had lots of poor folks trying to make a living and lots of beggars everywhere you went, from the airport to the busy road sides. This trip we did not see beggars. It is like they have all disappeared or relocated! The poor folks trying to sell trinkets to make a living were still there.

Still this experience stood out..

5-7 years ago when I was more hot blooded and less pragmatic, there would have been a different reaction to this 5-6 year old kid selling Indian flag pins few days before Independence day on a busy road where he was risking his life to make a few bucks (in all probability for someone else). Now that I am older and more sober to the reality of the world the way it is today, was content enough to pin the flags on my little girls and watch the smile on the kids face as he took the 10 rupee note.

If the poor go out of sight, they will soon go out of mind, if it is not the situation already!

The young twenty somethings in the metros who have salaries that allow them to spend and go to malls, especially with the lifestyle of living with their parents have become "americanized", not only in how they talk, dress, eat, shop, but also with the way they seem to treat the poor as unfashionable.

In the US it is okay to wait tables, it is okay to be part of a clean up crew as a "summer job" or a means to make a few bucks. I know kids who work the local grocery store as clerks and the local movie theater here at the ticket booth whose parents are well to do. That needs to catch up in India. That way there is a respect for everyone who does any job. That would be a welcome change.

A kid like that going to school and selling trinkets as a part time job from a safe store on the sidewalk would be an equally welcome change!

More travelogs to follow...

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