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..

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!