Well, it´s time to resurrect this puppy.
As many of you know, I´m in Argentina for the next 5 weeks with Erin. We´re heading all over the country during our first jaunt to the Southern Hemisphere.
We arrived late Sunday morning to find that Erin´s bag didn´t make it. Fortunately, they said that the bag was still in Dallas (evidently a 2.5 hour layover was insufficient) and that it would be here today (Monday), and sure enough, they delivered it to our hotel this afternoon.
Sunday was relatively low-key for us, as we obviously didn´t get a ton of sleep on the plane overnight. We took a fairly long nap upon our arrival at the hotel in Buenos Aires, and then went out and toured the downtown area of the city. We saw the widest street in the world (according to the Argentines, anyway), called the Avenida 9 de julio, which in places has 11 lanes going in each direction. We saw the Casa Rosada (pink house), where the head of government lives, and for fans of Hollywood and show tunes, where Evita addressed empassioned throngs from the balcony back in the 40´s. We also went in the Catedral Metropolitano, which is the primary cathedral of the city. Otherwise, we walked around a lot, and had our first bottle of Argentine wine, for about $5. I haven´t seen a single bottle on a menu here that is over $30 US.
Today, we saw two of the more posh neighborhoods in the city, called Recoleta and Palermo. Recoleta has a famous cemetary, in which many famous porteños (residents of BsAs) are buried, including Evita herself, as well as past presidents and military leaders. It is basically a small city unto itself, as everyone is buried in large mausoleums with no space between them. Palermo is where a lot of the old money in BsAs is, and there are many old buildings in the colonial style next to chic boutiques and the like. Both of these barrios have ample green space, and on a perfect weather day such as this, people were outside en masse.
They say this city is the "Paris of South America", and while I don´t entirely agree with that (porteños are nicer than Parisians), it´s pretty easy to see why. While there are plenty of less than savory parts of town, much of the downtown area is full of beautiful parks, classical/colonial architecture, and wide, tree-lined boulevards.
Tomorrow, if all goes as planned (never a certainty down here), then we´ll head to the town of Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay for the day. It´s a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and we´ve heard nothing but great things about it. The weather is supposed to be horrible, but compared to what we expect in Patagonia, it´ll be a walk in the park, so hopefully it won´t be too bad!
We´re on e-mail fairly frequently, so write whenever you want to say hi!
Rob - rfm6z@hotmail.com
Erin - erin_moncure@yahoo.com
Rob
Rob
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