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.