Argentina: Summer In Winter - Spring 2019: Day 1 Buenos Aires

[Melbatb]

Breakfast was served about 2 hours before landing - scrambled egg. The flight overall took about 14 hours! It passed fairly quickly!

I was dreading a bit the first parts of the trip but they all went smoothly!

Immigration took about 20 minutes - and then the bags were there! The bags went through an xray in customs with little waiting.

It is impossible to get pesos outside of Argentina so I had US dollars. I hate travelling with no local currency. I had read up about where to get them - and there was a bank just after customs. Thankfully it was also quick - though I handed over 6 notes and got this amount back!

We then went to Ezeiza taxis to get one - there were lots of touts but all the advice was to avoid them! The taxi fare was $32 and took about 30 minutes - traffic was light as it was a Saturday.

O wasn't expecting great things of the first hotel (I had undersold it) - NH City near Plaza de Mayo but was pleasantly surprised. Check in was a bit slow and I agreed to a $20 extra charge for early check-in. It was only 9.30am!

We asked for a twin room and were on the 10th floor.

We even had an okay view! The weather was grim though - after weeks of sunshine we had got rain!

We decided to have showers to freshen up! Much sweeter smelling after that!

I wanted to charge my phone as we couldn't get it to charge on the flight (O managed his and I managed my watch!) But it still wasn't charging despite trying several cables and sockets. Then O wondered if we needed to put the room card into a slot... Voila! One charging phone!

O, being a teenager, was hungry. We decided that would be a priority! Just 100m up from the hotel was a nice looking cafe. I ordered the tropical breakfast which consisted of a coffee, toast, jam, two croissants, a fruit salad and a cake! O ordered another cake! This was far more food than we expected! The toast isn't in the picture! The cherry cake was only OK, the cheesecake was lovely though rich for breakfast but the rest was perfect!

And for a bargain 10 euros!

I will admit to waddling out!

First stop was just across the road at Plaza de Mayo. From the history books:

Plaza de Mayo is famous and politically significant square in Argentina's capital, Buenos Aires. Established in 1580 and once known as Plaza de la Victoria, it was renamed as Plaza de Mayo in the nineteenth century following the May Revolution.

Plaza de Mayo literally means May Plaza- a reference to the site's importance during the May Revolution. This revolution was made up of a series of peaceful events mostly in 1810, one of which took place at Plaza de Mayo, following which the Argentineans elected their first local government not allocated by Spain.

Plaza de Mayo also contains the May Pyramid, a statue commemorating the May Revolution and Argentina's independence from Spain, installed in 1811.

Overall, Plaza de Mayo is an important focal point for political life in Argentina and is where most of its political institutions are housed, including the Casa Rosada from which Eva Peron or Evita, addressed the people and city hall.


Unfortunately it started to rain so we decided to go and get our raincoats!

O had seen a nature reserve on the map and fancied walking there. It meant crossing the river and a fair bit of roadworks. The sun even came out!

And then the clouds came again

There were lots of food stands all set up so we figured that this would get very busy later!

We walked up to the nature reserve and it was ... shut - because it doesn't open on rainy days!

On our walk back along the promenade we saw this little chappy. As soon as he saw us he scurried away - quite quickly it has to be said. Our first wildlife of the trip.

O was a bit disappointed that the reserve wasn't open - he found it interesting that such a thing existed in the middle of a capital city!

We walked back towards Plaza de Mayo - this took about 45 minutes. We also stopped for a drink as it was getting very hot and humid. I had a mint and ginger juice while O just had water.

We saw this lovely butterfly on the route.

A lot of the monuments seem to be fenced off like this - in this case as the Plaza is still a place to demonstrate I can perhaps understand it!

We decided to head back for a rest! I may have managed an hour long nap...

We decided that we would walk up Calle Florida - a pedestrianized street full of shops then down the main street -Avenue de 9 Julio to see various sights.

The Calle Florida was quite bustling - though as both of us were tired we didn't stop much.

On the walk down the avenue we came across a big BA bush! A new take on the town name.

Finally, the Obelisco. The history books say:

The Obelisco de Buenos Aires (Obelisk of Buenos Aires) is a national historic monument and icon of Buenos Aires. Located in the Plaza de la República in the intersection of avenues Corrientes and 9 de Julio, it was erected in 1936 to commemorate the quadricentennial of the first foundation of the city.

To be honest, we looked for about 2 minutes and carried on!

We had walked by now over 13km! Our tummies were rumbling. We went back to the same cafe as this morning.

O had a fruit smoothie and I had a mint lemonade!

We shared a pesto gnocchi and...

An omelette. Another bargain meal costing 20 euros! We were both stuffed.

We are now trying to stay awake but I fear it may be a losing battle...