Final Day In Buenos Aires

This morning we finished off all the remaining food in the apartment and after looking over our money requirements for the day we knew we needed more Argentinian pesos.

We walked a few blocks to the huge "July 9th" avenue and walked around looking for a currency exchange . Finding one, we went inside to exchange $60 American dollars into pesos. The exchange rate at most places is 36 pesos for dollar (the actual exchange rate is 38/dollar). This place took our money,asked if we had bigger bills rather than a series of  5's and 10's and since we didn't they said they could only give us 33 pesos per dollar. Hmmmm well,OK (grumble,grumble). In order to conclude the transaction they needed ID. We showed them Caro's Alberta driving licence (nope); how about a scanned picture of my passport (nope); they asked do we have a photocopy of the passport? Really ??? Seriously-like we carry around a photocopy with us. Jeesh. We just asked for our money back and we carried on.

We know that we shouldn't really use street money exchangers but we thought to give it a try. The first one we saw we told him we had $60 US to exchange so he lead us to a money exchange kiosk and for a service charge of about $1.50 CDN we got our money exchanged with absolutely no grief. Their exchange rate....36 pesos!! Sweet!

We took the Subte (their subway) up to Plaza Italia with the idea of walking to the Rose gardens which is supposed to be extremely nice. We did a lot of walking to get to these gardens only to discover they were closed on Mondays. Nice series of parks though!

Brutally hot today.It is a topic of conversation with many people

The heat has been oppressive at times and we decided to come back to the apartment.; clean up; go for supper;  then get ready for our 6 PM pick up (fingers crossed the taxi lady will show up!)

Sunday Jan 27th in Buenos Aires

Well our last full day in Buenos Aires has come to an end and as usual we had a great day.

The high temp today was 29 degrees with a humidity of 77%  so it felt like 35 degrees. I am writing this at 10 PM and it is still 28 degrees which is perfect for walking in (which we did, of course).

The heat, and the continual walking has taken its' toll on us. Only 12.5 kms today and we took a long break in late afternoon to just relax in our air conditioned apartment. Caro has developed a weird blister UNDER one of her toenails which had gotten big enough to push up her toenail causing great pain. Yuck!  A little needle work on the blister relieved the pressure. Weird location for a blister, I think.

OK, my plan for this morning was to catch the metro and go to the end of the line and then catch a taxi to go the next 25ish kilometres to a place called Tigre ( located in the delta of the Parana River). We walked to the Teatro Colon (Columbus Theatre-the opera house we toured several weeks ago) to get the metro. Because the metro entrance was not open, Caro (bless her heart) decided to ask a nearby tour guide about getting to Tigre. He informed us that there was a much better, and much cheaper way to do so. So....we caught a taxi and for about $10 we were taken to the train station the guide mentioned. The "train" turned out to be just like our LRT.  For about $1.25 each we took a 20 kilometre train ride straight to Tigre. The taxi  would have been about $40 minimum.

Tigre is a delta town where many houses have been built on the numerous islands created by the river. Incidentally the river has about the same flow as the Mississippi River so it is huge.

We took an hour plus boat ride through some of the numerous channels. Because it is summer here there were numerous boats on the canals,people swimming in the muddy water, and others enjoying their docks. 

The blue dot is where our Air BNB is located and Tigre is located in the top half of the photo.

In many ways this place is like a "very" poor man's Fort Lauderdale. There are numerous canals with the difference being the cabins/houses are regular type and most people have small motor boats or use kayaks and other types of rowing boats.

After our boat ride we had a bite to eat and then walked about a kilometre to see the mansion below (there are quite a few on the mainland-just across a major canal from the places we toured earlier). The mansion is now a museum but we skipped on that.

We decided to head back early because on the earlier taxi ride we went right by the River Plate soccer stadium (the place where the soccer riots occurred that I mentioned yesterday). The taxi driver informed us that there was a game tonight. Even though it was a different team coming in to play we didn't want the grief of being near the stadium when the fans were streaming in. Our train station was extremely close and we were worried about the traffic and also taxi availability.

We got back with no issues and spent a few hours recuperating. At eight PM we went for out for supper. I wasn't very hungry but Caro wanted a good meal. We ordered a sea food dish and a bottle of wine (it is hard not to order wine when the cost is the equivalent of $6.78 for the bottle!). We had debated earlier if we should go to the soccer game at River Plate but I was concerned about getting home at a late hour. Our waiter at our supper said it was good we didn't go as we would have been hassled by the fans as we were tourists.

We watched the end of the soccer game on TV and when I went to pay the bill I asked the cashier and waiter if they were River Plate or "Boca" fans (the team I talked about yesterday). They said they liked  Boca, and then they asked if I liked Boca or River Plate. I'm no fool!!!  I like Boca!!!

We walked down to Teatro Colon and the streets in the area to look at the lights and were back here by 10 PM.

La Boca

This morning we hopped on a city bus and went south to an large district called "La Boca" (which means "the mouth"). The much smaller area near the mouth of a river we wanted to see is called "El Caminito" and in olden days people working on nearby docks would build their houses from whatever was left over when ships unloaded and their cargo crates etc.were not needed. The area has some very unusual looking houses! Because it was a working class area it was relatively poor and when the work went away the district fell into extreme disrepair. An artist came there many years later and started a revitalisation which was tremendously successful. Now it is a  vibrant, touristy, extremely colourful  area which is really nice to visit (looking past the hoards of souvenir sellers of course).

The bottom photo  is "the " photo to take. Many people were lining up to take one. This location is shown on many Buenos Aires tourist brochures.

There were quite a few restaurants that had singers and tango dancers performing right out on the street. Truly wonderful to listen/watch them.

We walked all the streets that were part of the colourful area and were thinking to head back up here when we went by this spot....

...which had AMAZING smells coming from the Bar B-Q located just inside a relatively small opening (originally a driveway entrance). Turns out it opened up into a large restaurant with inside and outside tables .Well we weren't hungry but we had to step inside to have some samples of their food! It was delicious. We started with a chorizo sausage (we shared) which was great,followed by a black sausage that we hated (turned out to be a type of blood sausage which I have never liked), followed again by a steak,again shared and delicious! Because it was so hot out we had a large beer as well.

Total bill was only $32 including a great tip to the waitress as she gave us great ideas on things to do, plus instructions on which bus to catch (a better one than the one we came down on).

We walked about three blocks and came to the world famous soccer stadium that is home to the Boca Juniors team. A massive stadium, with a wildly popular team, we chose not to take a tour but I did take  a photo of a photo.

This team has been in the news as their championship series with River Plate (another Buenos Aires team) was marred by the fans from River Plate attacking the Boca team bus as it came to their stadium for the second leg of the championship two game series. The resulting injuries and obvious inability of the police to give protection from rabid fans eventually forced the game to be switched to Madrid Spain.

We caught the city bus back up to Plaza de Mayo and after watching some Bolivian dancers doing a dance in honour of a saint we walked around as usual making our way here. We walked over 10 kilometers again seeing many different streets , parks, etc and by the time we got back here in late afternoon we were bushed. We grabbed some delicious empanadas from a nearby takeout place (and we went back to buy more for tomorrow's breakfast).

Tomorrow is our last complete day here and we have another great adventure planned.

Back to Buenos Aires

This morning we were up at about 6:30, showered and went for breakfast at 7 AM. By 7:15 we had caught a cab to the airport and were on the 9 AM Latam flight back to Buenos Aires.

We arrived at 11 AM and because we had carry on only we were out of the terminal in no time. We took a taxi to our bnb and while we were at it we made arrangements with the taxi driver to pick us up at 6 PM on Monday night for our flight back home.

Caro starting feeling the effects of a toothache a couple of days ago and we decided to get her some help. Lisa was able to book an appointment for Caro next Wednesday when we are home but in the mean time we felt we should check it out. Close to the bnb was a clinic and it didn't take us long to pay the fee ($27) for a dentist to look at her situation. He confirmed she has a cavity and gave a prescription for penicillin and anti-inflammatories. We went to a pharmacy and picked up the medicine for $15. Great deals!

We took it easy all afternoon because it was raining and later on we went for supper at the restaurant we went to the other day. Great meal again !

So I washed some clothes and caught up on blog posting while Caro watched some Netflix.

We are hoping tomorrow is a better day for Caro. We still have a least one section of the city we want to visit before we head home.

Iguazu Falls Part Two

The first trail we did was the upper trail.

As we started this we were walking quite quickly as both trails are quite long and time was running short.

Our first view of the falls from this angle was OVERWHELMING. It takes your breath away to something so magnificent,.We walked along, passing over channels that soon became part of the falls; and over the waterfall that has soaked us earlier in the day. There were simply too many photo opportunities. I have included a few below but I really don't think they do the majesty of this place justice.

In the middle photo (at the top of the photo) you can see the tops of the waterfalls near Devil's Throat. The bottom photo shows the falls section we went into  (in the middle of the photo beyond the rock that looks like the head of a bird)

Having completed the upper walk we hurried to the lower walk. Initially I was thinking this one wouldn't be as nice when I looked at our tourist map. WRONG-it was just as great.

We lucked out and saw (and videoed) a boat from our tour company heading into the falls. We could hear the same whopping and hollering as when we were on the tour!

There was a spot where the walkway went into the spray of one of the falls. It was extremely refreshing and cooled me down. I knew I had a headache coming on from the heat so that spray on my head cooled me right down. I was OK after that.

This above photo is a panorama shot I took

This is the falls where we cooled off in the spray

This photo shows the tour boat about to go into the falls. The place they go in is the section of falls that is partially obscured by the skinny tree on the right side of the photo.

We managed to complete everything by 5:30 and at 6 we were on the bus back to town (about 30 minutes away). According to my cellphone we walked 15.4 kilometres, completed 41 flights of stairs and did 22,591 steps.

After showers and a change of clothes we went out to celebrate my birthday. We had a great meal with some wine and  after our meal suddenly the lights went out which we thought was because of the heavy rain storm. Nope-we had mentioned it was my birthday at the beginning of the meal and the restaurant staff came out to sing "happy birthday" to me and the patrons in the place also clapped. Very nice and unexpected. A nice tip was given!

A truly unforgettable day!

Iguazu Falls Part 1

We caught the local city bus to take us to the National Park of Iguazu Falls and were there by about 8:30 AM.

Upon paying the entry fee ($25 each) we went to take a tour we booked yesterday. The tour started with a jungle trek (we sat in the back of a truck fitted with about 25 seats). We got extremely lucky on the five km drive as we stopped to watch a small troop of Capuchin monkeys cross above us in the tree canopy (a couple had babies on their backs)

Take a close look at the dead tree in the middle of the photo. Now look VERY close. The top of the tree stump is actually a nesting bird with its beak pointed in the air. The bird is camouflaged perfectly!

We got to the river and were soon in a powerful speed boat that held about 70 people. We cruised up the river going through rapids and around large rocks and not too long after we started there it was: IGUAZU Falls! OMG they are HUGE!! We took the left channel and went towards Devil's throat. About half the water in the falls goes through this section. Soon we back tracked and went up the right channel. This is where the fun begins. We were instructed to take our photos NOW and then put the cameras and anything else we needed to keep dry into the supplied water proof bag (in which we had been instructed on how to close so no water could get in).

The captain revved up the engines and started up towards the falls. Soon we were getting wet with spray and then we went into the falls. While getting soaked everybody was whopping and hollering. It was a hoot. So after we came out we went back in again. What fun! Too wet to take photos!

After that it was time to head back to our start point. The tour truck took us back the way we came in and the guide continued giving us information on the jungle.

By now it was 11 AM and we wanted to go to the Devil's Throat. In order to get there you have to take a train as it is quite a ways; technically you can walk the 5 or 6 kilometers to get there but almost nobody does, and the temperature was on its way to 34 degrees so train riding was the best option. Unfortunately everyone in the park was heading up there at the same time so we had a 90 minute wait (sigh). Upon arrival we walked out on a series of raised pathways and bridges with many of the bridges going over water that would soon be over the 275 different waterfalls here.

Devil's throat is the main waterfall and about half the water goes through this portion. You can really feel the power of the water

The photo on the left is taken to the immediate left of the photo of me.

We spent some time there and after waiting only 20-30 minutes for the train back we were soon back to the main station.

By now it was 3 PM and the park closes at 6 PM so we had to really get moving as there are two different walking circuits that are a MUST be take. To be continued......

Tango Show and Puerto Iguazu

Tuesday night

The tango show was an all inclusive package that included pick up, supper,local beer and wine and a tango show.

We were picked up on time and after several more stops picking up guests we got to the dinner theatre ( a huge place that was packed) where we ended up being seated with two different sets of Brazilians-nice people. The food service was very slow unfortunately but the show was very well done. Not my cup of tea but Caro really enjoyed it!

We got back to the Air bnb by 1 AM as I expected and were up again about 6:30 in order to catch our flight from the national airport here in Buenos Aries to Puerto Iguazu.

Puerto Iguazu was HOT. We got our hotel room where we had a slight hiccup. I thought the price was $60 Canadian /night but it turned out to be American dollars. No biggie.

We ate a great meal in early afternoon,then proceeded to walk to the river. We decided to take a river cruise which goes the short distance to the point where Paraguay,Brazil and Argentina borders meet in the river. I was hoping that we would get into Paraguay waters but according to google maps we did not. After being on the river we walked to the place where all three countries can be seen (and where we had been on the river)

Today was 37 degrees and note the time when it was a pleasant 29!!

Tuesday in Buenos Aries

A beautiful sunny day here with an expected high around 30 degrees.

After a wonderful sleep (at least for me) we were out the door at 9:00 ish looking for a bank with a cash machine. It took some doing but we eventually found one. We took out the maximum amount (or so we were told) and then waited for our walking tour to start at 10:30 at the Theatre Colon (the Opera house that we toured when we first got to Buenos Aires three weeks ago)

This tour turned out to be a very long one and was filled with great stories of the rich and famous. The tour guide was fascinating to listen to and I am very happy with the four hours and seven kilometres we walked on this tour ( we had walked over three kilometres before the tour even started!).

The first photo is one taken at plaza San Martin. He ranks right up there with Simon Bolivar as a liberator of South America from the Spanish.

Across from this statue are palaces of extremely rich Argentinians from days past. Lots of interesting stories of family weddings and fights between ultra rich families.

After a quick lunch break we walked across the street to the Falklands/Malivinas war memorial. The guide tried to be diplomatic but he saw the Argentinian side only (as would be expected).

From there we walked past more palaces to the world famous Ricoleta cemetery and outside the gates the tour ended. We took the opportunity to spend about 45 minutes wandering around inside. The first photo is the mausoleum of Eva Peron. Not too fancy considering how famous she is!

This cemetery has fantastic memorials to the rich and famous. The only way to be buried there now is to be part of a family with a place there already. These are two photos I took. I could have easier taken dozens more. I would add that some of the mausoleums are in very poor condition. In one I could have reached in and taken the lid off a child's coffin! Yuck-no way


After deciding to get more cash because we have heard it is better to get it here rather than in Puerto Iguazu we tried several banks (all closed for mid afternoon lunch break) before we found one that was open. We tried getting more money than what we were told was possible and luckily we were able to (for an equal amount of commission as before, so-Bonus!). We have only been able to use my debit card once on this trip; every other time is a cash advance on my Mastercard.

We are scheduled to be picked up tonight between 8 and 8:30 for a supper/tango show that Fernando had recommended to us. I anticipate a late night.

Tomorrow we will be going to the airport for our Puerto Iguazu flight which leaves at 9:15 A.M. 

Back In Buenos Aries

This morning after breakfast we caught a pre-ordered taxi which had a flat rate to the airport.

Getting through the airport lines for SKY airline, immigration and security all went smoothly and we were at our gate with plenty of time to spare.We spent virtually all our remaining pesos on a big bottle of water to keep us going.

The plane left on time which is good, but it is a budget airline so while prices are tiny and so is the room between rows of seats. Oh well.the flight was only 90 minutes in the air so no problem

Quite cramped.

Once arriving back in B.A.  we caught a cab to our new Air bnb apartment. It is tiny but perfectly functional for us.It is located less than a kilometre from the place we stayed at the first night here, so we actually walked a bit into the original area when we went looking for an electrical adaptor for the Argentinian plug-in. I know we had one when we first arrived a couple of weeks ago but somehow it went missing in transit.

We went to a nearby restaurant which was frequented by locals. What a great place to eat. I think we will be back on the weekend.

We have a Pepsi each, a bottle of wine, I had a pizza and Caro had steak and rice (plus they supplied ham and bread for appetisers). Anyway the bill with tip came to only $40. It is hard to beat that deal!

We then bought some food for tomorrow morning and are relaxing at the apartment. We have "face timed" both Lisa and Vanessa and are waiting for Michelle to get home so we can see them as well.

Sunday in Santiago

Our last day in Santiago was similar to the others (i.e. walking).

We slept in until 8:45 (me) and 9:30 (Caro) and shortly afterwards had breakfast in the restaurant here.
After that we were on the streets again finding areas in the historical center that we hadn't seen before.
One part of that walk was the other side of the hill across the street from us which contains Hidalgo castle. The photo below is a fountain called Neptune Terrace.

Once done walking the center we caught the metro over to the tallest building in South America (the Grand Tower) where we walked to the base of the tower which contains a multi level shopping center.

After walking quite a bit of the new financial area of this city we caught the metro back to our area.

We went to the same restaurant we ate at yesterday and ordered the same finger food. The secret to this food is a tomato marmalade containing a Peruvian chile.  It is wonderfully tasty.

As luck would have it we happened to see the same buskers we enjoyed so much last night beginning to set up for tonight so we asked one of the guitarists what had occurred when the police came to "chat" last night. The cop had apparently told them to sing one more song and just move on. As with yesterday they were top notch. You could tell they loved singing and playing for the people and they were receiving lots of donations (of course from us too). This time we both great video.

Well we have enough Chilean cash to get the taxi in the morning and leave a couple of tips to hotel staff so we are spending the evening vegging in our room.

Saturday in Santiago

Boy do we enjoy travelling. Another awesome day!

This morning we walked a few blocks to the historical center of the city looking for a bank machine. The one machine we could find would not accept my debit or master card (all bank machines appeared to be inside the locked banks). Darn!

After walking through the central market and MANY streets we headed over to a funicular that goes up to a church and sanctuary on the top of a high hill. It was blazing hot and the line up was long but eventually we got the ride up. NEAT!

After a few photos etc we headed back down and continued walking the streets of this gorgeous city.

Our hotel is just in front of the hill in the middle of the photo

We needed a break so we stopped at our hotel in mid afternoon.

Later we walked across the street to a hill containing a castle/palace. The views were great but the palace wasn't open.

I was starting to get worried about our cash situation as we are really low in Chilean pesos and our US  dollars are not as healthy as I would want so I heaved a sigh of relief when we found the CITI Bank Chilean branch open. Our luck held as we were able to get pesos out of our chequing account. Mind you the roughly $100 equivalent in pesos cost us over $13 CDN in service charges, but , OH WELL I am happy now.

After picking up some wine and cheese for supper we returned to the hotel to store the food before we headed out to our new favourite restaurant where we enjoyed pisco sour's  (a drink) and a plate of finger food that ranks right up there with the best we have ever had! I tried to talk the waiter into letting up buy some of the marmalade we dipped the food in but no go.

As we were walking home we came upon a group of four street buskers who were KILLING IT! They were so entertaining that somewhere over 50 people people were dancing and clapping to the music.
Unfortunately a  local bar owner must have asked the cops to "address" the situation. Too funny. That poor cop was having to give the group a ticket but meanwhile people are buying the groups' CD (to probably help pay the ticket!) while others in the crowd are nicely suggesting that the policeman should just dance to the groups music. In the end the cop gave the group time to do one last song (which I wish I had recorded-DAMN) and everyone moved on. Wonderful experience.

Tonight we washed some clothes and I have caught up on the blog. We are in our room with the windows open and were able to hear bar singers doing their thing.

Tour to Valparaiso and Vina del Mar

This morning we went on our pre-booked tour to Vina del Mar

and Valparaiso.

We were picked up before 8 AM and soon we were on our way.

The drive to the coast took over an hour but before getting there

we stopped at a winery for some sampling and enjoyment of the views.

From there we headed into Vina Del Mar which is a coastal city

right next door to Valparaiso. This city was lovely. We toured through

the streets on the bus before stopping at the famous flower clock.

Guess who we met there? The Edmontonians from the cruise! We had great

laughs and a few photos were taken and then we said good-bye AGAIN.

A restaurant that caters to the tourist crowd (which of course meant

over priced food) was next on our stops . We declined to go there and

went to an empanada restaurant down the  street. Yummy.

We spent some time on the beach and I braved going in

(up to my ankles!). C-C-Cold water! There were a few hardy souls

but I wasn’t one of them!

From there we toured Valparaiso which has a long history as

an important port.

We had a 25 minute boat ride in the harbour (it was”OK”) and then

we drove through the city up winding steep streets to the top of one

of the hills. We then proceeded to walk down through beautiful streets

until we reached a funicular for the final portion.

After that it was home time. The bus has wi-fi and it was excellent.

I was able to text with the kids for an hour. YES!!!

We got back to our hotel about 8 PM and then went out to the

streets. Our area is full of outdoor restaurants and people selling things.

It was really lively and being a Friday night this probably added to the

festivities. All in all a great day.

The Cruise is over

This morning was the end of our cruise and while we were sad

last night and this morning, we are over it because our adventures

are still continuing.

We exited the boat at 9:15 AM and as we were walking towards

the exit of the cruise port heading towards our bus station

destination about a kilometer down the

road be darned if the bus company didn’t have a bus already on site

with a credit card machine handy for those who wished a bus trip

directly into Santiago! For about $8 each we had a top notch bus

right into the city! How convenient!!

I had thought we would just grab the metro to our hotel but the

bus station area was sketchy and for about $15 we caught a

cab directly to our hotel. The cabbie got a great tip as he was full

of information on what to do in the city. By 1 P.M. we were in our room.

A short time later we headed out for a snack which turned out to

be a full meal. Chilean pizza is good!

The hotel desk clerk gave us a tourist map and on it was info for

a walking tour at 3 P.M. We were on it! On this tour were people

from Salmon Arm and the States and so afterwards eight of us stopped

for Pisco Sour’s (local drink). We had a great time swapping info

(they are on a cruise on Saturday with NCL to Buenos Aries).

Tonight we chatted on Facetime with Lisa and Mike/Hannah.

Last full sea day

This afternoon I finished my library book while Caro has gone swimming.

Today is the first warm day in about a week. She wanted to get

one more swim in.

This morning at breakfast a lady sat down with us. She was

Argentinian and had taken this trip only to see The Falklands

(Las Malvinas to her). Too bad for her.

For buffet lunch time we sat with the couple we met before from

Edmonton. They are originally from Philippines and I got a surprise

when I asked him what he used to do. He was a 4th class power engineer

and worked for the school board making sure their heating equipment

worked. It was quite a surprise to meet someone who did the same

kind of work. Anyway we had lots of laughs before saying our good byes.

With the extra dessert I had eaten I decided to walk the promenade

deck at the same time as Caro did (she was walking slightly faster

so we didn’t walk together). A slack day for me as I have only

done 6,000 steps today (4 kms.)

Tonight we walked around the upper decks outside; I had my last cup

of chocolate ice cream with chocolate syrup and we proceeded to the

Princess Theatre to watch the ship’s version of “The Voice” where

ive final contestants (out of many more who started the process

at the beginning of the cruise) performed for the audience. The winner

was the only male performing and he was an older fellow who did

Wonderful World just like Louis Armstrong. He got 73% of the votes.

We both enjoyed the show more than we thought we would.

Puerto Montt-an Unexpected pleasure

We were on the tenders early today.

Immediately after getting onto the streets from the port we got

a local tour to visit the city of Puerto Varas situated north of the

port on the third largest lake in South America called

Lake Llanquihue. Nearby are three volcano's; one called Orsono

is very much like Fuji in Japan and is spectacular. Another very

close volcano erupted only three years ago with much volcanic

dust in evidence as we made our way by it on the way to

Petrohue Falls. This is a major tourist attraction here and

we know this because EVERY TOUR BUS FROM TWO

CRUISE SHIPS were there at the same time.Today was one

of those days where I didn’t expect much but turned out to be wonderful.

We stopped at Puerto Varas on the way back and Caro and I

had lunch with a Toronto couple while the other eight choose

to walk around the town. The city and area was settled by

German immigrants and retains the architecture of the old country.

The whole area is beautiful and it was wonderful driving through the

countryside.

Back in Puerto Montt Caro wanted to do some souvenir shopping

for Hannah. Later at the port control we got fantastic wi-fi so I was

able to catch up the kids and download some more podcasts

which I listen to at night when going to sleep).

We went to the dining room tonight and asked to sit with

other people. They were a couple from England and a couple from

Florida. Great conversation.