Day 19 – City of Fair Winds!

By travelerdon on July 22, 2019

Mar 5

Okay, made it safely to Buenos Aires, the “City of Fair Winds”, as the translation goes. Luckily, we have the new luggage we’re travelling with. We’re told our old ‘lost’ luggage may be here but no sign of it yet!  We find a bank that lets us use our debit card to replenish our supply of Pesos and we then buy tickets to the ‘Hop On, Hop Off’ bus and we start our tour of BA around 11 AM.

We come across a park on a college campus that is quite unique.  There is a sculpture shaped like a flower that has to be 50 or more feet high.  Upon closer scrutiny, it turns out this stainless steel ‘flower’ is activated by the sun and opens and closes at dawn and dusk, respectively.  My camera satiated for the time being, we get back on the next bus.

At one point in the park, we see this nasty looking wasp! But what should you do if you see one of these? Run? Of course you should run! But what did I do? Got close with the camera and took photos first!

We ride the bus around town and end up down at the waterfront where we see what looks like a great seafood restaurant and we get off and check it out.  We are informed they don’t open for another hour and a half and as we walk out, 3 tour busses of French tourists pull up out front and they all pour into the restaurant!  I guess they had reservations!

So we wait for the next bus to pull up and we find a modicum of shade.  We are across the street from the local airport and I happily take photos of landing planes.  Buenos Aires is easily 85-90 degrees, sunny & humid!  We get on the next bus and ride along.  Eventually, we get off and find a restaurant where we have Paninis for lunch with a cold beer.

We get back on the next bus and we pass by the Arts District and find our way to the ‘Recoleta’ Cemetary where we’re told we should visit.  Upon approaching the entrance, we see a tree in front that turns out to be a Madagascar Gum Tree.  This has to be the largest tree we have ever seen, larger even than the Banyon Trees of Hawaii.  So big that they have to build special supports for most of the branches and they got quite creative doing it!  The trunk of this tree is easily 25 feet in diameter!  The branches easily extend 100 feet from the center in every direction!

I can almost see the Beatles walking across that street above! Can you? We go into the church outside the cemetery and check out this hundreds of years old church.  Then we enter the cemetery and we feel as if we are in small city streets in a very large city.  Tombs and monuments line the pathways as if they were buildings on roads.  We find the tomb of Eva Peron and there are throngs of visitors here.

We make our way back to our hotel and find a fabulous steak dinner a couple blocks away. Should we eat here? The picture has the answer!

  Two full bellies later, we make our way to the hotel, taking a few of my favorite ‘night’ photos on the way.  Back in the room, I take a few more night photos from the balcony and we turn in for the evening.