We were bundled off the Amundsen early on a Thursday morning and by the evening we were settled into our hotel in Buenos Aires. Next day I spent a lot of time uploading files. The internet provision on the Amundsen is a bit limited. My specific problem was that I could not back up my photographs. This was a bit of a concern and I was much more comfortable later on when everything was safely copied away. That done, we went for a stroll. Buenos Aires is a big, modern bustling city. We are not connoisseurs of cities but we quite liked BA. After a bit of pottering around we ended up in a street café. Here we could drink wine while different couples danced tango on the pavement.
Next morning we met up with Soledad, our guide for the day. She took us on a six-hour walking tour of BA. It was not six hours of continuous walking. There were a couple of coffees as well. Even so, it was long and informative day.
We saw an awful lot of BA. There is a great diversity of architecture much of which is inspired by Europe. Some areas are very similar to Paris and Madrid. Elsewhere are some very modern buildings and bridges. We walked through a lot of history. The war of independence from the Spanish, numerous skirmishes with the English, Portuguese and others. More recently came various revolutionary movements, the 1976 coup, the dirty war and the silent marches of the mothers of the 30,000 desaparecidos (people kidnapped and killed by the military during the years of the junta). We steered clear of any mention of the Falklands although we saw many signs proclaiming “Las Malvinas son Argentinas”.
Soledad was remarkably informative. I paid attention as best I could but please don’t ask me questions later. The weather was perfect. Warm without being too hot. We wandered through several parks and everywhere the jacaranda trees were blooming with bright purple flowers. Coffee was taken at a fabulous old building with dark wood panelling, marble floors and gold inlaid plasterwork. We visited a tourist area. Shops selling fridge magnets and scarves, many burger stalls and more street tango. Several churches, city squares and a river later we got to the end of our walk by which time Diane and I were plenty ready for a glass of cold wine.
Next day we collected a hire car and set off for the famous Iguazu waterfalls.