Buenos Aires

We spent two nights and one full day in Buenos Aires before our flights home. We are not huge fans of cities, but we did our best to have a look around. We ended up doing a walking tour of the center that was laid out in my Lonely Planet guide and we also did a bit of walking through Recoleta, where all the rich people live. We found the city to be enormously spread out, very congested with cars and kind of falling apart! The city is full of crumbling old buildings, especially in the area we stayed in, San Telmo. Many of the streets and sidewalks are made of cobblestones or tiles, and there are many places where tiles have broken or fallen apart and there are huge holes. Instead of fixing any of these holes they put piles of trash over them to warn you not to fall in! We spent most of our walking tour admiring the trees and parks more than anything else. It remains warm all year in Buenos Aires (probably around 80 when we were there), so the trees in the city are very different from what we saw in Patagonia. It was a lot like San Diego, lots of Eucalyptus, jacaranda and fig trees. We did a bad job of taking pictures, but I did take a few of our hotel.

One thing we really enjoyed about Buenos Aires was the abundance and variety of food. Being in Patagonia is like being in Alaska, food is expensive and not very fresh because it must travel so far. So we enjoyed going to the grocery store in Buenos Aires! We also enjoyed delicious ham and cheese empanadas for breakfast from a nearby bakery. We found a burrito shop and had delicious California style burritos! And we of course went to a steak house. We were going to go to a fancy steak house to use up the rest of our pesos, but we got lazy and just went to one in San Telmo by our hotel the last night. It was call El Disnivel and is basically a popular local spot. It was packed to the gills, and had so many delicious menu options that we wished we'd eaten every meal there! Jeff got a big juicy cut of flank steak and I got a thin flank steak topped with pizza sauce a cheese (called matambre a la pizza).

Yesterday we began our long journey home. Jeff had 20 hours travel time to get home and I had 24, but these tickets were about $400 cheaper than everything else available. Jeff is probably just about to New York now. We got to fly together from Buenos Aires to Mexico City, which turned out to be a 9 hour flight! I was very surprised it was so long, but luckily it was one of the best flights I've ever had. We watched three movies, got two hot meals and many drink refills. I was able to get away with having four glasses of wine! We got to Mexico City at 10:30 our time, Jeff had a six hour layover, and I had 11! We had to go out of security (because the flights were overnight) and wait until they would let us check bags in again and go back through security. For me, this wasn't until 4 AM! I am now on my flight to Los Angeles, I have my own row and they gave us a lovely breakfast! I have enjoyed AeroMexico. Shannon is coming to fetch me. I can't wait to be home! (If you are reading this, I am already landed.)

I can honestly say this trip was by far the best travel experience I have ever had. We saw some amazing sights! I never had any idea that Argentina had so much to offer! We never expected to spend so much time in one country, but we had no desire to leave! We loved everywhere we visited! If I had to pick, my favorite part of the trip was probably the hiking in El Chaltén, but I also really loved the Lakes District! We have left many places to be discovered and can't wait to go back and see the Chilean side of Patagonia and take the ferry through the fjords!

At the bottom are two photos of the packs of dogs we saw all over Chile and Argentina. People let their dogs out all day (in cities) to socialize, I guess. But as a result, the stray dog population has gotten out of control, and you can often find poop on the side walk. Some people feel bad for them and leaves piles of dog food out. The first picture is the largest pack we found in Puerto Natales. There were probably 20 dogs! And the second one is of some particularly interesting dogs in Ushuaia that were shaggy and mangy with dread locks! (:

It means a lot to mean that some people actually took the time to read about my travels. Stay tuned for the next trip! Good bye for now!