Buenos Aires, Uruguay, and Bus Rides!

Sunny day in Recoleta neighborhood, Buenos Aires

For Easter break, myself and 6 other international students decided to go to Buenos Aires. We looked at plane tickets at first, but eventually the spontaneity and adventurous side of us won over, and we bought one-way tickets for a double decker bus ride through the Andes instead. Because sometimes the journey is half the fun, right?

Home, for 24 hours there, and 24 hours back.

I wish I was kidding, but this is DEFINITELY the road we were on. For the bus ride towards Buenos Aires, my friend Sarah and I had seats on the top level, very front of the bus. In other words, pure windshield. The view was nothing short of incredible at times. At other moments, going around these turns made my heart race and my stomach flop.

Our bus stopped at the immigrations post in the Andes.

We were lucky that our bus arrived to customs at about 1:30 in the afternoon, so it was sunny and beautiful and we were all awake. The buses to Mendoza, Argentina (home of the Malbec, next destination on my list) usually arrive to customs in the middle of the night, which will be a pain. Everyone and all of their stuff have to get off the bus and exit Chile and enter Argentina and screen luggage. When we entered Argentina, customs was pretty lax, and left us all feeling like one could bring whatever one wanted across the Chile/Argentina border. On the way back, however, we learned that was not true! Somebody might have had almonds with her that she didn't declare? (woops) and therefore held up the line, had to redo the form and forfeit the almonds. Sad but true.

Bus rides can be breathtaking.

So what does Buenos Aires look like?? Hmm, Paris, New York, a big city. I suppose I don't mean that in a bad way or a good way, just that's how it is. The people are really friendly and look much more diverse than the mostly darker-haired and skinned Chileans. The Argentinian Spanish accent is undoubtedly the sexiest I've heard, and I also found Argentinians to be much easier to understand than many Chileans I know. The empanadas are smaller and baked in Argentina vs. huge and fried in Chile (so for me Argentina wins that one!) The wine I've had here in Chile easily beats the Argentinian wines I tried, though that contest warrants further exploration. All that being said, I am so glad I am spending the semester in Chile vs. Buenos Aires. At times Buenos Aires felt so much like a European city that I forgot I was in South America. The main difference is that Buenos Aires is much, much cheaper than Europe, which was fabulous!

I passed this building 25 times during the week. I loved it! I think the European architecture with the colorful grafitti demonstrates nicely the feel of Buenos Aires-80% exciting big city and 20% Latin American.

Recoleta Saturday Fair.

We came to the Recoleta neighborhood our first day in Buenos Aires. We arrived at our hostel at about 8 AM after our 24 hour bus ride, threw down our bags, ate breakfast, and headed out for our first adventure. We tried to go immediately to Recoleta via the bus that our hostel suggested, but encountered a bit of a roadblock. When I got on the bus and tried to use a $2 Argentinian peso note (equivalent to 55 cents-ish USD), the bus driver shook his head-coins only! I found this rather frustrating because the fare was $1.10 Argentinian pesos so I wasn't being unreasonable, but the machine only took coins so all 7 of us got off the bus in search of change. We went from one stand to mini mart to the next, everyone struggling to break their paper money for coins. After much frustration we stopped at a cafe for a snack. What was going on?? Well, turns out there is a shortage of coins in Argentina. People apparently hoard them in their house. So people literally give you dirty looks when you pay with a combination of bills that result in them having to give you change. I'm actually not kidding. We eventually made it to Recoleta on the bus and perused the fair for a few hours-lots of leather, jewelry and other nifty items.

After the fair we walked to the Recoleta Cemetery-famous worldwide because it is the resting place of Evita Peron. We didn't actually find Evita's grave on this first visit. The place is huge and we didn't pay for a map at the door and with 7 people it is kind of hard to do anything efficiently. I was in awe of the size of this place though and fascinated by the variety and size of the various tombs.

Recoleta Cemetery

After a looong walk back to the hostel (we couldn't find enough change for 7 people to take the bus back), we headed out in search of dinner. Once again, everything is a bit of a challenge with 7 opinions, budgets and pickyness scales, but we finally landed on this place-Guayana Restaurante. When we entered, the lights were on and only a couple other tables were occupied. Men drinking beer, a table of teenagers doing the same. It seemed a bit greasy to me. I ordered gnocchi first and they didn't have it-what? so I wasn't overly impressed. Then, all of a sudden as we were eating our food, the lights went down, the place filled up, and a tango show began. It was all very local and authentic feeling, and I felt pleasantly surprised by our discovery.

Sunday morning we headed towards the San Telmo neighborhood of Buenos Aires for its famed Sunday antique fair. San Telmo is the oldest part of Buenos Aires, known for an authentic tango culture, street entertainment and its fair share of restaurants and cafes.

Antique jewelry display at San Telmo Antique Fair

I really enjoyed walking around this place, and could have spent much longer here than we did. The plaza was packed with people from all over the world. Touristy, yes, but interesting all the same.

Tango show in the street in San Telmo that we stumbled upon.

San Telmo Tango dancer, classic Buenos Aires

After a delightful Easter lunch in San Telmo (I had salmon ravioli with mushroom sauce), we headed back to the hostel to leave our belongings and take a bus to La Boca neighborhood, home of the Boca Jrs., best of the South American futbol clubs. We had been instructed to leave our cameras at home and take of our jewelry, basically draw as little attention to ourselves as possible in order to avoid being robbed or getting in a fight. This made me a bit nervous but when you're with 6 people watching out for you, you don't worry too much about these things. Anyways, we got to the stadium and heard the roars and felt the ground rumble with the cheers...and then learned that the official ticket sale period had passed. There were plenty of people to buy tickets of off the street, but we had also been warned to stay away from these people, so we passed. I was sad, but my friend Corbin, the solo boy in our group of 7, was much sadder. Luckily there is club futbol here in Valparaiso as well as Santiago, so I plan to hit up a match soon.

Monday night we planned ahead better and scored tickets to a tango show at Cafe Tortoni, which brags to be the oldest cafe in South America. The show was fabulous, although much racier and a bit cheesier at times than I expected. Tango dancers are in incredible shape, that is for sure! My The music was enchanting too and I have added "buy tango music on itunes" to my to-do list.

Marvelous.

We ended up going back to Recoleta Cemetery to seek out Evita's grave. You can't go to Buenos Aires and not see Evita's grave...and we found it! The people still love her :)

Steel flower in the United Nations Park in Recoleta.

This flower closes at dusk and opens at dawn for the day. Pretty sweet.

For the most part, the graffiti in Buenos Aires paled in comparison to the awesome street art of Valparaiso in Chile, but this corner of the hip Palermo neighborhood of Buenos Aires was photography-worthy.

Our first day in Buenos Aires, we went out for drinks with a Chilean friend who studies at our university in Valparaiso. He had spent the day before on a day-trip to Colonia, Uruguay, a beautiful, historic town that is situated just across the Rio de la Plata from Buenos Aires. We looked into the trip and decided a day tour sounded perfect, so we bought a little ferry/lunch/tour package to Colonia.

The ferry ride was 3 hours, but the seats reclined more comfortably than those of our coach bus, so within a few minutes the soft chairs and lull of the motor left us sleeping like babies. Soon we were at the port in Colonia and on a bus for buffet lunch and the Spanish-speaking tour :) of the old town. I met some nice Puerto Ricans who live in Charlotte, and enjoyed the ease of the guided tour thing.

Italy? Nope, Colonia, Uruguay. I can't being to describe how picturesque historic Colonia is, but I think this photo does a pretty nice job.

My friends and I spent most of our 45 minutes of free-time between the guided tour and the ferry ride back frolicking on the sunny Colonia coast as the sun began to dip into the Rio de la Plata-sometimes its just lovely be 21, acting like you're 7 :)

I like this.

View from the ferry as we left Uruguay.

So that was basically the trip! Being the city girl I am, Buenos Aires was at the top of my list of places I wanted to see this semester, and I did love it, but honestly this trip left me wanting to soak up more nature on my next South American adventure. Southern Chile is supposed to be nothing short of breathtaking, as well as the deserts and mountains in the north. As we made the last leg of our journey along the sparkling coast from the Valparaiso bus stop to the terminal in Vina del Mar (a trip I make almost every day), I couldn't help but be glad I call central Chile home for this semester. So once again I find myself appreciating where I'm at. What a nice sentiment to have...