One of the cultural and commercial capitals of South America, Buenos Aires, dates back to 1526, when a Spanish explorer Pedro de Mendoza camped on a bluff above the Rio del la Plata, possibly the site of a current date park known as, Parque Lazama. In 1776 Buenos Aires (meaning, fair or good winds), became the capital of the new Viceroyalty of the River Plata. Current day Buenos Aires has a reputation as being the “Paris of the South”, which leads visitors to expect European styles, and in fact many of the capital’s turn of the century buildings would not be out of place across the Atlantic in Europe. Fun fact, The river has a rusty or brownish red colour making it look dirty but the colour is a result of the Tigre Delta, where these Delta Islands are formed by the continuous sediment of the Parana River.
Since we were here less than a year we were kind of in the “been there, done that” mindset today, so Jan took a sea day today and stayed on board. I did wander out and clocked almost 15,000 steps or about 12 kilometres. I went to the Grand Splendid Theatre, which has been converted into El Ateneo, a bookstore. It has been said that this bookstore houses some 1 million books. So a bit out of the way this is where I started my day, a good dozen blocks from our shuttle drop off point. From here I decided to meander towards the Plaza de Mayo (the plaza that Evita gave her big speech). For those interested, I use Ulmon, CityMaps2Go app. This runs on GPS so wifi only needed to download the map (pretty much any city in the world), once your map is downloaded you can go ahead and get lost and then pull you device out to reorient yourself - absolutely love it, takes the guess work and unfolding and folding paper maps as well as trying to find out, where the blank am I now completely out of the equation. So this allowed me to get to general idea of the direction I wanted to go in and then I started wandering. What I did find really interesting about my walk was that at many times I did think I was in Paris wandering its streets, the only difference was the heat, I think we were at something like 34 or 38 today (Celsius). I made it over to the plaza then wandering into a street market before hitting the tourist, pedestrian only, Florida Street, what a change from the peaceful streets I was just on. Cambio, Cambio, Cambio (money exchange), is all you heard walking up this street, there must me a huge market for money exchange here - BTW, never use one of these touts, never, the chances of dealing in counterfeit currency is very high and just not worth it. There are some marked money exchanges, sure go ahead, ATM is the best way to go - that said, about 10 years ago I did take money out of a HSBC ATM that turned out to be counterfeit, I noticed this branch is now permanently closed, hmmm. For me, Credit Card purchases only, thank you very much. Either that or US currency, I may not get the best rate but at least I know its real. So, yes, a bit of retail therapy before heading back to the ship. I decided not to take the shuttle back but walk, I would recommend the shuttle, especially at night. For me, it was during the day and because the route takes you past the train station there looks to a little rundown suburb district that you may want to avoid - no trouble for me but the radar definitely went up here. Nice dinner tonight, I had the chef recommendation, local dish of a pork chop with an egg on top - I think this what they eat when you come out of a bar at 3 or 4 in morning note sure to have dinner or breakfast, lol. Great local Gaucho show tonight, all in all a good day. A few pics, hope you enjoy…
Quote of the day - “You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too man things wrong” - Warren Buffet
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