No sleeping late for us today – we are up and out early to take a bike ride around the city. It’s a clear, crisp morning without a cloud in the sky. From our balcony though – we can feel it’s going to be a scorcher. Sun tan lotion and light clothing are the rule for today.
We strike out across Recoleta to the city center. A nice 20 minute walk, but it was already getting hot in the sun. We found San Martin plaza without a hitch and with 45 minutes to spare. So we wandered around the large open park area, looking for a coffee shop to grab a quick caffeine jolt. Very different here than in Europe – there were no cafe’s or even restaurants around the square itself. In Europe, the place would have been packed with choices, but here, the only place we could find was a McDonalds 1 block off the plaza on Calle Florida (the big pedestrian shopping walk). We passed on the Micky D’s coffee, but did use the restroom.
Walked back up to our meeting place by the horse statue and hoped the tour would happen. As the appointed time approached, a few other people joined us, so we figured we were safe. And we were – our guides met us at the statue, took care of the paperwork and escorted us down to a parking garage to pick up our bikes. We had a good group of folks with us: An American gal, early 30’s, who was with her family for her brother’s wedding; an Australian couple (he from Melbourne, she from Sydney); some American guys (early 20’s) and a French guy traveling together for 19 days all over Argentina and Uruguay; and an Argentinean couple.
We took off out of the garage and began our trek through town. We stopped at the Malvinas War memorial (Falkland islands war – it’s not a good subject for Argentineans), rode through the new port area of Puerto Madero (used to be the bad area of town, no one would go there, now it’s redeveloped into the in place to be – with new high rise flats, hotels, offices and entertainment – the more we rode around it, the more we thought it looked like Dubai! Same architecture – same overdevelopment – hope it doesn’t turn out like Dubai!).
From Puerto Madero, we cycled into the Ecological park – a huge preserve of land the government took and made into a preserve for wildlife. Right on the river (which is nasty, dirty, by the way – it’s not a swimming kind of river), it’s an oasis of green and wildlife with tons of people out walking, jogging, biking and enjoying the nature. One thing BA has – is a lot of green areas – which is really nice in a huge city such as this.
Next, we headed south through a lovely park area with cement and brick walk ways, flower gardens and trees (and people sun bathing all over). On to La Boca – the original working class neighborhood of BA. This is the place where all the working people lived in corrugated tin houses, all painted in different colors (they used left over paint from the ships, so none of the colors matched and it became a symbol of the neighborhood – these brightly colored houses). It’s not a good area to be at night, but during the day, it’s a tourist haven. The center of the neighborhood, La Caminito, is packed with tour buses and people. There are craft stalls, food stalls, people dancing the tango (you can take a picture with them for $$$), stand up cut outs (put your head in the cut out) of dancers and other odd poses to have your picture taken with, just an assortment of hurly burly, craziness. The colored houses are almost an after thought to all this hubbub. But you can still see, if you look hard enough behind the Disney-like show, the old style houses, the laundry hung out on the front step, the patchwork homes and lives of what was traditionally the backbone of the working city. It was fun – but it was enough after about 10 minutes.
After corralling our group, we headed back into the center of town, via San Telmo. This is the real Tango district, with the main square a huge attraction on the weekends. There is a craft and antique market here that is supposed to be the best, and real people (not shills to take your picture with) dancing the tango at any given moment. Today, being Saturday, the square isn’t as jammed as it will be tomorrow, but it’s still vibrant and full of people and life.
Our final stop is Plaza de Mayo, which we’ve already explored, but it’s nice to stop under the shade trees and listen to our guides give us an explanation of the presidency, the palace (where the president doesn’t actually live!) and the history of the whole area.
What a great way to see the city – on the ground, up close, and at our speed. Add in the local commentary, and it was a great way to spend the morning sightseeing.
So, by the time we get back to San Martin, our original meeting place, it’s around 2 pm. The guys want to go on the “north” tour – so they make arrangements to do that, our Australian friends are going to lunch on Ave. de Mayo, but we’re pretty hot and tired. My cold is full force, so we beg off and decide to head back to the hotel for an afternoon of rest. Plus, we have to figure out if we have reservations for the Tango show we asked the hotel to make for us! Tango in BA! Next post.
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