After over two weeks in Patagonia, it was something of a shock when our hired driver left the airport and took us into the hustle and bustle of Buenos Aires. The first thing that strikes you is: oh okay, I guess the sane driving styles of Chile are gone. Whew!

We got to our place for the week in Recoleta–a big, busy, upscale neighborhood just to the north of the city center–and quickly settled into our new home. It was late when we got in, so we only had time to grab dinner. The city would have to wait until tomorrow.

We woke up the next day, ready to go, and started with–a fight! Yes, traveling the world isn’t all fun and games; sometimes, you just have to have a stupid fight.

We tried walking it off by going a few blocks to the Recoleta Cemetery–a mausoleum where famous Argentinians are laid to rest–and attempting to find the grave of Eva Perón. But we failed at that too! It was hot, and we decided we’d have to tackle this again later in the week, armed with more knowledge and less marital strife. So, we sat on a bench in the center square of the cemetery, hashed out our silly misunderstanding, and reset.

It Takes Two to Tango

All that tension in the morning would be perfect fuel, we figured, for indulging in one of Argentina’s famous art forms. Erika had a recommendation of a Tango school in town–DNI Tango–from a friend, and it turns out they give a first lesson free! So we put on our nicest wrinkled clothes, walked about 2 miles across town to the place, and got ready to do the tango.

And it started out… kind of weirdly. Explaining that tango was about tension, and gently resisting that tension, the class started with an exercise, of sorts, where they asked the guys to circle about the room and gently press on the shoulders, hips, etc of the ladies, and the ladies were to resist that by not allowing the pressure to move them out of their positions. I promise I haven’t tried to write that so as to make it sound creepy and predatory, it sounds that way all on its own.

This was weird. But it did a great job of building tension! During this exercise, I basically acted as a bouncer, keeping the circling horde away from Erika. Things were off to a strange start.

After that, though, it was a great class and we had a wonderful time. We basically just learned a few opening steps, and drilled that the whole time, which was somewhat disappointing–Erika and I both wish it had covered a wider material, instead of trying to perfect that one opening. But the instructors were great, very helpful and incredibly charismatic, and they finished off the lesson with a demonstration of their own, which was beautiful and stunning. We got information from them about other classes they offer, and hoped to come back later in the week, but we never had the chance.

El Día de la Mujer

Erika found some free walking tours in town, and we love to walk, so we planned to do them both. Our first one went through the city center and talked about some of the history of Buenos Aires and Argentina. Buenos Aires has received a great deal of immigration from Europe over the past century and a half–especially Italian immigrants–giving a very diverse, cosmopolitan vibe to the city. It’s a big reason Erika and I fit in there very well. We were no longer always the palest people around! There were lots of languages other than Spanish!

Buenos Aires not only feels like Europe, but looks like Europe too. Taken by the spectacle of the Worlds Fair in Paris, Buenos Aires bulldozed most of its old, colonial-style architecture, and put up brand new buildings and boulevards modeled after Paris. The lampposts in Plaza del Congreso look like the lamps in Paris. The Avenida de Mayo is modeled after the Champs d’Élysées. There’s even a damn Rodin’s The Thinker in the park. Buenos Aires is often called the Paris of South America, and with the look of the city, the countless cafés, and the fantastic food, the name fits.

One important way it’s not like Paris, though: far, far cheaper. We’d have great, nice meals for $30 total. For the two of us. $40 if we wanted a bottle of wine too. We always wanted a bottle of wine: it was cheap, and Argentinian, and therefore great.

This seems like a good point to say: we absolutely adored Buenos Aires. We felt the first pangs of love that first night, but agreed we wanted to see the city in the day. In the day, the city is a wonder. Green space everywhere, beautiful buildings and parks, well-dressed Argentines, and superb food everywhere we went. Everywhere. We got spoiled by this fact, but we did no research for places to eat: we just went places, and it was always good. Walking along, “I’m hungry… that place looks cute”–boom, they had great food. “Should we go to that café, or that one, or this one?” Doesn’t matter; they’re all great. Buenos Aires was the first place we both agreed that we could really see ourselves living.

At any rate, I’ve gotten off track! We did a walking tour! And it was great, but even more interesting and fun was that it happened to be on International Women’s Day–El Día de la Mujer. And as it turns out, the city center was full of demonstrations and protests. FULL. Women everywhere! There were already tons in the afternoon when we got out there, and as the afternoon went on and people were getting off work, thousands more were flooding to the Plaza de Mayo for the demonstrations. It was invigorating and inspiring to be among it all, even without being a part of it.

Date Night

Even though all days are Saturdays, and all nights are date nights, sometimes we really need a date. Like look nice, go somewhere nice, make it a thing. So we each put on the one “date night” outfit we brought, and went to a parilla, or grill, near our place.

It was absolutely phenomenal.

The steaks were huge, delicious, and cheap. Naturally, we included a bottle of wine, as it was also cheap. This was one of our favorite meals in Buenos Aires, and really one of my favorites on the trip so far.

The company helped.

La Casa Rosada

The walking tour we did was supposed to end at La Casa Rosada, the Pink House, but with the demonstrations going on we couldn’t make it over there. So the next day, we walked ourselves all the way back down there so we could get a look at it.

La Casa Rosada is the Argentine White House, basically. Unfortunately, there is a ton of construction right now on the plaza in front of the building, so we couldn’t get very good views. Womp. Oh well, let’s walk our asses alllll the way back home.

Recoleta Walking Tour

Since we liked the first walking tour so much, we decided to try the one in our neighborhood that the same company runs. The tour wound through the neighborhood, pointing out some of the ritzier houses, parks, embassies, and other points of interest like the Polo Club. The tour began at the Teatro Colón, an ostentatious opera house that National Geographic ranked as the third best opera house in the world.

Recoleta, as I mentioned, is an upscale neighborhood and historically has been. It’s where the rich and famous of Buenos Aires have traditionally lived. This began back in the 1800s when there was an extensive, deadly outbreak of yellow fever on the south-side of town that ran all the rich off to the hills of Recoleta to avoid the disease. And since then, it’s been one of the most expensive areas of the city.

The tour touched on some other aspects of Argentine history as well. It discussed the… intricacies? that’s too strong a word… silly circumstances? that’s a little better… of the Falklands war. Our tour guide pointed out there is still a fairly strong dichotomy in opinions in Argentina on the Falklands matter. Some Argentinians still think the Islas Malvinas, as Argentina refers to the islands, should by rights be Argentinian. Some still hold great shame over Argentina’s role in the armed conflict. The good of it, I guess, is it greatly weakened the military dictatorship in Argentina and helped lead to its downfall!

Back to the Cemetery

The walking tour ended near the Recoleta cemetery, so we figured it was time to head back in and find Eva Perón once and for all. But before we could, something caught my attention from the tree in the plaza we were at.

First, I should give you an idea of these trees. There are enormous magnolia trees in a lot of the plazas and parks in Buenos Aires. Huge trees! They stretch out, their roots curling through the plazas, the trunks splitting into large branches and twisting through the air. They are also imminently climbable.

Which brings us to this particular tree, which I’m pretty sure had a young couple having sex in it. I caught the motion out of the corner of my eye as we walked by; stopped; backed up a few steps; and watched confused as Erika asked me what was up.

Yep, pretty sure they were having sex.

Which brings me to an aside: motels in South America! Motels, you ask, why would that aside come up? So you think a motel, you think a cheaper, simpler, maybe dingier hotel. But a motel here is different. A motel is somewhere you rent by the hour to have sex.

Erika learned about this when she unknowingly stayed at a motel one time, overnight like you would if you thought it was a hotel, and was angered and appalled when she was charged by the hour. We talked about these in Santa Cruz with our taxi driver, Alejandro, as well, when he was pointing out the various motels around town. Helpful landmarks!

What the hell was I talking about? Oh right, Eva Perón! We went back over to the cemetery, confident we’d find her this time, and go us we did! It may have helped there were a ton of people over there. Evita is still a very popular figure in Argentina, and weirdly that has nothing to do with Madonna.

We wandered back through the cemetery, looking at some of the more ostentatious memorials. Eventually, we arrived back at the center square.

“Hey,” I started, “you want to go sit on a bench and have a fight?”

“Oh I’d love to!” Erika replied, laughing as I called back to our first trip here.

We laughed, and hugged each other, and have turned “want to sit on a bench and have a fight?” into a joke we use frequently.

Movie Night!

We spent that evening cooking for ourselves in our apartment, and relaxing with some Malbec and a movie on Netflix. We wanted to watch Evita, but unfortunately it wasn’t available, so instead we watched Y Tu Mamá Támbien, which was great for working on my Spanish. Plus, I’d never seen it before.

It was a wonderful cap to a beautiful day of touring the city. And made Buenos Aires feel that much more like home.

La Boca

On our last full day in Buenos Aires, we planned to keep it pretty light. We took the subway across town and walked into the neighborhood of La Boca, a working class neighborhood on the south-east side of the city. La Boca is most famous for two things: futbol, and the touristy area of El Caminito.

In futbol, it’s known for the Boca Juniors, the most successful club in Argentinian futbol. They play at the imposing stadium La Bombonera, and their fans are famously rowdy. Games are also incredibly hard to get into, as we found out since we were interested in trying. You have to be a card-carrying member to get into the games, and there are more members than there are seats in the stadium. There are services that can get you a card, along with tickets, for an individual game, but they’re… hoo, whew it’s expensive. They had one home game while we were in town, and the cheapest tickets I saw, at the top of the stadium, were well over $200 USD.

We didn’t go.

The other most famous thing in La Boca, as I mentioned, is El Caminito, a short cobbled street surrounded by colorful, beautiful houses. It’s a stunning thing to come upon as you walk through the neighborhood, both because of all the color, and because of all the TOURISTS. All of the sudden, walking through this working class area, BOOM a tourist attraction and all the requisite tourists are just plopped there.

It’s a beautiful street though, complete with vendors and overpriced food as you’d expect in a tourist spot. But, good on them for taking the tourists for all they can get.

Uber

So, on the day we were leaving town, we took Uber to get to the ferry terminal. It turns out Uber isn’t strictly legal in Argentina… it’s kind of grey. The police don’t really enforce it (they’re not strictly illegal either), and Uber definitely operates there.

However, the taxi mafia tries to enforce it.

Our Uber driver was telling us how taxi drivers will verbally–and physically–assault Uber drivers. He talked of side mirrors being taken out; of cars being vandalized and set on fire; of guns being brandished. The state hasn’t decided what to do about Uber, but evidently the taxi drivers have.

Our driver dropped us off across the street from the ferry terminal, so as not to attract the attention of any taxis. As he got out to help us get our bags out of the trunk, Erika and I were all ready to give him a hug and a hearty Nos vemos! to allay any suspicions, but it never came down to that.

The Buenos Aires taxi services have a fairly poor reputation, so I’m not sure I feel terribly badly for them. Whenever we go to new places, we always do a little research to figure the best way to get out of the airport, bus terminal, or wherever we are. Buenos Aires was the first place we went to where the recommendations were always to not use the taxi services.

What’s Next?

We took a break from our Argentina adventures to head across the Río de la Plata, and spend a week in Uruguay. Come back to hear about it, and thanks for checking us out again!