TUESDAY – BUENOS AIRES

What a city? Like Santiago, a city of contrasts. Our hotel is well located in the central city although the view from our room leaves a little to be desired.

This morning we went for a walk around the general vicinity of our hotel and found Florida Street, one of several pedestrian only streets where it all happens – fancy shops, street vendors, buskers and lots of hustlers who seem to be offering to change currency. There is obviously a scam but I don't know what it is. While we felt comfortable and safe, there were a lot of armed police around so they must get some sort of trouble from time to time.

 

 

This afternoon, we did our prearranged city tour with a driver and a guide which enabled to see the various aspects of the city from the very affluent to the very poor. As previously stated, a city of contrasts.

There are an enormous number of monuments in the city. It seems that anybody who has ever done anything notable has a substantial monument dedicated to them.

 

 

 Strange as it may seem, one of the highlights of the tour was a visit to Cementerio de la Recoleta, not a cement factory but a cemetery described as possibly the city's top tourist attraction. It is 5 hectares of the most incredible (and in some cases completely abandoned) crypts where generations of Argentina's elite rest in ornate splendour. Our guide Adrienna has a particular passion for it because of, as she put it, the amazing and artistic sculptures incorporated in many of the graves.

 

This picture shows Trish and I doing what most visitors to the cemetery apparently do. As a memorial to a daughter who died at a relatively young age, her family erected a bronze statue of the daughter and her dog and the tradition is that everybody pats the dog on the nose. As you would expect, the nose is well polished.

 

 

As you might also expect, the Pope is a popular figure here.

 

Before heading off on our tour, we checked in with the Antarctic organizers. We will be getting an early morning wake up call at 4:30. The temperature here is approximately 30 degrees. The maximum temperature at Ushuaia where we get on the boat tomorrow is predicted to be 10 degrees and its all downhill from there so there will be a dramatic change of wardrobe.

 

These are some examples of what we can apparently look forward to. Hopefully I can communicate from the ship but, if I can't, there will be a burst of delayed blog posts in about 10 days time.