SV Sine Timore

Saturday, January 17, 2015

Buildings and Boats

Buenos Aires, Argentina

I am sure that the with number of miles we have walked in this city, we could have crossed the entire country by now.

In addition to our own random wandering, we have now been on two actual walking tours. The number of interesting or downright odd buildings, along with their stories, is fascinating. The architecture continues to be an astounding mix of inspired beauty and extremely uninspired ugliness.

United Nations sculpture - closes up at night

Planetarium - closed for renovations

The Cathedral that the Pope calls home

One district, not far from our hotel, is Puerto Madero, the site of the original port for the city. Now it is a lovely, gentrified home to upscale businesses and pricey high-rise residences. There are two marinas here, the yacht club that would not let scruffy looking vagrants like ourselves near enough to see, and another that is situated such that it could never be very private, being right in the middle of one of the old "Dikes" of the former port, now surrounded by trendy restaurants and such. We were treated to the spectacle of one of the swing bridges opening, holding up a huge amount of traffic, to allow a single small sailboat passage to the outer harbour - pretty cool!

1906

2015

Pedestrian bridge

We visited an old navy training frigate, now set up as a museum. Also pretty cool.

One other museum that caught our eye was the Bicentennial Museum, where we got a glimpse of the last 200 years of history for Argentina. Suffice it say that they have had their share of turbulence over the years, a lot of it very recent - and there is nothing to say it is over yet. Economically, this country is still very messed up. I would not recommend converting all your money into Argentinian Pesos.

Today, we wandered down to the bus terminal and got some tickets out of here. Tomorrow we will be travelling upriver to the city of Rosario, the Salsa Capital of Argentina. Yah, that sounds like fun!

{GMST}34|36.5|S|58|21.9|W|Puerto Madero, BA|Puerto Madero, BA{GEND}

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Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Good air, heat and water

Buenos Aires, Argentina

With tears in our eyes, we had to say goodbye to the Zandaam.

After 20 days of pure stress-free luxury, we were ignominiously thrust back into reality. Our first sight of the city of Buenos Aires was from the very industrial looking port. Really no surprise when you arrive on a ship. Since we did not have to make any tight airline connections, we were at least able to delay our departure until we had a chance to partake of one last leisurely breakfast on board.

Our hotel was only about a 5-minute taxi ride from the cruise ship terminal, so we arrived way too early to check in. We were able to stow our luggage and do some preliminary explorations of the immediate vicinity, mostly in search of an ATM to get some local currency. Because it was Sunday, a lot of stuff was closed, although there were quite a few tourists about in the streets. Quite pleasant really

Yesterday, our first full day here, saw some record high temperatures in Buenos Aires, reportedly hitting 38 degrees. It certainly felt hot to us! In the morning we joined a free walking tour group for a few hours, ending up leaving us by the gates to the Cementario de la Recoleta (Recoleta Cemetary) where the biggest attraction is the grave of Eva Peron - a must-see for anyone visiting the city. After a couple of hours sitting in the shade at a nearby restaurant, we ventured inside. Pretty cool place, for a Cemetary.

Palace of Justice

My overall impression of Buenos Aires so far is very positive - I really like the disorganized hodge-podge of architecture and generally pedestrian friendly streets. I'm not sure Susanne is as enthusiastic - too hot perhaps?

Imagine Madonna in full voice

The world's widest avenue

Today, other than a quick trip to the nearest Starbucks for coffee and muffins, we have been holed up in the hotel, while the rain has been almost torrential (thus this opportunity to catch up on this blog). Tomorrow promises to be much less wet and no more extreme heat - should be a great day for further explorations.

{GMST}34|36|S|58|24|W|Buenos Aires, Argentina|Buenos Aires, Argentina{GEND}

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Quick tour of Uruguay

Montevideo, Uruguay

Uruguay is not a very large country. In spite of that, we saw very little of it. Such is the downside of travel on a cruise ship.

Our first stop was in Punta del Este, the location of my last post on this blog. When we left the boat, a 25-minute tender ride to the dock, the day looked very promising. The sun came out and we managed to walk a bit of this seaside resort town before the rains came with a vengeance. After huddling in a restaurant, drinking incredibly overpriced cappuccinos, we made a mad dash back to the docks and returned to the ship. As soon as we were back on board, the sun came out and it looked gorgeous, but there was not enough time left for us to make another attempt at seeing the town. Punta del Este was a bit of a bust.

Punta del Este is home to quite a large marina, with lots of pleasure boats, something we have not seen for a while. If the prices for everything else is any indication, it is probably a very expensive place to keep a boat.

Next stop was in the city of Montevideo, where the majority of the people in this country live. Here we were able to spend a very pleasant day, taking a self-guided walking tour. The historic district, right around the harbour, is quite picturesque, but the rest of the city just looks like any other city to us. Much less expensive than Punta del Este but still not cheap.

Our Zandaam home

One odd sight, as the ship was leaving the port, was a collection of old rusting hulks of ships that apparently came here to die. Kind of a sad sight.