On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
way2blue
[I previously posted an OTR series about a boat trip taken later in our South America travels. This short photo series starts at the beginning—in Buenos Aires.] Given our long flight from San Francisco to Buenos Aires via Houston, we decided to spend a few days in Buenos Aires to catch our breath and acclimate to the 5-hour time change before flying on to Ushuaia. Friends who’d been to Buenos Aires loved the colonial districts so I was looking forward to visiting. We stayed in a small village near the airport as the flight to Ushuaia left fairly early in the morning. Our first full day we took a taxi into the city and bought tickets for the yellow hop on / hop off buses to get our bearings. We hopped off in the colorful La Boca barrio, originally home to Italian & Spanish immigrants in the mid 1800s who settled at the mouth of Rio Riachuelo adjacent to the old port.
The main street in the La Boca barrio is lined with souvenir shops & stalls, artwork plus tango dancers. A bit crowded too.
Looking for a lunch spot out of the fray—I spied tables up above the street in a leafy garden setting. Took a few false starts to find the entrance…
The restaurant entrance is lined with BBQ grills. (I think I ate a year’s worth of meat while in Argentina.)
Exuberant colors every direction from the upper terrace.
Our second day in Buenos Aires we had a taxi drop us off directly in La Boca. Had a cappuccino at my new favorite restaurant. We’d arranged with our taxi driver to pick us up at the ferry terminal in the afternoon, ~5 miles away, so we could explore the recently renovated waterfront (Puerto Madero) en route. We walked mostly along the waterfront promenade, just shifting inland when we came to a warehouse district. The port basin has several modern, high rise buildings and this extraordinary bridge crossing over
Another view of the bridge and the working port. ‘Our’ side of the waterfront was lined with modern restaurants, shops, offices & apartments. After lunch on a terrace along the waterfront and another cappuccino at the ferry terminal, we found our taxi and headed back to the village for our last night in Buenos Aries. Did I mention that it was surprisingly warm and didn’t particularly cool off at night. Very still air. Very different from my home town.
Baud
Always wanted to go.
raven
Nice!
eclare
Very cool.
JPL
Very nice pictures.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Sounds like nice days exploring
Paul in Jacksonville
I spent time in Mendoza on two different work related trips. I know what you mean when you say you ate so much meat. I found that steaks in the US tasted bad for a month after I returned, since the Argentinian beef was significantly better.
BigJimSlade
Argentina: we have the meats!
Andrew Abshier
I spent 17 days in Buenos Aires in 2015 as part of a month-long trip to Argentina and Chile. I stayed in Congreso, just a block away from Palacio Congreso, the capital building. I saw many of the neighborhoods of the city, but did not visit La Boca. The Feria San Telmo was one of the highlights of my stay there. The pictures today brought back some nice memories!
Gin & Tonic
Nice photos. Love Buenos Aires.
Sphouch
Ah, la puente de mujeres… it was being worked on last November when we went. Didn’t get to la boca, but we stayed in San Telmo, which was the bougie spot in the early 1900s before yellow fever moved the haves to Recoleta. Now it’s more artist/pre-gentrification.
Loved visiting Buenos Aires, but Igauzu falls was the highlight of the trip for us. Glad to see some pictures of the city with the best food I’ve had recently.
Steve in the ATL
@Andrew Abshier:
Heading to Chile in a couple of months. Any travel tips?
StringOnAStick
Buenos Aires is a gorgeous city. It is also very affordable for travel because their economy took a never ending hit thanks to linking their currency to the U.S. Dollar (Chicago economic school strikes again), defaulting and then having Paul Singer’s hedge fund win a USSC judgement that the debt he purchased for pennies on the dollar must be paid at full face value, igniting another round of devaluation/hyperinflation. You know of Paul Singer, Pro Publica outlined his purchase of USSC justices just last week. The Argentinean middle class is pretty much gone thanks to all this, just the tiny layer of the truly wealthy and every one else either in the precariate or skating in the edge.
I had expected some deserved resentment from Argentinean people when we were there 7 years ago, but instead I just found apathy about politics and a “they are all crooks” attitude. I loved visiting there, such a gorgeous country and people.
dibert dogbert
Sometime in the century best forgotten, my brother in law was down there on a business trip. For some reason he and some businessmen were eating in Asuncion when my BIL asked “After Stroessner, what?” the businessmen quickly started looking under the table for a bug.
way2blue
@Steve in the ATL:
Chile is a very long, skinny country! If you fly through Santiago—take time to visit Valparaíso on the coast or better stay a couple days to explore the (World Heritage) Cerro Alegre barrio and surroundings. [I’m compiling a photo submission from our time there.] And try their pisco sour (if you’re not already familiar with them)…
way2blue
@StringOnAStick:
I knew that Singer had gotten a tainted USSC decision regarding Argentina but hadn’t put all the pieces together. Unreal.