A Weekend in Buenos Aires

So I spent this past weekend back in Buenos Aires and enjoyed my time seeing the city and its surroundings. Friday night I went out to dinner with Gail, a woman who I met back in Ecuador when I was traveling there a couple years ago. She has been living in and traveling around Argentina for the past 8 months or so and just happened to be making a stop in Buenos Aires on Friday. We had a lovely dinner in the San Telmo district of town, known for its cobble stone streets and array of restaurants and cafes. It was great to see her again, as it had been 2 years since we´d seen each other last, and also nice just to see a familiar face.

Saturday I left the city to check out the Delta of the Rio Parana, located about 30 minutes outside of town by train. The Delta consisted of a bunch of waterways that you could take boat rides through and islands you could get off on to walk around. The sides of the rivers are filled with interesting houses all built as weekend getaways for Argentines. I took what is the equivalent of a city bus (which was really a city boat) out to one of the islands and had a wonderful lunch sitting by the river. I watched lots of interesting crafts paddle by. There were lots of people rowing, lots of fishing boats and taxi boats. I even saw a boy paddle by in a whitewater playboat! I wanted to let him know that he was in the wrong part of the country and the wrong type of river for his boat, but he seemed to be enjoying himself anyhow so I let him paddle on by. After lunch I took a stroll through the island to see all the houses built off of some of the other canals that made their way through the main part of the island.

One of the back canals on the island

An interesting house built off of the river

This morning I got up early to do a tour of the city. I saw many important monuments and buildings, as well as the Boca Stadium, where the most important soccer team in all of Argentina plays. Afterwards I made my way over to La Boca, a neighborhood that is known for being the place where Tango was born. It is also known for its extremely colorful houses, which are that way because the people who originally settled in the area were immigrants and had only the paint that was leftover from the boats they came in on (or so I´m told). Anyways, it was a colorful town filled with lots of interesting people dancing tango in the streets and selling local art. After La Boca I took another stroll through San Telmo which has a big antigues fair in its streets every Sunday. I ended my afternoon at the Puerto Madero Hooters Restaurant (I was dying for some American food). The port is the most up and coming part of the city, and has lots of huge boats in its harbor and lots of huge buildings and expensive apartments surrounding it. Tonight I will be heading to a Tango show, which involves having dinner and watching a tango performance. Apparently, visiting a Tango show is considered a must-do when visiting Buenos Aires, so I´m pretty excited to see it.

The colorful houses of La Boca

Tomorrow I leave the city and head to Patagonia. Its been nice seeing Buenos Aires, but I am ready to get back to the mountains. I fly into Esquel, Argentina in the morning and will then be making my way to the Futaleufu river in Chile to drop off my kayaking gear. I plan on spending the following week or so traveling from the Futa down through northern patagonia (in both Chile and Argentina) and into El Chalten, Argentina. Since Ill be mostly camping along the way it´s unlikely that I´ll have internet access for a while. I´ll make sure to post again with some pictures when I can.