Buenos Aires: Restaurants, Transportation, Accommodation and Tours

Restaurants
Interestingly, I was in Buenos Aires for 3 and 1/2 days, but I ate at the same restaurant for 3 nights on a row, it was just a friendly neighborhood restaurant kind of place in Palermo, at the corner where Gallo meets Paraguay. Its name is Restaurant Los Amigos, like its name, I felt like the server did treat me like an amigo. The food was good, not very expensive. The place may look a bit old, but it was never crowded (I went between 6pm and 8pm). After a long day of sightseeing, it felt kind of good to just sit there quietly, have a cold drink and some grilled chorizo. I didn't speak much Spanish, the server was very patient to try to understand me or recommend me something by adding a lot of body language to explain what kind of meat I am ordering. I just felt really welcome there. I wish I remember his name, but it is a small restaurant, he pretty much is the only one who serves. So, for those who wasn't good with Spanish and stay near the area, I would definitely recommend this restaurant. Another restaurant was in La Boca area, there were so many restaurants in La Boca, most of them were heavily touristy. I mean if you eat there, most likely, it is not for the values, but for the some photo op for some tango dancers.

Restaurante Los Amigos
Address: Paraguay 3100, Buenos Aires
Phone:+54 11 4963-8674

Tours
I did not join any local tour in Buenos Aires, since one really don't have to. There are a few must see for me: La Boca, Recoleta Cemetery, Obelisk are among the top of my list. A day trip to Colonia in Uruguay is also recommended. Galaria Pacifico was a beautiful mall, not that I would buy anything there. Big ben clock tower near Retiro and the train station  looked fantastic at dust, so does the Puerto Madero at dawn. Buenos Aires is just one of those cities, you can explore it as short as 2-3 days or up to a week or more, if you are interested in nightlife and all that.

Transportation
The subway is good, 4.5 Argentinean peso a ride. Buses are even cheaper. It is not really that bad once you get a hang of its system, how to get on and pay your ride. The difficult part is to figure out what bus lines go to where, and what roads they are going to be on. For both subway and bus, it would be a huge advantages to get a SABE card (transport stored value card). If you are staying with a local, or someone from Airbnb, definitely ask about it and see if they can get you SABE card. Otherwise, you must have the exact change (in coins) to get on a bus, that can be a bitch. Comparatively, the tourist bus day pass or taxi are quite expensive than the subway or regular local buses, I believe the tourist bus day pass is about 240 peso for the first day, then 170 peso for each day after. Taxi drivers can be sneaky sometimes, and they would say you need to pay subcharge for the bag, or they try to not use the meter. I try to avoid taking the taxi, but sometimes it is unavoidable. If you do rather taxi, it might be wise to look at the map ahead of time, and kind of get a sense how far your destination, and recognize some street names, so don't just let the taxi driver to take you as long as they want.

Accommodation
For Buenos Aires, I definitely recommend to find something on Airbnb, in neighborhood like Palermo or Recoleta, you can find some really nice apartment or studio for very very reasonably price. I stayed with Diego Coria, super nice guy, extremely helpful and understanding about traveler. He has not only let me use his SABE card, he also provided me a sim card for my unlocked cell phone. He lives in the same building, if you need anything, advice, special arrangement on check-in and check-out, he would totally work with you. I was so lucky to have bumped into him on Airbnb. His studio apartment was clean, quiet, homey. Love it! Totally recommended.

Diego Coria
Airbnb profile: https://www.airbnb.com/users/show/1751072

Day 15: Another Cemetery? Sure.

Waking up to witness the major fog condition in Iguazu (again), I was sure that my flight back to Buenos Aires would be delayed. But Claudia, the host lady at the B&B, did not think so. She said in autumn it was pretty common to have early morning fog, but it would clear up in an hour or two. My flight was at 11:35am, sure enough, it took off on time. Special thanks to Claudia, she has been a very nice host, and very helpful in giving me advice about getting around from airport to town, the restaurant where I could find some more reasonably priced food. She also helped me to reserve the airport transfer pick up, prepared a huge breakfast for me this morning. Even though her B&B was a bit further than other more conveniently located B&B, hostels and hotels, I think it is a good choice. Her hospitality triumph it all.

Back to Buenos Aires, it was already 1:30pm, my flight will not leave until 11:00pm, so technically I have had the entire day to see more of Buenos Aires. But I couldn’t ask Diego to wait for me to go pick up my bag all day long, so I texted him, agreed that I will go to his place to pick up my backpack at 4pm, I have about 2 hours to do something. I thought I missed Carlos Gardel’s grave the other day in Recoleta Cemetery. Turned out I didn’t, Gardel’s grave is actually in Chacarita Cemetery. It is right by the B line metro, so what the heck, let’s go to get that done too.

It took me an hour or so to travel from the domestic airport to Chacarita Cemetery. Oh dear, it is actually a real regular cemetery, massive in size, people are having funeral there and stuff. I was like, what the hell am I doing here? I walked in anyway, and there were no map, I blindly walked for a circle, and couldn’t see any signs about Carlos Gardel’s grave. I gave it a shoot, walked into an office there was a lady, first I said “Disculpe!” (I am sorry..) and asked where is Carlos Gardel’s grave. She pointed me the directions. It didn’t seem too far, and at last I did find it! I am the only one there in a quiet cemetery looking at this tango singer’s grave. If one really think about it, that kind of made me a weirdo. I don't even know the singer, I just saw a picture of the grave on the internet and I wanted to see it in person. Hehe... I don’t mind being weird. I didn’t mean to make cemetery visits as my highlights in Buenos Aires though.

I thought about the wall I saw the other day, where the musical notes of one of his songs was painted on the wall. The song is called Volver. I google it, “Volver” means “Return”. Kind of appropriate for today. So here it is:

Diego let me hang out at his place for a bit while he finished cleaning up. We chatted a whole lot about Argentina’s economy, social problems, Airbnb, and other stuff. Great young man. I hope all the best to him. I am so glad that I have used airbnb in this trip. Both places turned out to be fantastic.

Now, I have more than 2 hours to kill in the airport. Out of peso, maybe I will have to grab a coffee with my credit card instead.

Volver...

Day 13: My 8 Hours in Uruguay

Mr. Chan at the ferry terminal yesterday almost gave me a huge trouble, he entered my nationality as CHN, which made a significant difference, because for immigration purpose, Chinese from China needed a visa to enter Uruguay, but not for citizen of Hong Kong. The immigration madam was flipping through my passport like crazy to reexamine again and again. I said “de Hong Kong, no visa”. To make thing worst, he entered my birthday wrong too. He entered Aug 7 instead of Aug 9. What the hell?! Anyway, she let me go at last, after she confirmed that mine was a Hong Kong passport. One hour ferry later, I arrived in Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay. Another country! Yay!

Growing up, I watched FIFA soccer world cup, I heard about Uruguay from time to time, kind of a funny name, never would have imagined I would be here one day, even for just 8 hours. It felt good. We arrived around 9:45am. I walked out the port and exchanged US$20 to local currency, the rate is US$1 to UYU$22.2. I figured I would only need some money for lunch. Walked down to the tourist office, a very detailed-oriented and helpful lady explained what I should be visiting in Colonia. It is their holiday, however, so all museums are actually close today, that is ok for me.

First, walked down to the historical area, the old wall surrounding the city, the canon, the lighthouse, the plaza, the street signs, and the colorful casas clearly had a Portuguese colonial style. Very Macau like but cleaner and more colorful. It is a beautiful day to visit Colonia, sunny blue sky with no clouds. I navigated myself streets by streets in the historical area. By noon, I was pretty much done. The tourist office lady told me I should try visiting Plaza de Toros, which is 6km away from the historical area. She mentioned there is a regular bus in town to go to that area, but she didn’t mention which one. At the end, I found that there are 5 different local bus routes, I noticed a bus stop on the main street, so I went into the convenient store, got myself a soda, get some change and then I asked the cashier, “Buses a Plaza de Toros ahí” (pointing the bus stop), she said “Si”, I asked her “Cuánto vale para bus a Plaza de Toros?” I intended to ask how much the bus ride costs, but not sure if it was correct. Anyway, she said something with a 7.

I walked out, still didn’t know which bus it was, I was guessing it was the bus to Real de San Carlos, since it is quite close to Plaza de Toros on the map. A few buses stopped by at the bus stop, I got on each one and asked the drivers “a Plaza de Toros?” anyway, who knows if the other bus passes there as well. The first two said No, pointing behind. After I came back down from the second bus, an older woman sitting at the bus stop asking in Spanish where I am going (I guess that’s what she asked me). I said “Plaza de Toros” and showed her the map, she said something about the bus to Real de San Carlos. She also said “.... también”. That word I know, it means “also”. So, I just guessed that she meant we are going on the same bus. I asked her how much, showing her the coins in my hand, I asked “Siete?” (7) She corrected me, and something “siete”. I guessed it must be 17. I showed her a 20 peso bill, she nodded. Si. It felt kind of amazing, we were actually communicating with very little language.

That was kind of the interesting part about this trip, I mean to figure out what bus to take, how much to pay, and where to get off. I felt that the locals usually would help if you are polite and you try. I will have to keep the bus ticket this time so I would remember this incident with the Uruguayan old woman at the bus stop. When you are on your own, sometimes you just have to thicken your skin and ask for help, or just give thing a try. You may walk triple distance, but you are making something happen, that feels good! Plaza de Toros had an old ruins or some source of a circular structure, nothing as spectacular as a Colosseum. There were also some beaches near Plaza de Toros, which you could see the historical town from the other side of the bay. I walked around the beach a little, almost not a soul around me. I guess most people stayed at the other side. After 30 minutes or so, I walked back to the bus stop and waited for a return bus.

The return bus was a trip from hell, some 30-40 junior high schoolers boarded the bus, they saw a chino and got all excited, and kept saying “Konichiwa”. That is Japanese, I wanted to say but I just let it go. They were pretty harmless, when I was about to get off, one particular brave girl touched my shoulder and asked me how to say Hola in Chino? Konichiwa? I said No, and the bus stopped, I said Ciao Ciao, they said Ciao back and then I got off the bus.

It was already 1:30pm, I needed to find something to eat, the restaurant by the seaside were all expensive, turista menu are all 500-600 peso. I walked back a little to find something my US$20 equivalent Uruguayan peso could feed me. After that, I was going to find a cafe to have a coffee before getting back to the port, but then turned out one could actually climb the lighthouse, I noticed some people were up there. Of course, I would not miss this chance. Well, I didn’t get on the lighthouse in Ushuaia, at least I got on this one in Colonia. To be honest, I was more freak out to take a selfie up on the lighthouse today than paragliding, that space on the top of lighthouse was really tiny, and you needed to let people through from time to time. I sat there for a few minutes,  I was delighted that I went up. Very beautiful up there, breezy, felt good and dizzy at the same time.

To use up my last 100 Uruguayan peso, I indulged myself with some ice-cream. Got back to the port, to deal with the immigration again. They examined my passport in details, I was holding up the lines a little bit but not too much, they stamped on my passport again and I was back to the land of Argentina. Went back to the same neighborhood restaurant I have been 3 nights on a row, I liked the waiter, he has been very polite to me, I bow and he bow, and he would ask me if I want chicken breast or chicken leg by hitting his chest or hitting his leg. Muy muy cute. Tonight, I pulled out my spanish phrase and found the Spanish word for pork, so he recommended one dish, and I always had a chorizo to start. I have loved their chorizo, so cheap and tasty. After I asked for the bill, I told him “Me voy mañana, hasta luego” (I am leaving tomorrow, goodbye). He gave me his hand for shaking, so I stood up, shaked his hand. He asked me for my name, I said Benny. He said his. I had no clue what he said. But I said “Mucho gusto!” (Nice to meet you). Then I left. It was cute.

So far, I have done all the things I have planned, Iguazu will be the last item on my list.

Other photos from today, Retiro area in Buenos Aires (taken after coming back from Colonia):