This is the final destination of my long-waited South America trip. Unfortunately, I have only one day in this famous city!
Fly in, fly out — I always feel pity for so much money spent on so little time. Yet, I had many short trips like that. I do wish that I could stay longer…
However, short visit does not make it any less fun or less memorable! You’ll be amazed by how many things I could do, and how many photos I could take in just one day! Let’s go!!
===== From Wikipedia =====
Buenos Aire, officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the capital and largest city of Argentina. Historically, Buenos Aires has been Argentina’s main venue of liberal, free-trading, and foreign ideas. However, it also had been a Spanish colony for a long time, and invaded by British and French, until 1816 it declared independence.
Our flight arrived in the middle of the continent. This time, there was no sea around.
We took a taxi (about 30min?) to the downtown of Buenos Aires, where our hostel was located. We found it on Booking.com. Although many people commented that the rooms were old and dusty, many people also commented that the decoration was very nice. Also, the rates was among one of the cheapest in our whole trip (less than USD 40/night for a twin room), considering its perfect location, so we booked it!
Indeed, the lobby was very interesting, more precisely, picture perfect! It looked exactly like the photos posted in Booking.com. We were happy. Also, there were water machine, tea & coffee self-service at the lobby. We immediately filled in our water bottles!
The hostel itself was old, we knew that, but I complimented its beautiful furnitures and details — we cannot see these in the new hotels. Also, there was a little balcony in our room! My heart was singing, when I saw the street view from our very balcony! It’s simply beautiful!
Oh yeah, the room wasn’t very clean. Inside the closet, there were so much dust that we joked that there must be nobody used it for years!! Also, we couldn’t find any towels inside the room, so we went to look for the Manager of this hostel. He wasn’t at the lobby. There was not even a front desk in this hostel. He was casually sitting in his little office in the 2nd floor. He then casually said that the cleaning lady would bring them later… but she never came — until evening when we looked for her. Also, we never got the bath mat that we had been asking for… Oh, just forget it!
We finally left the hostel, and started wandering on the streets. Oh, all the buildings around were so beautiful. The whole town looked like Europe, maybe Spain? in the 50s? I think many buildings were built when Buenos Aires was colonized by Spain. But then, it’s not necessary a bad thing! It could easily passed as one of the prettiest city in South America, thank to the Spain, I think.
Also, we were surprised that there were tons of restaurants and cafes on the streets that have been in business for more than 100 years! Wow! We knew that because many of them had the craved signs said that they were open since 18xx. Besides that, inside those restaurants, they were still decorated like 100 year ago, so elegant! It felt like living in the old Hollywood movies! I love it!
We were not hungry, so we just had an ice-cream cone from the shop, and enjoyed the street view with our dessert!
We passed by this Tango Show house! The signs looked so attractive! And, if you saw my Easter Island post, you already know that I love watching dance shows!! So I begged our friend to join me. I bought the tickets for tonight (which were not cheap!), but hey! I only had one night there! And, I had never seen Tango in Live!
We continued to wander around the streets and parks all afternoon. All the buildings looked so European and so pretty. I particular liked a chair on the streets. It was made of metal. The surface was hard and cold, yet they made it look totally like a soft sofa chair. It was amazing!
At early evening, we found a fancy-looking restaurant, so we took our early dinner there, while it was still empty. The lamps on top were made of glass jars, and there was a big wall of green plants in front of us. It was so interesting!
We ordered some pretty dishes, mini toasts and salad. The thing is, in South America, it seems that people always eat potatoes like Asian always eat rice. So, whatever we ordered, it always included large amount of fried potatoes. This time, we tried to order something without the side potatoes, but although the menu did not show any potatoes, there was still a large plate of fried potatoes (bigger than the main dish!) came with it. We were shocked! They all tasted good though… even the potatoes had cheese and seasonings on it, so it was tasty, just too much!
We visited the famous “Ateneo Grand Splendid”, which is often called “the world’s most beautiful bookstore”! You’ll see why. It’s huge & grand and gorgeous!! Too bad that most of the books inside were in Spanish or other languages… Not many English books.
Since my photos are not good enough to show how gorgeous it really is!! I include the following link for much better photos & description.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/things-to-see-beautiful-bookshop
Since it was too early for the Tango show (or should we say the show was too late at night?), we found an old elegant cafe to sit down…
The cafe was indeed an excellent choice! (I’m sure there were many other excellent cafes in Buenos Aires too!) Not only the beautiful interior decoration, the professional and well-uniformed waiters, the relaxing mood inside, the coffee and cakes… everything were 5-stars!! Who said that you can only find such services in Japan?? Not true.
I want to also mention that we only ordered 2 cups of coffees, but there were multiple plates of resorted cakes and sweets served to us for FREE! The cakes and sweets not only tasted good, but looked incredibly cute too!
Finally… the show!! It was getting dark, and the streets were almost empty, and despite of being in South America, at night it was chilly. I had to wear my raincoat to keep me warm…
The dance show was good! All the dancers looked so professional and precise-timing, and I thought I was watching a musical in NY, except they were dancing exotic TANGO!! I think they must be all trained since they were little… These are some serious SPECIAL SKILLS. I think the tickets well worth it!
Oh, by the way, we bought the cheapest tickets, so only included one drink, while we had to endure people in other tables happily enjoying their full course dinners during the show…
Next morning, sadly I had to leave this beautiful city! I snapped some more photos of every details of this interesting old hostel!
As the last but not the least activity of this trip — we went to the historical cafe “Cafe Tortoni” in Buenos Aires for Breakfast!!
This cafe has been here since 1880. According to Wikipedia, even Albert Einstein had visited here in the past. How amazing it is!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caf%C3%A9_Tortoni
In fact, this cafe was so popular that when we visited the day before in the afternoon, it was so crowded that was impossible to get a table or even enter the door!! Luckily, this morning we came super early (as we stayed in a hostel nearby), we were able to secure a table in the still-empty cafe. Yeah!!!
Nothing is better than a rich breakfast, and this one even included some good-looking cakes! But too bad, after this, I had to say goodbye to my dear friend. Ohh… when can we travel together again??
So, this is the end of my 1st South America trip… But there are still so many countries haven’t explored yet. Although coming to South America had costed me a fortune, and 30+ hours of long flight each way almost killed me… I think I’ll come again.
I miss South America!!!