Buenos Aires, Argentina 2/20-24/06

Board plane about 12:30 a.m. in Lima. Have a problem with the guy at the Lan counterin not getting my frequest flyer number in on this flight. He is also puzzled by the ticket. Needs to check with his supervisor. This is the first time this has happened to me. Gives me a middle seat and pissed me off totally. They serve a sandwich, fruit and wine. Sleep uncomfortable the whole trip, waking alot. Big group from Columbia working for Scherring Plough and going to a convention in Buenos Aires. Nice gal, Judy, sat next to me and we conversed a bit at the end of the flight. Thru customs and into Argentina. Janeen finds her internation plug finally at this airport. Try to get my frequent flyer number corrected with no luck. Taxi to the Hotel La Perla. The hotel, at first, I did not like but after a few hours it grew on me as well as the service, which was top notched!!!! Janeen climbed right in the bed. She had been unable to sleep on the plane and can usually never sleep on planes. I tried to sleep in our new residence but could not and had the visa for Brazil on my mind that we have to apply for here in Buenos Aires. I go to find the internet and they send me to the 3rd floor with a key that lets me into a conference room. The mouse is not connected to the pc and I could not correct the problem. Go down to the desk and they have me use their pc in the office behind the reception desk. I catch up on 3 articles, Costa Rica, Mexico City and Lima. Met Brenda while doing the articles as she was working in the seat right next to me. She has been very helpful ever since. She has Silvina look up the Brazilian Embassy address and how to get there by subway. Janeen is up and we head for the subway getting off at Lima Street where the 3 main huge streets running thru the center of Buenos Aires are. Very large metro city. We walk forever, stopping at a street-table cafe for lunch. Have our first Argentina steak, very good flavor, thin steak with a bit greasy fries for $3.05. Couldn't believe it!!! It was very good and I had been holding out for Argentina steaks. Finally get to the Embassy and we are there too late! Applications are in the a.m. from 10-1, pick up is from 4-6 a few days later. Oh well, the best laid plans!!!! Janeen is finally able to find an ankle brace we see in a pharmacy window on our walk back as she is still having problems with that ankle. We walk back to the Oblisc, and landmark in the middle of the 3 big streets, and take a different subway to Florida Street, one of the main shopping streets in the city. The subway here is very good. The one from our hotel is the oldest in the city with very antique cars. Florida Street is fabulous for shopping with leather everywhere. I try on many jackets but wait to purchase. Walking to the subway on Florida Street, we watch wonderful Tango dancers entertaining people on the street. It was a fabulous show. The tango is so much fun and so dramatic and flirty. I love it and want to take lessons. Took many pics of that. The man was a fairly older guy, maybe 60 or so and the woman was younger, probably in her late 20s or early 30s. They were very good and involved the people watching the show, the older guy dancing with many different-aged women and the younger girl flirting with the crowd and assisting the older guy. The Argentine people are very friendly and helpful. We had a young fellow help us going to Florida Street and then an older guy helped us from Florida to the subway station. Then a subway policeman helped us with what train to transfer to the A line to get back to our hotel. We book the city tour and the tango show for tomorrow. Next morning sleep in, have breakfast and get a taxi to make application for our Brazil visa where we are informed that we cannot get the visa till Friday at 4p.m.. Write Nick to change our flight as it is Friday at 1:30p.m. We stop for lunch at a street cafe on the corner of Santa Fe and the 3 big streets, not far from the Embassy. Reminded me of Paris. Back to the hotel to catch the tour of the city. It is quite good. At first I didn't like the fact we were on the bus all the time. It was informative though and we got off to take pictures of Eva Peron's (Evita) statue and again at the cathedral near the balcony where Eva spoke to the people. She is a very famous figure here in Buenos Aires, loved and respected by the Argentines. Back to the hotel to get dressed for the Tango show. I had checked earlier on having the memory cards copied to a cd and then again right next to the hotel. Unfortunately, I did not do that and left the camera with all our photos later that night on the bus. Che Tango and the dinner were fabulous. Anyone going to Buenos Aires should see this show. The setting is in an off-the-way back street and the tango dancers are all dressed in wonderful costumes of the 1930s era and when you arrive off the bus they invite you to dance with them while professional pictures are taken and sold later in the show if you so desire to purchase. The dinner is one of the best I have ever had. Started with a caprese salad or the very thinly-sliced rare-beef salad with arugula and shaved parmesan cheese. We selected one of each and shared, to experience both salads. Then a fabulous New York strip steak done perfectly medium rare with rosemary roasted potatoes and a Malbec wonderful bottle of wine. We sat with Jordan and George who are from Boston. Jordan is originally from here and has family still here. George talked about visiting them and how poor they were, first by getting an ok from Jordan to discuss the experience. They were such nice guys. Took pictures of us all but "se la vie"! The show is fabulous, the dancing so much fun and dramatic. As we are exiting the show, I speak with Nelson who is the older guy highlighted in the show with an older dancer, and he will call me to schedule a tango lesson. The tango dance is specific to Buenos Aires. It was created in the early 1900's as there was poverty and it was a fun cheap thing for people to do to pick them up. It is really fun to watch and I want to learn this dance! We are the last to be dropped off at our hotel and I leave my camera in the back seat, with the MP3 player, 3 memory cards, 2 full of pictures and about $450 worth of goods. The next day, and time and again after that till the moment we leave, we call the bus company and Che Tango trying to retrieve my camera to no avail, it is gone, stolen by someone in the bus company or the car wash that cleaned the minibus that next morning. These are the pictures from Antiqua, Guatamala on thru Buenos Aires, including Galapagos & Machu Picchu. What a disappointment that is. The Brazilians have our passports now till Friday, so Uruguay is out. There is a cool town, Colonia, to visit there by ferry only an hour or so from Buenos Aires. Missed it because the Brazilians have our passport!!! The next day we are up late. I have the tourista, don't know if it is because my camera is gone or the wonderful rich food and wine! Missed breakfast but bought one helped by Brenda and only ate one-third of it. Did nothing the whole day. Watched tv and slept. It's now Thursday, February 23rd and we're up late again. It's this time change, 2 hours from where we have been and home. We still want to see the theatre, Ricoleta (the big cemetery where Eva Paron is buried) and also a neighborhood in itself with a huge park incompassing the cemetery, but we have not heard from Nick on our flight change so pass it all up to find the British Airways office. We cannot get in because we do not have our passports. They have to call up and a gal from the office comes down to get us. They are on the 13th floor with an absolutely beautiful view of Rio Plata. It is huge, like Lake Michigan and Uruguayi s on the other side. The BA office is, surprisingly, near the Brazilian Embassy and we find that Nick has in fact changed our flight but to Sunday because they do not fly on Saturday. Well, we have a ticket to Rio from Sao Paulo on Sunday early and cannot make that flight. Now we have a problem. BUT, we can still check with the Brazilian Embassy after 4 to see if by chance our passports and visas are ready. We leave the BA office and have some time to kill before 4 when we can check on the passports and visas. So we find a street cafe under some nice trees and split a sandwich. Nice little reprive. We go back to the Embassy at 4 and there are so many people in line. We line up and SURPRISE, our passports and visas are in the pile. The problem is solved. Go back to the BA office and she puts us back on the Friday flight and I have to now give up my tango lesson with Nelson. DAMN, I am so disappointed that I didn't make the lesson for Wednesday but he was not available as I remember. Oh well, I'll have to go back to Argentina anyway, we did not have enough time there. We want to go to Recoleta but it is now raining so give that and the theatre up. Get a taxi back to Florida Street. I see some beautiful earrings in a window, go in and purchase them along with a beautiful carpincho belt, the only washable swede, and a silver buckle for the belt. The buckle has a leaf mark on the inside denoting it comes from Salta. The earrings are very cool and remind me of Sade. Janeen buys the other 2 pairs of earrings of this grouping. Further down the street we see Patagonia cashmere sweaters for $19, I buy a peach colored one and Janeen buys a sage color. I know we will never buy one for that price in Europe and will need a warm sweater there! I buy a reversible soft goat leather black jacket, leather on one side with suede on the reverse. It is so cool and fashionable and I love it for $250. Janeen doubles back and buys some really lovely shoes at the first place we bought the earrings and I the belt. We have had a fabulous shopping experience here on Florida Street. Back to the room with all our treasures and get ready to go to dinner at El Trapiche in Palermo that I had read read about in one of the magazines on the plane. Get a taxi and the place is very busy. We are advised by an American woman at the table next to us to split a certain steak. It was ok but not any where near the steak at Che Tango! We also order what we think are onion rings and turn out to be calamari which we are over. The whole meal was a disappointment. Up with a wake up at 7 but don't get out of bed till 8. Taxi to airport at 10:30, saying our goodbyes to Brenda, Silvina and the rest and praising them for their service at this wonderful hotel, HOTEL LA PERLA. Give them the blog and email and invite them to visit me in Florida. I give Brenda the info on my camera and ask her to call Nelson to cancel my tango lesson as I have not been able to get in touch with him. That was my biggest disappointment in Buenos Aires, not taking that tango lesson. Thru customs easily, we're flying British Airways on a 747. Haven't been on this plane since maybe my flight from Chicago to Boston for Nancy and Jude's wedding. The flight was smooth and I bought a new camera. At first they couldn't find it but then the flight attendant came back to tell me they did in fact have one. It is an 8 pixel digital camera for 99 British pounds or about $167, a good price. They don't have the memory card in stock so I'm still in search of that. Over all, loved Buenos Aires and hope to return some day....thank you Brenda, Silvina and all the crew at Hotel La Perla...........Adios