Whatever I like in this space, it's my profile.
While walking around in Buenos Aires, I encountered many tango street performances. It's always great to watch such great shows for a few pesos donation. I did not have too much time while there to take extensive tango lessons, but I did try it a couple of times in my hostels.. the basic steps and beat isn't too bad.. but I am sure combining them together to look gracious is a whole another story :)
Buenos Aires which means "Good Winds" in Spanish is the capital federal of Argentina. As with all other South American Capital City, Buenos Aires is a big metro with a few million inhabitants and several neighborhoods each with it's own flavor and style. While in Buenos Aires, I stayed in the Palermo neighborhood, which is more of an upscale neighborhood with lots of nice restaurants, bars and clubs and I also stayed in the San Telmo neighborhood which I loved much better. San Telmo is more of an older neighborhood which thrives on it's excellent Tango - many milongas (Tango schools) and tango clubs all around.
Many people told me that Buenos Aires is much like Europe and that Buenos Aires is the Paris of South America. I have never been to Europe. So can't know as such. but I definitely imagine that's what some parts of urban Europe might look like - with all the great architecture, the numerous chic restaurants and great public transportation.
While Buenos Aires thrives in culture and architecture, I think it lacks seriously in gastronomy. Food choices are pretty limited. Argentineans eat mostly Beef, Beef and Beef... They are very proud of their beef and eat it every day. Other than beef, the other options are Pasta, Pizza and Hot Dog.. these are the main food you can find in Buenos Aires in most places..but if you look hard, there is of course a few places you can get other style of food, but not too easy to find.
La Boca neighborhood in Buenos Aires is one of the most colorful areas of Buenos Aires and also the one with the most gypsy and European feel to it, with all it's outdoors coffee shops and restaurants set out on the street, and all the street performers. Most of my pictures are from the Caminito street, which is a pedestrian only street with all the colorful buildings, outdoor restaurants and tango street performers.
La Boca is also home to the Boca Junior team of Argentina which is one of the most famous teams in Argentinas. At the time, I visited though, it was not football season and hence could not watch a game, but it's one of the great football experiences that one should experience to know how passionate Argentineans are about their football.
I looked up Glacier in Wikipedia and it says "A glacier is a perennial mass of ice which moves over land. A glacier forms in locations where the mass accumulation of snow and ice exceeds ablation over many years... Glacier ice is the largest reservoir of fresh water on Earth, and is second only to oceans as the largest reservoir of total water"
Perito Moreno Glacier in Patagonia,Argentina is one of the few Patagonian glaciers that is not retreating. It's a couple of hours from El Calafate, Patagonia and I took a tour to go and visit it. The day I chose the visit it, we had pretty bad weather condition - it snowed very hard the entire way there and while I was there trekking around the park to see the Glacier from different views, we had a mini snow storm. I was not geared properly and i froze myself up. Was among the coldest I ever felt while there.
The glacier is a spectacular sight and it was amazing to see it up close and to gear the thundering noise of the ruptures of ice from the glaciers. It happens al day long when huge pieces of ice from the glacier break off and fall in the adjoining Lake.
There are tours to actually go and trek over the glaciers, but in the time I went, the weather did not permit such trekking.
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El Calafate is a small town in Patagonia in Argentina, which serves as a base city to explore the neighboring Perino Moreno Glacier and El Chalten for great hiking. I was actually on my way to Ushuaia from Puerto Madryn and we had to change buses in Rio Gallegos. As I boarded my next bus, they handed us immigration forms. I was suprised as I thought it's from Argentina to Argentina - hence why the need for immigration. They told me there's no direct way from Rio Gallegos to Ushuaia. So we need to exit in Chile, do immigration and get back in Argentina again. Big problem for me, as I had only a single entry visa to Argentina :(( Fortunately, I realized that in time and before the bus left, got my bags out.
So, as I was stranded in Rio Gallegos, checked out the other buses and the best place to go from there was El Calafate and they had a few buses from there. So, that's how I ended up in El Calafate.
El Calafate is a nice little charming cold city. While driving there, it was snowing all the way to there and we got there in an all snowy white town. Was beautiful. The town does not have much in terms of attraction - but it has a nice frozen laze which we can walk on and see many pink flamingos. The great thing about El Calafate though is as it's low tourist season - I got a great deal - 60 pesos ($15 USD) for 3 nights accommodation at America Del Sur Hostel (it even had heated floors !))
The main thing to do from El Calafate is to do tours to Perino Moreno Glacier which I'll post in the next entry.
Peninsula Valdes is famous for it's diverse wild life throughout the year. At different times of the year, there are different animals that can be seen there. Usually, from October till March, it's Penguins and Orcas and from June to mid-December it's whale watching season. At the time I went, it was time for the Southern Right Whales. These whales travel the whole way from the Atlantic to come to Peninsula Valdes to mate and give Birth to their pups and teach them the basics before heading back to the Atlantic.
The guide was telling us that at the time we were there, there was probably some 1500-2000 whales that had converged to Peninsula Valdes. In the tour, we first stopped at a Rock Beach. On that beach, you can see whales from the shore itself. The guide was explaining that the whales prefer these rock beaches to come and teach their babies the ways of life as there are less chances to get stranded on the Rock beaches than on Sand Beaches.
After the rock beach, we headed to Puerto Pyramides to board our whale watching boat. It was incredible to see their majestic huge creatures so close and personal. We saw quite a few whales and they seem very playful and playing around with each other. It's always so awesome to see these marvelous feats of nature up close - these whales can grow up to 18.5 metres and 130 tons !!! Interesting fact from wikipedia - "The testicles of right whales are likely to be the largest of any animal, each weighing around 500 kg (1,100 lb). " I guess that might be where the term "you got big balls" might have come from :)
Other inhabitants of Peninsula Valdes include sea lions, elephant seals, armadillos, pink flamingos, guanacos, maras and gray foxes which we saw along the way.
NOTE : Not all these pictures in this gallery are my pictures, but they are pictures taken during my boat trip. We had an official photographer on the boat who took pictures while we were watching and I bought a CD containing al the pictures he took at the end... so they are my pictures in a way as I paid for them.. but just not taken by me :)
Iguazu Falls is one of the great natural wonders of nature and is at the northern tip of Argentina and shares its water with Brazil and Paraguay too. I visited the falls only on the Argentinean side and it was an awesome powerful spectacle of nature ! The Iguzau natural park is huge and I got to see the falls from different angles. The best view though was from Devil's throat. Another great thing was the constant rainbow over the fall, probably due to all the mist rising up and the sunshine that day.
Wikipedia says - "They are taller than Niagara Falls, and twice as wide, for which Eleanor Roosevelt is said to have exclaimed on her first sight of the Falls: "Poor Niagara!" !" I so agree - I've been to both and indeed upon seeing Iguazu, Niagara looks like a poor man's waterfall :)
The national park around Iguazu Falls contains quite a bit of wildlife and among the most beautiful are the butterflies. In some parts of the park, butterflies are all over and not even afraid to come and land on you. So many beautiful species. It was great to be able to get up close to them and take these wonderful shots !
For the Quarter Finals of the World Cup, the city of Buenos Aires had set up giant screens in an outdoor open space for people to come and watch the game against Germany. There was such a great influx of people to the park, metros were full, vuvuzelas roaring all over the place, everybody dressed in blue and white and proud of their country and their team. The joy was short lasted though. The whole crowd was enthusiastic and cheering for Argentina for about 2-3 minutes till that first goal by Germany. That goal quieted the crowds and made it a very tame crowd. For the rest of the match, the cheer did not pick up at all even when Argentina was attacking. It was a fun experience watching the game together with such a big crowd, but sad as well to see all the sad faces and sad people all round the city after the 4-0 outcome.
I was walking in Buenos Aires today and I stumbled upon the monthly Buenos Aires Critical mass event (Massa Critical Buenos Aires) - where many bicyclists gather together as a critical mass and cycle the city as a group. I used to that every month in San Francisco. I so wish I had a bicycle here to be able to join the Critical Mass. It would have been a perfect way to see the city.
