Day 20 –Walking to Buenos Aires?

IGUAZU FALLS

Today was going to be an uneventful and relaxing day, with a midday flight back to Buenos Aires and nothing planned until our Food and Tango Tour later this evening.  Everything changed at 8:30 AM when my phone vibrated indicating an incoming WhatsApp phone call.  This was from Iguazu Private Tours, the group that had arranged our guide for Iguazu Falls, who informed me that road construction workers, who were doing work at the airport, haven’t been paid in months and were now blocking the road to the airport to try and advance their cause.  He advised us that we may have to walk up to 3 miles from where they may block the road, so we should leave for the airport as soon as possible.  We could be ready in 30 minutes and proceeded to accelerate our last minute packing. 

We left the hotel at 9 AM, apprehensive about how far we may have to walk.  When it started to sprinkle, we regretted leaving our rain ponchos behind thinking we wouldn’t need them again. 

I followed our progress on MAPS.ME.  As we closed within 3 miles to the airport, with no sign of protesters, I felt a little relieved as I knew every second of driving was that much less walking that might be required.

THE BARRICADE

After we turned onto the final road to the airport, we saw traffic slowing and finally stopping.  We spotted the barricade up ahead, but it still wasn’t clear what would happen.  Our driver didn’t speak any English but we were glad our tour company called so we had a general idea what was going on and what was coming next. 

A few minutes later, our driver drove up to the barricade and indicated that we had to get out and walk the rest of the way, about 8/10 of a mile.  There was a light drizzle and the driver gave Judy a light rain poncho he had in the trunk.  It wasn’t raining too hard and we would be OK as long as it didn’t get start to come down any harder. 

We had packed light for this trip, only one small carryon bag each along with our over the shoulder day bags.  The pavement was smooth and not muddy, so our bags rolled easily as we made our way past the barricade.  Neither the protesters or the Police stopped us or made eye contact with us. 

About ¼ mile up ahead was a ticket booth that marked some kind of boundary to the airport.  Just past the booth we saw cars and small buses load up people who were walking in front of us and drive away.  Once we passed the ticket booth we approached a taxi who was available to take us to the airport.  We would have had to walk another ½ mile had he not been available, but it was nice to get inside a dry car.  The $200 pesos fare (about $4USD) was not too outrageous under the circumstances.  

PUERTO IGUAZU AIRPORT (IGR)

We had left our hotel at 9:10 AM and it was now 10:00 AM and we were safely in the airport ready for our 12:15 PM flight to Buenos Aires.  We had skipped breakfast at the hotel but the airport had a snack bar which sold premade sandwiches and salads.  It looked as though they may offer hot food later on in the day. 

Our destination was the smaller downtown airport “Jorge Newbery Airfield” in Buenos Aires – call letters:  AEP, rather than the more familiar international airport, Ezeiza International Airport, EZE which is much further from the city.  When planning a side trip to Iguazu Falls, its best to cross the border in Iguazu Falls and then fly to your final destination in either Brazil or Argentina on the domestic side and avoid the longer Immigration and Customs lines on international flights. 

As we did on our earlier LATAM flight, we checked in on-line with Aerolineas and downloaded our boarding passes to our phones – no face to face check in required nor printing out hard copy boarding passes. 

When you look at the carry-on restrictions on the website for both LATAM and Aerolineas, you will discover that there is a weight restriction and a smaller allowable bag size than you are used to in the USA.  While our carryon bags were the correct, smaller size for theses airlines, no one weighed our bags and we would most likely have been fine with normal sized carry on bags.  Security here allowed us to keep our water bottles and leave our laptops in our bags.  There is a small duty free style shop past security, but they didn’t sell any food or beverages. 

AIRBORNE

Our two-hour flight was on time and it was nice landing so close to downtown.  Without having to go through Customs or Immigration, we were at the taxi stand minutes after landing.  They have a nice system here to get taxis.  A series of electronic kiosks line the wall near the exit to the taxi pick up area.  After selecting your language, you type in your destination, the number of passengers, how many bags and press enter.  In seconds, the screen displays a fixed fare amount and requests confirmation.  After confirming, the machine prints out two slips of paper, both containing your destination and your fare.  You hand one slip to the driver and keep the other.  I didn’t try UBER here, I think it may be discouraged at the airports and cruise ports, but with such a nice system here at AEP, using taxis is much simpler. 

TRANSFER TO THE GLU

It was around 2:30 PM as we hopped in our cab and headed off to our hotel, “The Glu”, (taken from the first letters in the owners last name).  We were in Buenos Aires last year and stayed at The Glu.  The hotel is a small, boutique hotel, with a nice room service breakfast included, and a wonderful, super efficient front desk staff which serve as excellent concierges.  There isn’t any spa, or restaurant, but if you want nice big rooms, good wifi and a helpful staff in a nice area of town, I strongly recommend The Glu.  Here is a link to their website where you can make reservations. 

As is the case with many business in Buenos Aires, they keep their door locked and only open it after they verify who is requesting entry.  Carolina greeted us at the door and we remembered her from our visit last year.  

YARN CRAWL

After getting our bags in our room, we headed off on our Buenos Aires Yarn Crawl.  Close to our hotel there are many yarn shops all within a few blocks.  We took an UBER Comfort instead of walking about 1 mile from the hotel. 

Over the next two hours we wandered up and down Av. Raul Scalabrini Ortiz visiting 6 different shops.  Judy filled a large bag full of yarn including:  5 hanks of a gold sparkle yarn, 2 ‘cakes’ of a cotton yarn that transitioned from white to green, 4 hanks of a lime green acrylic yarn that is called ‘cashmere’ and 5 hanks of a blue cotton that is called ‘Macrame’.  All of this cost $52.25 US.  Judy was very pleased with her purchases and how much she got for her money. 

FOOD AND TANGO NIGHT

Tonight we booked another food tour from Parrilla Tours – This was called “Parrilla Tour in Palermo & Milonga night” We decided that our theme for this World Cruise is Food and Falls! as we will be visiting 2 major waterfalls, Iguazu and Victoria, plus a few minor ones like Trafalgar in Roseau.  Tonight’s tour included stops at 4 restaurants where we would sample various local dishes finished by some local Dulce de Leche ice cream. 

Another UBER took us to our meeting spot, La Cañita, (Baez 601, Buenos Aires) a restaurant about 1.5 miles away.  Joining us on the tour were 2 Canadians from Vancouver, BC, 1 New Yorker with his Aussie wife on their way to Melbourne, 2 Irishmen from Dublin and a solo traveler from Florida.  Everyone was in a good mood and we were all ready for fun and food. 

Our first dish was an all-beef Choripan.  This is a simple sandwich of sausage on a very crusty bun that was delicious.  We will definitely seek out this place on our future visits to Buenos Aires. 

Walking a few blocks away, we stopped in La Guitarrita and had a wonderful shredded beef Empenada.  They used these interesting penguin pitchers, called Pingüinos, to serve the wine.  They were popular back in the 20’s and 30’s and are considered to be a little tacky, but they are making somewhat of a retro comeback.  For a while they were hard to find, but the restaurant had them for sale and we bought one to take with us. 

Our main course was a wonderful Argentine steak with vegetables served at our third restaurant – “Las Cholas”.  We each shared a large platter, filled with the steak and sides. 

For dessert we headed over to Persicco, an ice cream place that specializes in Dulce de Leche ice cream.  They have a wide variety of different types of Dulce de Leche ice cream and we each chose a couple of different flavors. 

After desert, our guide took Judy and I, plus the Canadian couple, downtown for the Tango part of our tour. 

MILONGA

We went to The Nacional, a Tango House (Adolfo Alsina 1465, 1088 Buenos Aires) that puts on an inexpensive Tango show earlier in the evening followed by a Milonga, which is a type of Tango music dance venue. 

NOTE: The Nacional puts on a inexpensive Tango show that gets some great reviews

We arrived at 11:30 pm and the Milonga was just starting up.  The 5 of us, sat at a table by the dancefloor and ordered drinks.  I ordered a beer and it was served, ice cold, in a bottle that was inside a large Styrofoam bottle shaped container. 

We watched as non-professional locals, danced the tango to prerecorded music.  Between songs they would play short clips from Elvis Pressley or Abba.  We appeared to be the only tourists in the place.  There wasn’t any announcer or obvious organization, but everyone seemed to know what to do.  Our guide explained that local Tango enthusiasts will come here and dance the night away, either with a partner they arrived with or they meet someone here in the club.  There are 100’s of these Milongas throughout Buenos Aires and if you want a local Tango experience, find one and check it out.  Our visit was an add on that is offered some evenings and I highly recommend this entire experience. 

We stayed here for 90 minutes and left the club around 1 AM with the place still hopping.  Our guide called a taxi for us and we were back in The Glu by 1:30 AM

TRIP COST

Our side trip to Iguazu cost $876 per person.  Here is the breakdown