Bus Trip and Parilla

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Today we take a hop on/hop off bus tour of the city on the Buenos Aires Bus (there are several companies, we chose this one). We bought a two day pass which, by Argentine standards, was pretty expensive (about $35 Canadian). We try to get on the yellow double decker bus at the Plaza Mariano Moreno near the Congress where we had been a few days ago for lunch at the Gran Taberna. There's quite a queue and we aren't able to get on a few of the buses before we give up.

Kate is unable to stand waiting for the next bus so we're looking for a place to sit down. The Plaza Mariano Moreno across the street is a well tended park with Rodin's "The Thinker" on a plinth and there's a monument to Mariano Moreno who the park is named after. At the far end of the park is the Plaza del Congreso with the grand fountain and Monumento a los Dos Congresos in front of the Congress itself. Reg was wandering around taking pictures while Kate was looking for a bench to sit on. She ended up avoiding a very smelly hobo (one of the few we've seen) who had claimed a nearby bench and went back to the bus stop. A bus did come but they couldn't signal Reg in time to catch it and there was a long lineup for it as well. Those who had tickets got on right away, those who did not had to wait and, if there was room, they'd be let on and then buy a ticket. This wasn't working well for us.

We decide to flag down a taxi and go to La Recoleta Cemetery where we can take a tour, have a bite at nearby restaurants, buy tickets at the central booth and catch the same hop on/hop off tour. The walled cemetery is huge — about the size of a city block. It's busy and looks really interesting with all sorts of statuary and important graves. Unfortunately they require an admission fee and oddly only take credit cards; additionally they want to see international proof of identity (passports). We decline as we have neither at hand and instead have our lunch at a nearby outdoor patio restaurant. There's a sign at the restaurant announcing the special deals and a note "Solo Efectivo" which means cash only! This is just a short distance across the park from La Parolaccia Recoleta — the Italian restaurant where we had been on Friday night with Myriam.

We ride the double decker bus from Recoleta through quite a bit of the city until the bus has a rest stop and we take a pee break at the Galerias Pacifico. Across the street is a lovely old building the Centro Naval (it's got something to do with the Argentine Navy, a club of some sort for naval personnel) which, apparently, has an interesting restaurant/club on the top floor. We enter and find a couple of lonely old guys at a bar on the ground floor. They tell us the restaurant isn't open (not sure if not at all, or not now). We end up having a drink at a cafe on the street nearby. This is also the area where men on the street are announcing "Cambio! Cambio!". They're black market money changers. Gord says it's best to avoid them.

The tour drives past all sorts of interesting spots. There's the very long grand central avenue Av. 9 de Julio (which honors Argentina's Independence Day) with the impressive Obelisc at the centre (which looks an awful lot like the Washington Monument in Washington D.C.). At one end there's an impressive large portrait of Eva Peron on the facade of the Ministry of Public Works. The tour covers a good deal of the city, we even make it to the colorful La Boca barrio and the Estadio Alberto J. Armando stadium, widely known as  La Bombonera (the chocolate box) where the Boca Juniors play soccer. Gord and Leslie tried to get in to see a game last week, but getting tickets is hard, the team is very popular. It's good that we bought a two day pass as you couldn't complete the tour in a day, especially if you wanted to hop on and off at all the interesting spots.

Ps. Argentina ends up winning the FIFA World Cup in December of 2022. Football is quite the deal, the city celebrated and the streets were packed. The Av. 9 de Julio and the Obelisc area where packed solid with folks celebrating the win. Myriam sent us some pictures and short videos of the celebration in her part of town.

That evening we go to the local Parrilla El Litoral for a big feed of grilled steak ("parilla" means grill). That's us in the picture above. It's a small corner restaurant not a block away from our flat on Moreno and we were lucky enough to get a table outside. The steak was perfectly grilled, nice and thick, Reg really enjoyed it. You have a choice of how it's grilled — you can have it their way or not at all. Gord tells me there's some requirement that the steak must be 30mm thick (just over an inch). Reg had a steak another night at the Tango dance club, the steak here was the best.

One of the sides which we bump into several times over the visit was mashed potato and squash — not mixed but sort of side by side. There were some salads as well and Kate was happy with the limited vegetarian options. Again we had some wine (chilled at the table with ice cubes added to the glass). This was the house red and plenty drinkable. Kate tried a glass of the house white which was not drinkable at all. We ordered a bottle of another (the only other) white wine and it wasn't too bad.

We had a rather full day touring the city.