Friday, January 10, 2014

Buenos Aires Here We Come

Thursday Jan. 9, 2014

We left the El Calafate hotel about noon and headed to the airport which was quite a ways out of town. There was a very long line for check in at the airport so it did not look good for boarding on time. We were able to get our taxes paid ahead of time so once checked in we went to security. Security here is like it was in the 1980s in which you put your items through the scanner and pick it up on the other end. Periodically you will need to take off your watch or sunglasses but that is about all. Rather strange and not very secure.

We got into Buenos Aires after our 3 hour flight and headed to our hotel which is right downtown. We did go by what they call Shantytown, which extended about a mile long and went in several blocks. It looked pretty bad. They were shacks of several levels and cramped together, not good. Then you see the glitzy side of the of city. We were told not to wear anything that looked like it might be gold and to put fancy cameras away completely out of site. It seemed like the precautions were a bit more than most big cities.




This is one of the shantytown areas that are very over populated with poor immigrants who also seem to have drug problems besides poverty. They have several areas in Buenos Aires that are so so poor.

We were taken to a fancy steak place for dinner at 8 PM and that was earlier than when the regulars go out for dinner. We had empanadas for our appetizer, salad,and then steak and fries along with a brownie with ice cream. That is a lot to have before going to bed. Of course they serve it slowly, so there is lots of time in between, so we got back after 10 PM and it was only 10 minutes away from the hotel.


Here is meat cooking at our fancy steak place.


The temperature is quite warm here but it is hard to tell since the air conditioning in every place including the bus is really cold. I believe it was still about 85 degrees when we got back from the restaurant.

We did have a storm last night with some hefty thunder and lightning but we were back at the hotel by then.

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