Category Archives: South America

We celebrated our last day in Buenos Aires by sleeping in and taking remedies for that second (or was it third?) glass of champagne. We learned yesterday that the fairs don’t rev up until noon, so around that hour we returned to San Telmo, this time to Plaza Dorrego where the Antiques Fair takes placeContinue reading “Last Day in Buenos Aires, Feb. 15, 2015”

We set out to visit craft fairs today and found that not much goes on anywhere before noon. We started in San Telmo at Parque Lezama. There seems to be controversy over whether the park will be surrounded by a fence after construction that is currently underway. In the meantime the vendors moved down theContinue reading “Valentine’s Tango Show, Feb. 14, 2015”

I needed to get my hair cut, and when we were in the “trendy” Palermo neighborhood of Buenos Aires, I found a reasonable looking place and we walked in. The young man spoke English very well and when I asked him how he came to speak so well, he said he worked for several yearsContinue reading “An International Haircut”

We emerged from the Reserva Ecologica at about 1 pm and needed a taxi to get home. We walked over a block to a likely street, and sure enough there were taxis everywhere, coming and going. We stood for about 10 minutes, the longest we’ve ever waited in Buenos Aires, even though cabs were allContinue reading “Don’t look for a taxi at lunch time, Feb. 12, 2015”

We took the Subte=Subterranean=Subway from our stop (Boedo) to the end of the line near the Plaza de Mayo. We looked at the Peru subway stop adjacent, where there are supposed to be restored subway cars running. The tile walls and reproduction turn of the 20th century ads are ok, but not a big dealContinue reading “Peron continued, Feb. 11, 2015”

The cemetery doesn’t really belong to Eva Peron, and there are no signposts to her grave though there are signposts to the grave of others. It doesn’t matter because the tour groups flock to Evita’s grave. Though stories tell of heaps of fresh flowers at her crypt, though we saw only one fresh flower andContinue reading “Eva Peron’s Recoleta Cemetery, Feb. 11, 2015”

Many taxi drivers in Buenos Aires strike up a conversation immediately. They ask where you are from, why you are in Argentina and then go directly to why they drive a taxi, unemployment, taxes and politics. I’ve found some of them to be quite well-spoken. One man is a widower and drives a cab toContinue reading “Taxi Drivers in Buenos Aires, Feb. 11, 2015”

In Buenos Aires, everyone has an opinion about tango. The corner of Boedo & San Juan is home to two cafes that still exist, both of which claim to have hosted early 20th century tango stars.  

Buenos Aires is constantly changing. As in other cities, older buildings of 2-3 stories are being replaced with new ones that are 10-20 stories tall. The Argentine eoonomy relies on ranching, while farming is not as strong a tradition. We have found very few markets of the type that are present in every Peruvian town,Continue reading “Buenos Aires has many sides, Jan 10, 2015”