I’m in the Southern Hemisphere aren’t I? Doesn’t that mean it’s summer? I’m not so sure!

Anyway, let’s start at 9am this morning, where Kate and I said farewell to Buenos Aires for the time being, checking out of our hotel and making our way to the other BA airport, Jorge Newberry Aeroparque. This is a smaller domestic airport very close to the centre of the city. Our destination? The southern most city in the world, Ushuaia, the start point of our exciting journey to Antarctica.

On arriving at Ushuaia Airport, we were greeted by a slight hiccup. We were there, but alas our bags were not. Oh dear. The one positive was that it was not just our bags about about 1/3 of the plane, and the friendly staff knew exactly what was going on and assured us that they would be delivered to our hotel around 9pm. Fingers crossed! But there was no point being upset as they seemed to be on top of it all.

So we met a friendly G Adventures rep at the airport and she whisked quite a lot of us who were on the flight to our hotel in Ushuaia, the Hotel Albatros. It is hard not to think of Queenstown when coming into town. Snow capped mountains in the background, adventure town feel. They seem like sister cities.

Oh, and you know how it is meant to be summer? Well, we arrived to a balmy 4 degrees celsius. And no, it wasn’t an out of the ordinary cold snap. That is about normal. That’s what you get for being so far south. Not having our luggage made keeping warm a little more challenging, but we had actually done some prep work, popping beanies and gloves in our carry on. Smart thinking!

At the hotel, we met another G Adventures rep, who ran us through the plan for tomorrow… embarkation day! We have the morning to ourselves and have to be back by 2pm, so Kate and I decided to book ourselves on a half day visit to one of the nearby national parks.

But that was about all the formalities for the evening, with our welcome packs detailing everything we needed to know. Too easy!

So rather than hang about in the hotel waiting for our bags, we hit the streets to see the town. It was interesting that all the shops (tourist stores, or adventure wear) were open until 9pm, but closed tomorrow (being Sunday). Odd given so many people are in town wanting last minute supplies. Regardless, we had everything we needed, so just wandered.

The sights to see were simply the natural setting we had arrived to which was spectacular. Aside from the odd quaint church, it was all about the snowy peaks and boats waiting for us in the harbour.

Most importantly though, it was also dinner time. Thanks to our Lonely Planet and Trip Advisor, we located what sounded like a good place to eat, Christopher’s Parilla and Cerveza. In we wandered and checked out the menu. More meat! And this time also local microbrew too. Nice choice!

Of course we both went steak again. We went for different cuts this time, me choosing the skirt steak. And I chose wisely! Man, mine was delicious! I must say I enjoyed it a bit more than my Don Julio in some respects. Kate’s was delicious too. We also made the mistake again of ordering too much food, also tucking into salad and sweet potato.

And being in a house of cerveza, I thought it most appropriate to sample their local beers rather than wine. Since I couldn’t decide, I tired them all of course!

And the verdict? The beers were not quite up to the standard of the beef sadly. Not bad, but they have some work to do.

With that, we were super full and thought it best to wander back to the hotel. And happily for us, our bags were just arriving at the same time! All’s well that ends well huh? Lucky, otherwise I was going to have to try and rustle up some more warm clothes from somewhere before we set sail.

Oh, and this may be the last you hear of us for a couple of weeks. Wooooooooooo! Penguins!

While we hadn’t been sleeping properly since we arrived, it was last night that the jet lag really decided to hit us. As a result we were super tired when we woke up so spent a good part of the day actually lounging about. We didn’t mind as we got a bit done yesterday, and today was just about chilling out anyway. So it wasn’t until the afternoon that we got out and about.

Our plan was to just wander the local neighbourhood. Our vibe from Buenos Aires was that it was more a place for hanging out, so we decided to see what our local area had. It was for the most part a bit more of a shopping area, although that is still being a bit generous, as there was not much of interest. More notably, it was also the area of quite a few parliament buildings, and home of the main protest area, Plaza de Mayo.

 

The plaza was both what I was expecting, but also not quite. It was, as I thought, just a big public space. but having been to Spain and some Latin American countries, it was not nearly as ornate as I thought it may be. By that I mean there were no tiled areas or mosaics or anything of aesthetic interest really, besides the odd statue and monument. It seemed a cool place to hang out, however, there was not much to sustain the visit.

 

Of more interest were some of the surrounding parliamentary buildings. They were quite cool and certainly added a sense of importance to area.

With that the rest of the late afternoon was just spent wandering and coming across the odd circus performer.

The wandering actually had a destination. During our visit to Teatro Colon yesterday we decided to pick up tickets to their festive performance of The Nutcracker, the famous ballet. Kate knew it well and I knew it from the crazy Nutcracker Fantasy animation as a kid, but it was mostly to be able to see something in the famous theatre.

A great deal of the venue was sold out, and what wasn’t sold out was pretty pricey, so we elected for some high up tickets in the boxes. While it was a little more difficult to see, it was very cool to be high above everything, soaking up the theatre.

From that vantage we could also check out the artwork in every corner of the theatre, including the roof.

With that the main event commenced. And how was it? Kate really liked it and said it was quite different to other performances she had seen. Me, well, it’s not quite my thing. But I did enjoy just being a part of it.

And so our evening came to a close. While not action packed, it was a chilled out day that we needed after such a long stretch of being crazy (and being jetlagged).

Hello everyone!

Hope this finds you all doing well and winding down for the Christmas break. Just the right time for you to settle in to reading about our new adventures!

So after a hectic, whirlwind of a weekend, Kate and I had no time to rest. Rather it was packing for our early flight on Wednesday. First stop was Sydney (yawn) but then after a short wait, it was off to another country. A new continent for me in fact. Destination, Chile! Our fairly new feeling QANTAS plane treated us well, and with 4 movies and little sleep under my belt, we arrived in Santiago about 13 hours later. An uneventful flight of the best kind, although a little more sleep would have been nice.

In fact Kate especially was struggling with little sleep as we had a 4 hour wait for out connecting flight to our actual destination… Buenos Aires in Argentina. We decided not to spend time in Santiago, opting to head straight to Argentina instead. So with some struggles to keep the eyes open (Kate gave up on that and had a power nap), we boarded our last leg to get to our final destination. If I wasn’t excited already, the captains announcement of “I’m going to keep the seatbelt sign on as we head over out over the Andes” sure got me pumped!

About 2 hours later, we arrived in a new country for the both of us. Too exciting! The immigration folk were friendly, and our bags were waiting for us (always the small worry when you have 3 legs to your journey), as was our G Adventures complimentary airport transfer. Smooth sailing so far! And in another half an hour we finally arrived at our hotel. Our home for the next few nights was the G Adventures picked hotel, Hotel Boca. Some of you might be thinking “Boca? As in Boca Juniors?”. Yep, it is the Boca Juniors themed hotel in the middle of BA. And of course we were staying there! Not too outlandish, just the predominant blue and yellow everywhere.

All in all it was close to 24 hours later (being 7pm Argentina time). I was doing OK, but Kate was in struggle town. So rather than head out on the town straight away, some rest was in order. We both got to sleep quickly, but alas were up chatting at 2am thanks to the jetlag. We finally got some more sleep and at about 9am we were up.

With some brekky under our belts, it was time to hit the town. In reading through the guides for BA, it appeared that there wasn’t THAT much that were “must sees”. A lot speaks of the eating and the partying and the shopping, but little in the way of touristy things. Not a bad thing as it meant we didn’t feel as though we had to rush.

Our first port of call was the Teatro Colon, aka the Buenos Aires Opera House. On the way we saw this giant obelisk just standing there in the middle of the traffic. Clearly not a big tourist attraction, as there was really no way to visit it in the middle of the intersection, but I guess if it is that big all you can do is admire from a distance.

We arrived to the amazing theatre, the size of a city block. Conveniently, there was a tour happening in english in 20 minutes, so we decided rather than admire from the foyer, we would get to explore. So off we went on an hour long tour of the grand theatre.

 

Apparently the largest in the southern hemisphere until the Sydney Opera House took the mantle, it is certainly more picturesque inside. Sure Sydney has the iconic shape and harbour, but this is amazingly opulent inside. Built in the late 1800’s it recently had a restoration to bring it back to its former glorious, and it was wonderous.

Our tour took us through the main parts of the theatre, getting the stories behind it all, and also inside the theatre itself. Sadly, we couldn’t take photos in the theatre itself, but this is because fortunately there was choral exams happening so we were treated to some new opera singers showing their talents. To hear just the operatic voice with piano accompaniment in the theatre was quite amazing and a real treat.

Inside the theatre was spectacular. With about 2000 seats on the ground, and another 700 in boxes all around, it was ornate in the best sense. But importantly the acoustics were incredible.

In the blink of an eye our visit was over, and it was time to head out onto the hot, humid BA street. Before legging it too far, we decided some food and ice cream was in order in a nearby park. Ahhhh.

Our next destination was to another of the main tourist spots, Recoleta Cemetery. A cemetery you say?! Yep. This one probably rivals only Pere Lachaise in Paris for being a must visit. While it is the home of most notable Argentinians, it is best known for being the final resting place of Eva Peron (i.e Evita), and it seems she is the main drawcard, with many folks coming to pay their respects to her alone.

But we decided to spend a couple of hours wandering the grounds, amongst the amazing tombs and statues. I found a really great PDF guide online (via this guy http://www.recoletacemetery.com/) and with iPad in hand we followed the trail. It was great in that it led us to well known Argentinians, like past presidents, scientists, military personnel amongst others, but also to best examples of types of tomb and statue.

 

It was hard not to want to snaps pics of everything, as an angle or with the blue sky led to some dramatic images.

 

The glorious sunlight was also mean coming across stained glass made for fun, disco photos.

Every now and then we would run into one of the keepers of the cemetery. Of course there were dozens of cats wandering about, looking a little worse for wear sadly.

 

We eventually arrived at the resting place of Eva Peron. If not for a map, we would have missed it. One for the modesty, and two because she was in the crypt of her parents family. But the small crowd around it would probably have given it away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the end it felt like a rushed almost 2 hours we spent, and could have spent more time. But it was approaching 6pm and we were a bit tired and needed a rest, but also had some dinner plans in mind. So with a quick rest and drink stop, we legged it to the Palermo Viejo district and our dinner destination.

The drink stop involved trying a bottle of the new Coca-Cola version, Coke Life. It seemed it is being trialled in Argentina, before we get it at home soonish. Made with stevia, a more natural sweetener, Kate’s photo montage gives the appropriate review…

 

I was a little more ambivalent toward it, but it wasn’t great. Oh well, live and learn.

On our travels, we also came across this bus. Which as the name implied was actually a servicing bus for other buses! It was actually helping out a broken down commuter bus. It bought back glorious memories of chicken buses from 12 months ago.

After a bit more walking than we thought, we arrived at our dinner destination… Don Julio. Don Julio is a name of a traditional parilla (i.e steak barbecue place) that kept popping up so we knew we had to try it. Being unable to get a booking at such late notice, we had to try our luck at about opening time, and we scored a table no problems.

On entering we were greeted with the handy animal chart. Apologies to my vegetarian friends reading this… you may want to skip the rest of this entry (but it doesn’t get to graphic don’t worry).

 

The restaurant had a great vibe… felt upmarket without being too fancy, super attentive and helpful staff, but happy to have hot and weary travellers like ourselves in there. Awesome cutlery too. Thumbs up!

The toughest part though was decided what delicious food to order. The first dish to arrive was our appetiser. We decided to share the house speciality chorizo. It was chorizo sausage with cheese and rehydrated sun-dried tomato. And man it was amazing! While lacking in hotness (meaning Kate was up for it) it made up in tastiness. This was a big win from both of us.

Our side salad arrived (a tasty pear, leaf, cheery tomato and blue cheese mix) as a precursor to the main event… steak. Of course it was going to be. Kate opted for the rib eye, while I went the sirloin. And man it was huge. Quite daunting in fact!

We wasted no time and tucked in to our dinner. Kate was loving her steak. Me, I thought mine was pretty great without being jaw droppingly great. It was still amazingly delicious, but maybe I was expecting to eat the BEST steak ever. Instead it was probably a top 5 steak. Still pretty good huh?

It almost did me in though, barely getting to the end. But I struggled through. It was all tasty, especially the side dishes, and in the end, while we didn’t quite finish everything, we got pretty close.

With bellies full, and a bill that was only about $120 (crazy for such a huge and great meal), it was time for a taxi back to the hotel and the attempting of some sleep. Day one in Buenos Aires… done!