January 6 - Buenos Aires, Argentina

Buenos Aires, Argentina is a very large city. It has lots of old buildings and lots of new ones. It is cleaner than Brazil, but not a clean as Montevideo, Uruguay. 

Here is the view from my balcony

Today we took the Hop on/Hop off bus to go sightseeing. I didn't catch a lot of the names of the places and buildings. However, I did sit next to a local and he tried very hard to explain, as much to me, as he could. Also it was difficult to get pictures because the roads were so narrow making it was hard to get close ups. 

Here are some of the sights; A Greek Orthodox Church.

A sculpture dedicated to the riots of 1977, so they would never forget.

Eva Peron’s likeness on a building. This is the north side, it is also on the south side.

 

Some old and some new buildings.

  

 

 

 

A bridge that raises and lowers allowing for boat traffic.

We are on a swinging bridge, also to allow for boat traffic. You can see yachts on the lefthand side of the picture.

The Obelisk. Notice the left side of the first picture, it's a digital marque on the side of a 1800s building.

 

This was supposedly the tallest building in South America, at one time

Karen Sowden's car's cousin, outside of the CABJ stadium, because it is yellow. One of the colors of the team

Yes, and they could use a good electrician here.

The Ateneo is the worlds most beautiful bookstore. It was originally a Grand Theater

 

 

We had lunch here and you could see the old lighting panel

I would never recommend a HO/HO bus in Buenos Aires. First they don't stop at the port, so you are shuttled to the first stop, a 15-20 minute ride. Then the line was so long it took 2 buses before we could get on. There were 23 stops (total of 3+ hours) and some times we didn't stop, because we were full and the bus driver didn't want to deal with the lines of people at those stops. We finally got off at a major stop #11 (2+ hours later) and there too, was a long line. We started walking around and got some lunch. When we got back there wasn't really a line and we were promised they would make an unscheduled stop "near" the cruise terminal. HA!!! After riding for a bit, I asked when would we be getting to the terminal? The driver stopped, told us to get out and that the terminal was 1.8 miles back. Say What?!? At stop #11 we were only 0.6 miles from the terminal. And where he kicked us off it was another 1 mile to the next stop. So off we trudged. Luckily Gigi had google to show us the way. Less than an hour later we made it to the terminal. Whew!

We were very close to another wonder of the world - Iguazu Falls. It was not offered as part of the World Cruise package although Royal Caribbean did offer a 13-hour excursion. I elected not to go, having just been to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, August 2023. Here's pictures of what I missed.

However, I got a pin!