Argentina- Buenos Aires

After a lot of time in smaller towns and cities and mild weather, Kate was excited to get the family to the warm climate and bustling urban environment of Buenos Aires for a change of pace. We were also going to get to spend several more days with Dad and Carrie in the city before they headed back to the States!

Considering we were expecting BA to be in the high 80s to 90s and the girls favorite pastime of playgrounds, Kate made a last minute change to our Airbnb to be in a high rise apartment that had a pool and was across the street from a large park and multiple playgrounds (and also importantly, near a grocery store!). We also looked forward to having a slightly larger kitchen (the kitchen in Ushuaia, while functional, was tiny!) and a laundry machine to be able to wash our clothes more thoroughly. We did hire laundry service in Ushuaia, but it was expensive and took 3 days to get our clothes back. We are travelling with a very limited supply of clothing so that was not ideal. And handwashing in the sinks and showers was fine for a few days, but not really keeping up with the level of dust, dirt and food mess our clothes were subject to on the daily!

Ushuaia kitchen:

BA kitchen, with washing machine and rack for drying clothes on high rise porch:

(We had beautiful sunrise views out to the East from our porch)

As it turned out, to find all these amenities within a couple of blocks of each other meant we ended up in the most wealthy central city neighborhood of Puerto Madero, one of the most highly planned and invested in areas of Buenos Aires since the early 1990s. And you could tell. The streets were wide, with wide sidewalks and bikeways- very pedestrian friendly, and it felt very safe. But it also did not have the character that so many neighborhoods of BA are known for, and the bridges separating the neighborhood from the rest of BA made it feel somewhat isolated. It also is not connected by the otherwise pretty extensive metro system of BA, which was too bad for us, as our girls love to ride subways!

That being said, we did really enjoy the pool on some of the especially hot days.

And every day we spent at least an afternoon or evening at one of the nearby playgrounds or walking the large pedestrian friendly boulevards. Not photographed, but fun to see, were the droves of adults and families that would take to the park in the late evenings (around 7-8pm) with the somewhat cooler temperatures after sunset. This was right around when we were preparing for bedtime. In Argentina, the culture is to have a snack around 5-6pm, then head out to a park or run errands, followed by dinner around 9-10pm, and bedtime is usually not until 11 or midnight!

(Mae was enthralled by getting to carry this large palm frond around one of the parks!)

We also explored playgrounds further afield. During one such outing to the Palermo neighborhood, we even had to take shelter during a sudden storm under one play structure! (This photo taken when the rains were just starting- later on, and not photographed was when it began to just pour and we actually hid in the tube slides!). During another outing, Mae burst into tears to find out the really cool looking Otter playground was actually closed! (It wasn't uncommon in BA to see playgrounds fully fenced, which helps reduce vandalism and misuse, but also is a real bummer if you come during a day or time they might be closed!)

We were able to take advantage of the long, beautiful San Telmo Sunday street market, and even to catch a flamenco show in the street- making for a very family-friendly viewing experience! Adult tourists will often go to late-night dinner and tango show performances starting around 9pm, something just not really appealing at this point while travelling with the girls.

We enjoyed lots of delicious ice cream on the hot days- from street vendors on bikes, shops and of course the famous Lucciano's gelateria!

With help from Dad and Carrie, Eric and I were able to sneak out for a date in the La Boca neighborhood, where we did get to see by chance a short tango performance over lunch.

It was fun to explore the colorful streets that are home to one of its most famous soccer (futbol) stadiums and teams the Club Atletico Boca Juniors (CABJ). CABJ is Argentina's second largest futbol club, and the home team to one of the world's best soccer players of the 20th century- Diego Maradona, considered a god in Argentinian culture.

Now that god-like mantel has been passed onto Lionel Messi- the current futbol god and hero of Argentina who helped the team win the world cup in 2022, after 36 years of losses. His story and that game are pretty incredible- this short 30 minute youtube documentary (literally titled Messiah!) is quick view into his and Maradona's history and their meaning for the Argentinian people (and many other futbolistas around the world).

On a side note- Argentinians are so into futbol that we even found ourselves in a restaurant one day where the entire broadcast was literally ONLY of two different coaches during two different games with sports reporting and analysis happening in the background- there was not even a single moment in the 30 minutes we were the screen panned to the field of play, players or the field! I found this totally weird!)

We enjoyed several walks along the river and crossing the various bridges, including the pedestrian "Puente de la Mujer" a stunning piece of architecture and design.

We took the girls to the children's museum- where they had an absolute blast fulling every kids' dream of climbing in a toilet, working for McDonald's, and driving (and FINALLY getting to press all the buttons and dials) a car!

And we did end up checking out the subway, though didn't use it as much as we'd hoped, as our neighborhood was off the subway line. Ubers are also super easy and cheap, so we didn't end up using public transit as much as we'd originally thought we might. The system was pretty easy to navigate and we would have used it more if we'd been anywhere close to a stop- maybe next visit! (Side comment: why did anyone ever think cloth benches was a good idea for public transit?).

We also really enjoyed all the murals that adorn so many walls of BA.

Buenos Aires is a huge city and we were only able to explore a very small part of it. Kate got the dose of heat and humidity she wanted, and she hopes to return some day with older kids when long days of walking around and exploring the big city and museums will be more feasible. Nevertheless, we were able to see and do quite a bit and take advantage of many of the fun things the city had to offer for our family with young kids. And after essentially 7 weeks of non-stop travel since leaving our home in Burlington, we were all eager to get to Mendoza to settle in for a bit!