Untours Buenos Aires 3-18 May 2011Patricia Cruser and Jack Shuttleworth

Days one & two: Left Colorado Springs for our 17th Untour on a United/Continental CRJ 200 in uncomfortable bulkhead seats. During the merger of the two airlines, the flight designators changed, so what was originally scheduled as a Continental flight became a United one; consequently, we were reassigned separate seating because the computer can’t handle our different last names. So, we ended up together in the bulkhead seats (1A/B) on the United regional jet, above which is only crew storage with no place to stow carry-ons. In the future we’ll be sure to request row 2 or higher. A minor but annoying problem.

Arrived in Houston (IAH) for a three hour wait for the BA departure. We spent the time in the Continental President’s Club (Fodor rates it #1), a fringe benefit of Pat’s UA Red Carpet club membership, well worth the cost for regular travel. The IAH club is luxurious by most standards: two floors of comfortable chairs, an open bar, snacks, coffee, and no blaring TV except at the bar and even then low volume—altogether a civilized way to spend an enforced delay.

The overnight flight to BA left on time at 9:00pm with a not-quite-full airplane and ample cabin staff. Surprisingly, the dinner meal was not the usual pasta or chicken offerings but beef teriyaki or baked chicken in a wine sauce. Fitful sleep followed during the 9 ½ hour flight with arrival a bit ahead of schedule at 8:50 am.Arrival at the airportAfter deplaning, US citizens pass through a visa collection point where one pays $140 for a ten-year visa (cash or credit card), then to immigration for the admission stamp on your passport. On to baggage claim where bags are already on a carousel; free luggage carts, in great demand, must be sought, perhaps in the next large room where there are additional carousels. As you leave the baggage claim, an attendant checks your luggage tags and removes one as proof of your retrieval.

Then out through customs, no forms collected, but you must load your luggage on another x-ray belt for a quick examination by a rather bored young operator looking, we

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think, for drugs or other smuggled items. Out to the exit hall where several dozen people wait with signs to collect arriving passengers. After a short wait with some minor anxiety, the driver—Carlos—appeared, loaded us and luggage and headed for BA. Traffic rules appear fluid, lanes are marked but not necessarily observed, but no sign of recklessness. The route into the city (24km) is a toll road, requiring two toll payments from the driver enroute. Into the city, up the broad Avenue 9 July to our apartment in Recoleta, a great location.

The apartment itself is generous in space, furnishings, and kitchen equipment. The only drawback is consistent street noise that neither shutters nor closed windows and curtains keep out. The apartment representative, Tomas, spent an hour or so making sure we knew how things work, how to enter and exit the building via the elevator that opens directly into the apartment. The Wi-Fi didn’t work immediately, but a little reconnecting and rebooting brought it online and serves us very well.

We made a quick trip to one of two supermercados near the apartment, bought a few things for a light dinner, had a pleasant bottle of Argentine Malbec, and toddled off to bed.

Day Three: Our usual light breakfast, then off to meet the local Untours representative, Graciela, at 1000 for orientation, coffee, medialunas (croissants), orange juice, and water. Graciela is delightful, fluent in English (she holds dual US-Argentine citizenship and has four children living in the US), and knowledgeable about both countries. Following our orientation, we walked with Graciela through the neighborhood to the Recoleta cemetery, through a shopping arcade, and ended on Av. Liberatador where we boarded the open-top BuenosAiresBus, a double-decker, for what turned out to be about a four hour tour of the city. This bus is the two-day hop on/off bus pass provided by Untours; it passes through the most significant neighborhoods, around the presidential palace, the congress, along the waterfront, past the parks, the zoo, and so on. The first two hours were a real treat; the last two became more of a treatment. The seats get hard and the music between the parts of the narration (10 languages available) became repetitive. We would positively recommend doing the tour, but equally positively to do it in at least two segments over the two-day period. And, if possible, select a bus with the open-air upper deck covered.

Walking back from the bus stop (no. 18 Recoleta) we entered the other supermercado (Disco on Av. Quintana), by far the superior one. Bought some wine, a local beer, pastries, and other essentials. Dinner in; although BA has an astonishing array of restaurants, we normally prepare our own dinner with local, fresh products. We relish cooking with local ingredients and experimenting with what’s available.

Day Four: After sleeping late—it is after all, a holiday—we had our usual breakfast again, this time with a couple of a different medialuna, one without the sweetened glaze

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we had the day before. These are a smaller croissant, unglazed, unsalted and look rather

like a desiccated crab claw, but light and flaky, perfect with butter and jam. As well, we had a breakfast pastry with shredded coconut topping and a center of dulce de leche, an addictive local favorite.

For the day’s excursion we walked up the luxury street Av. Alvear past the exclusive shops and five-star Hotel Alvear on farther north on Av. Liberatador to the Museum of Fine Arts, maybe a fifteen minute walk. Although the European galleries were closed, we didn’t feel particularly deprived since we have been to many great European museums on other Untours trips. But we were astonished and humbled by the Argentine art exhibit; the quality of the 18th, 19th, and 20th century art alone was worth the trip. The paintings and water colors reveal both traditional styles and local settings and history, and history of which we Americans are largely ignorant. Interestingly, the quality of the light in the paintings seemed different, more luminous, than any that the European masters employed. But the highlight for us was the collection of textiles and ceramics from the pre-European indigenous peoples (c. 1300 BC to c.1500 AD). We were appalled at our anthropological ignorance of the highly developed cultures depicted in the collection and the artistic skill the artifacts revealed. Surely they are as richly symbolic and carefully executed as many Egyptian works of the same period.

From the Museum we walked back along Liberatador to the Design Center, a two story agglomeration of stores selling high-end fixtures and furniture and some smaller shops with what purports to be designer accessories for home, kitchen, and person. The building itself—a curvilinear horseshoe shaped structure--was more interesting than the contents. Its patio restaurants and cafes were inviting, handsomely set among palm trees,

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rubber trees, and the occasional statue.

We paused inside to have coffee and a slice of multilayered walnut + dulce de leche cake. The cost was about what it has been in other cosmopolitan cities: $2.50 each for the middle-sized coffee and $5.00 for the cake. The English-speaking server wisely brought two forks for us to share the large wedge of cake.

The café custom is firmly established in BA; people linger for an hour or so over coffee, a newspaper, a laptop, or conversation without any staff pressure to move on or to have something else. One has to request the check rather than having it plunked down on the table with a “Have a nice day.”

Returned to the apartment, read email, had our cooked-in dinner with a bit more good Argentine wine, caught up on the day’s news and ended the day with the sounds of the nightly trash service (11:15 pm) working its way down the street at least as noisily as an unmuffled earthmover.

Day Five: After the usual late and light breakfast with medialunas from the local bakery (Dos Escudos on Av. Montevideo), we walked to the Recoleta Artisanal market., also called the Hippie market, (12minutes) and wandered through the many stalls lining the walkways below and in front of the Recoleta cemetery.

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Artisanal is probably an overstatement, for most of the stalls, which favored gimcrackery knitting, pottery, touristy decorative mugs, and so on that one finds in street markets everywhere. A few leatherworkers displayed belts and bags and backpacks of obvious quality, but we bought nothing and felt we had escaped. Adjacent to the Recoleta market is the Plaza Francia which had more of the same. In neither case did we see in the stalls the kind of domestic articles of clothing or housewares one finds in street markets in England or France or Italy. To judge from what we saw, half the population in BA is engaged in some sort of amateur hobby, making things that only the maker values.

From those two markets, we changed quality level significantly by walking 15 minutes to the Bullrich shopping center located in a restored former meat market: grand ceilings, chandeliers, escalators, and international brand shops. This center was populated largely by well-dressed, prosperous older people or younger couples with children. Three floors of shops and a couple of cinemas as well as several restaurants offer ample opportunity for advanced people watching. The highlight of the afternoon was a gelato at the Freddo gelateria. We had a three-dip cup of dulce de leche, chocolate suize, and americano (a kind of vanilla gelato) topped with a generous serving of dulce de leche sauce (27 pesos, about what we paid in Paris for an ice cream cone at Fauchon). The gelato in BA makes most American ice cream, even premium brands, seem like a beginner’s product.

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The next time discretion will reign and we’ll have only a one dip cup of the really splendid gelato.

A long slow walk back to the apartment for dinner, reading, and email.

Day Six (Sunday): Today was a wider adventure—if riding a bus can be an adventure. We worked our way through the Guia T, the complex guide to the BA bus system, and determined that bus 59 would take us from near our apartment to near the San Telmo antique market at Plaza Dorrego. As you board the bus, you tell the driver where you want to go in whatever lingua franca will work; he enters the fare on a little key board, the amount shows up on the ticket machine behind him and you must put the amount in, using coins only—no bills. Although the guide books say the machines issue change, not all do. Following the route on the local tourist map and watching for the irregular street signs, we found our way to the nearest stop to the market. It was still a six block walk. We should note that each bus of an individual line is painted a different color with a different paint scheme, so an approaching bus is readily identifiable.

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The San Telmo market—six or eight blocks long—was more of the previous day, but in this case the sellers were spread out on blankets along the street, interspersed with musicians, magicians, and food carts. In the center of it all was the San Telmo Mercado, the central food market, surrounded on the periphery with antique and clothing stalls, much like the central market in Budapest, but much smaller. Along the streets, the many antique stores ranged from junky to elite with most falling somewhere in between with lots of European-style porcelain, 19th century decorative items, and outdated jewelry, mostly in silver. As a collector of fountain pens, I found one Argentine-made copy of the Parker 45 to take home (I try to buy one locally made pen in each country) and saw a hundred or so vintage Parker pens originally made in Argentina, but no bargains.

On our return, as we were leaving the market, trying to figure out from the Guia T where to find which bus to take us back to Recoleta, a well-dressed matron kindly stopped, offered us in English the help we obviously needed. One block away we found bus 17 (see photo above) which took us just where we wanted to be. Don’t assume that the bus that gets you somewhere will be the bus to take you home; one way streets intefere.

A word about the buses: they seem shorter and faster than most American transit buses. These are a Mercedes-Benz product that dash down the streets—some cobblestone—some well paved, but in each case the buses speed faster than the traffic around them, often punching through a recently changed red light or maneuvering suddenly to change lanes for a traffic advantage. Nothing decorous about the ride, except the behavior of the passengers. And each bus has a different radio station or CD playing; interior décor differs as well.

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(Hint:To board a bus one finds a bus stop, often obscure and often with several bus routes listed. The unusually grimy sign below indicates routes 111, 17, 10 and under the grime lists major streets each bus traverses.

If you are at a stop, join the queue. Be sure someone waves down the bus you want since at a multi-bus stop the driver has no way of knowing which passengers wait for which bus. Alternatively, if the bus is stopped mid-block or at a corner, one can get on there, and often merely by flagging down the driver. Bus rides cost between 25 and 35 US cents; hold on to the little ticket since it’s good for a transfer if within an hour or so of origin. If you miss one, not to worry. There’s always another bus shortly.)

Dinner in with local products from the nearby supermarket and our favorite pastry shop.The dessert pastry was a delightful ricotta tortalita, about 2 inches square, 2 inches high, in a light crust, lightly dusted with powdered sugar (10 Pesos=$2.50) and worth every centavo. We do other things than eat, but the pastries merit high praise and frequent indulgence.

Day Seven: We walked along several side streets to cross the Av. 9 de Julio, the twelve lane avenue through the business center of the city, and past Plaza San Martin to walk along Calle Florida, a pedestrian street lined with small and large shops. After a few blocks we entered Gallerias Pacifico (next photo) a multi-story shopping mall that is an attraction for its architecture and decoration alone.

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After wandering the shops, watching people, looking at leather goods at Lopez Taibo (one of the premier leather shops in the city) and handbags at Prune (a well-known Argentine designer brand), we stopped for coffee at Freddo in the lower level. (Hint: order a middle-size coffee for 10 pesos and it comes with a delectable, small scoop of ice cream—perfect restorative for a late afternoon.)

In preparation for the Untours evening’s entertainment, we walked back to the apartment, about 25 minutes, window-shopping along Av. Santa Fe, and took a well-earned nap. We met Graciela, the Untours on-site person, at the Hyatt hotel, boarded a mini-van, and drove through the city to Ventana for a tango show.

The drive took us through parts of San Telmo where the trash in piles in the streets had yet to be collected; the van driver commented about how embarrassing it was in the nation’s capital to have trash piled up each night. Even more so, scavengers go through the trash to collect cardboard and paper which they bundle into large canvas bags. About 2:00 am a truck comes along with a scales on board, weighs the collected cardboard, and the cardboard collectors get their pittance. Allegedly, the cardboard collection company is owned by someone high in government so the system is not likely to change. The city trash collectors, however, come along about the same time with their trucks and more or less get all the trash; what is left, the manual street sweepers pick up. By morning the streets are pretty well clean.

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Graciela, for Untours, chose a really top-notch evening event; the tango show was thoroughly engaging. Although we had anticipated a dingy, smoke-filled room, we were totally wrong. The Ventana is housed in the lower level of a restored building, reached by a set of highly varnished, timber stairs with brass rails as a guide. At the entry and at each level we were greeted by tuxedo-clad men who guided us into the theater hall; perhaps a hundred tables with white cloths, candles, glassware, and place settings gave it a traditional elegance.. Overhead, a stained glass ceiling filtered the lighting.

After a light snack of empanada and salad with wine or mineral water, the lights were dimmed and the curtain rose for the show. We were seated directly adjacent to the stage, so had an unobstructed view of the musicians and dancers. Too extensive and varied to describe in detail, the dance performances were astonishing in their athleticism and almost balletic in their precision. The company of thirty performers, including a five-piece combo and a ten-man orchestra with four concertinas, demonstrated every variety of tango, period costumes, four-inch stiletto heels, and musical styles. A couple of singers provided interludes for costume changes and a gaucho band added variety. One of the highlights was a stylized performance of “Don’t cry for me, Argentina” with the blonde singer as Evita and the company as a venerating crowd. As clichéd as it was, the performance worked its magic on the crowd. By the end of the two-hour show, the dancers seemed vigorous and fresh, the audience exhausted just from watching such demanding performances. Clearly a unique experience, one well worth doing.

Day Eight: Having been restrained in our shopping on the earlier days, we set out to visit some of the exclusive shops in Recoleta today; most are along Av. Alvear, Quintana, and Posadas. We spent some time in the Alvear branch of Lopez Taibo, the oldest leather working company in Argentina, to look at leather jackets, shoes, and handbags. We stopped at Cardon, another well-established leather and gaucho-style clothing store, where the emphasis was on men’s clothing. We wandered into Galleria Alvear as a matter of curiosity and found a small shop at unit 24: Maria Mateos, an organization of four women weavers, produces astonishing textiles for scarves, ruanas, capes, and other clothing; atypically, the prices are remarkably low for the style and quality. (A long scarf in silk costs $27.00, as opposed to three or four times that in the US or France.) Nearby at Casa Lopez we saw yet more leather jackets and shoes. Down the street was Humawaca, with distinctive, architect-designed handbags, backpacks, and briefcases. One tempting briefcase, for example, had a built-in solar panel to charge a battery to power Ipod, cell-phone, or laptop, all included in stylish leather and fabric. All the stores had fine quality, notable styles, and prices to match.

To take a break from the visual overload of so many leather jackets and handbags, we walked a couple of blocks down Posadas and again entered Paseo Bullrich. There we had a coffee break at Freddo’s—it’s getting to be a habit—before stopping at the local supermarket to pick up a few things for dinner and at the local bakery for a chocolate mousse torte for dessert. Sounds like we are really suffering, doesn’t it?

Day Nine: Walked up Av. Liberatador intending to visit the Museum of Decorative Arts, but missed it since it was not listed on the map we were using. As we walked along the

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park beside the avenue, we saw several of the local dog-walkers at work. One walker had a record thirteen dogs on leads and under control; others had from three to ten, all calmly walking on sidewalks, crossing streets, or sitting in the park.

The dogs of varied sizes and breeds were remarkably docile, quiet, and obedient—characteristics we saw in every dog gaggle we encountered. In some places the walker would be seated, the dogs wandering freely within twenty feet or so without conflict or restraint except the voice of the walker. The Portenos care enough about their dogs to pay someone to walk them once or twice a day. They don’t, however, routinely clean up after the dogs. (Hint: one has to be attentive while walking to avoid the results).

Once we realized we had missed the Decorative Arts museum, we continued about a mile to the Latin American Art museum (MALBA) in an impressive, modern building on Av. Alcorta; since we were a bit early, we had coffee at the outdoor coffee shop adjacent. As a technique, we routinely visit a museum’s gift shop before entering the museum itself as a way of deciding whether to continue. After that, we walked another half block to Paseo Alcorta, another of the large indoor shopping centers. This one had a full size Carrefour supermarket on the extensive ground floor and three stories above filled with shops, more Argentine than international, but plenty of both. A quick walk through and back out to retrace our steps.

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This time we located the Decorative Arts Museum on Liberatador and decided to take it in tomorrow when there is a guided tour in English. Returning to the good leather shops as promised, the male half of us found a leather shirt at Cardon and a leather jacket at Lopez Taibo. The better half restrained herself, bought no leather handbags—beautiful quality but not functional—or shoes. We did, however, return to Maria Mateos to buy a scarf or two for gifts.

And, of course, a restorative coffee at Freddo’s before returning to the apartment was essential to celebrate our purchases and recover from the shock of spending a significant amount of money. Freddo’s is so popular, its gelati in such demand, that home delivery is available, using motorbikes with insulated ice chests to keep the product cold.

This photo is of one bike line up, near Recoleta cemetery; we saw several others in the city. Enroute home, we stopped again at our local bakery for some quiche to take out, and for dessert and breakfast pastries.

Days 10-14: The remaining days we spent much like the earlier ones. In the interest of brevity, these days are summarized. On Day 10 we stayed home, read, relaxed and watched the world’s news on BBC, CNN, Fox, Deutsche Welle, and Al Jazeera. Another day, we did go to the Museum of Decorative Arts, housed in a palatial 1910 building with three impressive facades. The name is a bit misleading since the museum showcases the collection of one very wealthy family at the turn of the 20th century. The sumptuousness of the furniture, tapestries, and personal property clearly illustrate wealth, European influence, and period taste.

One day we returned to San Telmo to look at the shops along Defensa, a street that mixes old and new, antique shops next to designer displays. Like most of the streets in BA, Defensa has sidewalks in sore need of repair.

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Consequently, walkers throughout the city need to be attentive to where they step and not just for dog droppings. Argentines complain about the sidewalks’ condition but only slowly have any repairs been done. As with some US cities, the question is “Who is responsible for sidewalk repair?” Because it was a cool day, Pat was walking with her hands in her coat pockets; an elderly male Porteno stopped us, asked if we spoke English, and kindly advised Pat to keep her hands free. “If you stumble on the sidewalk, you must be able to catch yourself; if your hands are in your pockets, you can’t,” he said. Good advice from one who knew.

We visited the Recoleta cemetery, a miniature city of granite monuments—quiet, pretentious, outrageous, subdued, historic—to see how the elite of BA memorialized their dead. The cemetery is laid out like a city with broad walkways, smaller streets, and alleyways. Most monuments seem to be well maintained, but like any city, some have fallen into disrepair. We saw the modest mausoleum of the Duarte family which held the remains of Evita Peron; it had several commemorative medallions attached testifying to the devotion some groups had for her. But it was far less imposing than many others for people of less historical significance. All in all though, as in the US, tomb/monument architecture is curious. Tours in English on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Another day, we walked much of the length of Av. Santa Fe as it traverses the neighborhoods of Recoleta and Palermo window and people watching; we took a quick look at yet another of the magnificent shopping centers, Alto Palermo, and escaped without buying. We then took a bus up Av. Scalabrini Ortiz to the Palermo SoHo area, walking the streets El Salvador, Gurruchaga, and Borges. This area is like many up-scale streets in the US—restaurants, designer stores, fashion boutiques—in a re-gentrified area. This was one of the most interesting neighborhoods we saw, one we would certainly consider staying in when we return to BA next year. And finally the lure of an Argentine leather handbag at Humawaca won a convert, as it did again at Lopez Taibo the night before we left.

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Our final day we spent packing leisurely to be ready for a pickup at 5:30 pm to be at the airport a good three hours before our 9:30 pm departure. Graciela recommended the time for pick-up and she was right; traffic was heavy and sometimes very slow.

Departing the airportOnce we got to the airport, took our VAT forms to the customs counter (near check in 27, adjacent to the Continental check-in desks), had the forms stamped, and mailed, we then were able to check in for our flight. We had about two hours to spend in the United Red Carpet club before going to the departure area where we discovered a line of several hundred people waiting to go through the exit process. Each person had to fill out a form with the usual information--name, BA address, date of entry--and the form had to be done before reaching passport control. The lines moved steadily, but still it took 28 minutes to reach one of the six desks that were staffed in our half of the processing area. But only a minute to get the passport stamped. (The other half of the room was identical and moved equally fast or slowly.) Then on to the departure gate and onboard.

The flight back to Houston was an uneventful 9 ½ hours occupied in dinner, sleep, and breakfast. Arrival in Houston at 6:00 am meant a long, long walk to immigration which went quickly, then to baggage, and a quick walk through the customs area to recheck baggage. At that time in the morning, it was all very efficiently done.

No problems on the homeward leg, but our two bags didn’t arrive on our flight with us. They were, however, delivered at midnight the same day. An annoyance, but not a real problem. We did find out, however, that Continental does not scan and track its bags, so there was no way to zap a bar code to instantly find out where our bags were—even if we didn’t have them.

Would we do it again? Yes, certainly. BA is a cosmopolitan city with a diverse population, interesting architecture, and a distinct culture. We plan to return next year to see other parts of the city and perhaps take a day trip or two up the Plata River or across to Uruguay.

Other comments and hints:Guidebooks: We found the Rough Guide to Buenos Aires very helpful with suggested bus routes to the various locations. But we also found good information in all the books we used: Frommer’s BA day by day, Eyewitness Top 10 BA, TimeOut BA, and Lonely Planet’s BA City Guide.Language: A good Spanish dictionary can be helpful occasionally, but most useful was Lonely Planet’s Latin American Spanish.Maps: The maps in the guide books can be useful, but we found the complimentary “Welcome to Buenos Aires” map from the Ministry of Tourism most useful for our daily walks.Money: ATM’s are readily available, including at the airport, though some have a low daily limit of US$150. Citibank, for example, in Recoleta has practically no limit; other major banks are similar. The Argentine peso (about 4 to the US dollar) comes in 100, 50,

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20, 10, and 2 peso bills, all the same size and nearly all showing wear. The coins are 1 peso (looks like a Euro coin with a body of brass and an insert of nickel), 50 centavos, 25, 10, and 5. One does need to aggregate coins for the bus. Getting some in change at a store is possible but unlikely; if necessary, a bank will convert a 10 or 20 peso bill to coins.Phones: The Mobal Global $49 phone will not work in BA; you need a quad band. Additionally, assuming that our apartment was typical, you can’t call cell phones from house phones without added charge.

Please get in touch if you have any questions.

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