Buenos Aires take two!

For my mom's birthday and Christmas present for 2010, and mother's day present for 2011, I decided to take her on a trip.  She was too anxious to travel alone, though, so she convinced her friend Lynda that she should be her travel buddy.  After much discussion, we decided on Buenos Aires and Iguazu, Argentina.  My mom and Lynda arrived on Jan. 12 / 13 and will stay until Jan. 26 / 27.  Lynda went off to Cuzco for 2 days on her own while my mom and I hung out in Lima.  We then all went together to Buenos Aires on Jan. 17.

Day 1: We got up bright and early and headed to the Lima airport.  Paolo was a doll and drove us.  We had to be there at 6am for our 830am flight.  We got there just in time to score exit row seats!  YES!  The flight to Bs As was uneventful besides the fact that my little personal TV moniter decided to be kind of broken, but still watchable.  We arrived to Bs As at about 2:30pm (12:30pm Lima time) and got through customs and got our luggage, found our taxi driver and were off by 3:15.  Quite effecient!  We then headed into the city to drop our stuff off at our hotel, which was actually an apartment.  The building was probably over 100 years old, and the elevator was one where you had to manually open the doors!  It was pretty cool, and WAY faster than mine in Lima!  What's that all about? 

So our apartment in Bs As... it had 3 bedrooms, a living room, a bathroom, a small kitchen, and like a little storage place.  One bedroom had its own tiny private balcony, another had doors that opened up to the terrace on the roof (shared space), and the other was an interior room.  I got the pink room - the one with the tiny balcony.  There were AC units in 2 of the rooms.  The apt was located in a quiet residencial area, but it was super close to 2 metro lines and to bus lines.  Rachel is the owner of the apt.  She is from New Zealand and was super sweet.  She provided us with a Subte (metro) card, some money to put on the card so we could get into town, and some coins for the bus.  She also left a cell phone in each room and told us how to get cards to put minutes on them.  Very convenient!

So once we got settled, we headed into Bs As on the metro system to Florida street to exchange money.  1USD = 4.04 pesos.  Not too shabby!  We wandered around a bit and bought some postcards before heading back to the apt and the tiny grocery store to buy water and whatnot.  Lynda made us spaghetti for dinner!  Yum!

Day 2: We slept in for a bit, and then decided to walk to the meeting point of the 11am Bs As free walking tour!  We went walking around the historical downtown part of Bs As, and when we stopped at Cafe Tortoni, my mom and I jutted inside to get tickets for that night's tango show.  After our walking tour, we headed home to get ready for the tango show.  It was a decent show, and I met a new friend - Ceci from Brazil!  She was also an English teacher :)

Day 3: We were originally going to go to Tigre today, but it decided to pour and thunder all day, so we did not.  It was a lazyyyyy Wednesday.  At 3pm it appeared the rain was letting up, so we decided to go change money and try the 5pm Aristocrat walking tour.  Just my luck, Bs As also likes to wax its sidewalks, so guess who sure did slip and fall right on her bootay???  Yep, that would be me... on my way down the subway stairs, jaja.  Luckily, I didn't hurt myself and I didn't get too dirty! Jaja... and also, good thing it was me and not my mom!  So we exchanged our money for the rest of the trip and then headed over to where the other walking tour started - Plaza San Martin! (Man that dude is popular! ;) )  The walking tour was nice, and my mom really liked the pretty houses.  We then headed back to the hotel for the night.

Day 4: Well, what's a trip to Argentina without a day trip to Urugauy???  That's right... I added a new stamp to my passport today!  We got up quite early to taxi it over to the Buquebus station. We caught the 930am slow boat to Colonia, Uruguay.  Colonia is ADORABLE.  The boat ride was lovely and the weather was perfect.  Unfortunately I ended up with an odd sunburn on my leg though.  There were certainly some interesting characters on this boat... from Maniquin (sp) girl to foot massage boy to diaper pants galore!  Colonia itself was super quaint.  Definitely recommended!

Day 5: Tigre, here we come!  We hopped on the commuter train for ... 75 cents... ROUNDTRIP! to the small town of Tigre.  We went on a little boat tour and saw some cute houses before heading back to Bs As to visit Evita's grave at Recoleta and then to see the flower statue thing at the UN park.  Pretty cool!  We ate at a steakhouse so mom could have some Argentine beef.  They had SUPER delicious bread!

Day 6: Our last full day in Bs As :(.  We had to get a lot in today!  We started with a bus trip to La Boca... then another bus trip to the Casa Rosada for a tour.  It was then metro time to take us to the Evita museum and the Japanese Gardens.  Lucky us, it was Anime Day!  Sweeeeeeet.  AKA a bunch of ppl dressed up like different Japanese cartoon characters.  Well... to each their own.  We also made a stop at the botanical gardens before heading back to the apt for our last dinner.

Day 7: Today.  We packed up, went to a cafe in the Abasto mall for a snack, went back to the hotel to say bye to Rachel and grab our stuff... and Nico picked us up to take us to Newberry airport, where we checked in and later boarded our flight to Iguazu!  We had an awesome snack on the flight - all Havana food.  YUMMMMMM!!!  There was this super tasty lemon cookie thing that was so tasty.  The flight was pretty uneventful until we were starting our descent and we saw the waterfalls!!!!  Well..,kinda... we saw the spray from the waterfalls.  We got picked up at the airport, and came to the hotel - Rio Tropic.  It is really cute.  There is a small pool, and our room is HUGE.  The baño is a bit odd... the shower is the bathroom - there are no walls!  Eek!  jaja.  We ordered pizza... a large cheese pizza for 19 pesos ($4.75!!!)  and it was actually very good!!  Now it is 11pm, and I should get to bed because....

Tomorrow we're off to see Las Cataratas de Iguazu and also the 3 Fronteras (Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil)!!!!!!

So herein starts the adventurous / outdoorsy part of our trip!  Let's hope for good weather!