Montevideo and Buenos Aires - Puerto Madryn, Argentina
Puerto Madryn, Argentina
Our second morning in Montevideo, the 7 November, we began by a visit to Teatro Solis. The theatre, dating from the 19th century, is one of the main monuments of the city. We arrived just in time for the first guided visit of the day and for once got a tour in English. Despite it being the guide’s first time doing the tour in English, he had a lot of interesting things to tell us about the theatre and its history. For example, the theatre is supposedly named after the first man to cross Rio de la Plata, Juan Díaz de Solís, but there are alternative and more conspiratory theories about that as well. During the visit, we also got a few samples of theatre pieces by Uruguayan writers performed in different rooms of the building.
From the theatre, we went down to the Mercado del Puerto where we were planning to have lunch to celebrate four and a half years together. As an aperitif, we got another sample of the medio y medio wine from the waiter from the day before, who clearly didn’t recognize us. Then, we pulled up two stools next to one of the bars and ordered two massive Uruguayan bife de lomo – tenderloin steaks – that were perfectly grilled right in front of us as we were waiting. We even had some trouble finishing the food, to say how big the steaks were, but it was some of the best meat we’ve had and definitely worth a bit of stomach ache afterwards.
Very full from the lunch, we then went down to the Rambla, the walk along the coastline, for a nice stroll next to the water. We didn’t see much of the beaches that are supposed to be there, but maybe you need to go a bit further from the center for that. Afterwards, we walked back to the theatre and bought tickets for the show The Marriage of Figaro the same evening. We then continued up the Av. 18 de Julio, which is the main boulevard in the city, to a panoramic viewpoint on top of one of the buildings. The views were indeed quite nice and there were good explanations of everything you could see from up there.
Back on the ground again, we decided to head back to the hotel for a siesta before the theatre in the evening. On the way, we bought some Uruguayan strawberries and snacks as a light dinner. Going to the opposite hemisphere definitely has its advantages, especially at this time of the year when you can get fresh fruits everywhere.
Later in the evening, we went back to the theatre for the show, still in our backpacker clothes. There, we got a bit of a surprise as we had expected an opera, but instead of the adaptation by Mozart we got the original theatre version of The Marriage of Figaro by Beaumarchais. Still, the Comedia Nacional put on a good version of the play with some great actors, who did well enough to make it interesting even for us with our limited Spanish.
The next day, our last in Montevideo, we spent the morning at the street market on Tristan Narvaja. This is the largest of the city’s street markets and it spreads out several blocks in each direction from the street it’s supposed to be on. The market is extremely crowded and you can buy anything from a puppy to fresh fruits and pasta to video games to second hand stuff there. However, due to a slight miscalculation of how much cash we would need we had basically nothing left, so we never actually bought anything. We could of course have fixed it if we really wanted to, but we found nothing that we wanted enough to pay the exaggerated fees on cash withdrawals one extra time. Nevertheless, it was a nice place to walk around and it’s always fun to see how the locals like to spend their Sundays.
Early afternoon we walked to the bus terminal and got on the bus to Colonia. From there, we took the ferry, a bigger one this time, back across Rio de la Plata to Buenos Aires and Argentina. We left Uruguay with quite a positive impression, despite our short time there. The country is relatively expensive, but the people are friendly, they speak a lot more English than in the neighboring countries and things are a lot more similar to Europe in general, for better or for worse.
We arrived in Buenos Aires around 11 pm, the mandatory half an hour late, and walked the few hundred meters to our hotel. Then, we went out for dinner, quite hungry after accidentally having checked in our pesos so we couldn’t buy any food on the ferry. Fortunately, dinner habits are quite late here and the guy in the reception almost laughed at us when we asked if we could find an open restaurant just before midnight. Apparently, everything was open.
The following day, the 9 November, our first priority was to exchange some dollars so we could pay for the hotel. Unfortunately, when asking around among the money changers on Florida Street the exchange rate had dropped significantly over the weekend and so the best rate we could get was at the hotel itself. Still, we could get over 50 % more than the official rate on the street, so it wasn’t a disaster in any way. Nonetheless, we exchanged as much as we could with the hotel to begin with and managed to completely drain the hotel of all the change they had, so we left with quite a pile of bills of 5 and 10 pesos.
With this, we took our backpacks and walked to the hotel we had booked for the rest of our stay in Buenos Aires, a couple of kilometers away on Av. Corrientes. There, we found that the place was more of a really big apartment than a hotel. The owner, Esther, was a somewhat odd lady with a very direct manner when it came to money, but otherwise very nice. We hung around until our room was ready and she gave us both fresh orange juice and cold drinks while we were waiting. It felt a little like having a third, overly protective grandmother as she insisted on helping us with whatever we were doing as soon as she was around. We got used to it pretty fast though and got some planning and a birthday call to Palle done during the wait.
Once the room was done we left for the Recoleta Cemetery, where quite a few of Argentina’s most famous people now rest. It’s really quite an absurd place with tombs that are more like miniature houses, several meters high, often made of marble and decorated with large statues. The rent isn’t exactly low either at 30 000 dollars for the very smallest patch available. As the good tourists that we are, we began by finding the tomb of Evita, the country’s iconic first lady who is still to this day extremely popular. Her portrait is even on the new 100 peso bill, which is the largest bill they have. Finding the tomb wasn’t much of a challenge, you just look for the most crowded place in the cemetery and you’ve found it. When it comes to design of the tomb though, there are much more interesting ones to see in the cemetery than the one of Evita, so we took our time to walk around the rest of the place as well.
On the way from the cemetery, we went to a nearby shopping mall where we could get a nice view of the tombs from above. Then, we continued down to Florida Street to change some more money. There, we learnt that the main reason for the volatility of the exchange rate is the fact that the presidential candidate Marci is doing better than expected in the polls and may even win. He has promised to lift restrictions on currency and since this would lead to a unified dollar rate, which would be lower than the blue rate, the rate has started to drop in anticipation of this. Since predictions change from day to day, we decided to wait and only change what we needed for now. We also unsuccessfully tried to walk on opposite sides of the street to see if Max alone, looking more like a local, could get a better rate than we could together. While that didn’t work, it only took a few seconds from we split up before Kajsa got a handful of comments from men in the street and Max was offered an erotic massage.
Having exchanged some money, we continued to Plaza de Mayo, which quite frankly doesn’t look very special, but has played an important role in Argentina’s history. It is, for example, where the mothers of the “disappeared” during the military regime came to demonstrate for the right to know what happened to their children. Next to the square, we also saw the pink presidential palace, Casa Rosada, with the balcony where Evita used to speak to the people. Unfortunately, it’s only open for visits on weekends so we never went inside. Finally, we also went to the Catedral Metropolitana on another side of the square. Then, we headed back to the hotel, with a quick stop on the way to buy food.
In the evening, we took the metro to a cinema to watch Spectre, the latest James Bond movie. Due to a little misunderstanding, we also ended up with a snack menu, including a monstrous bucket of popcorn, but we did our best to finish it. It didn’t leave much space for dinner afterwards though. Despite the slightly too large quantity of popcorn, we both really enjoyed the movie. Afterwards, we walked back to the hotel in the rain.
At breakfast the next morning, the 10 November, we decided to spend the day in the neighborhood Palermo, famous for its parks and little shops and restaurants. We started by the Japanese Garden, which was smaller than expected but nice and well maintained. It really feels like a little bit of Japan in the middle of Buenos Aires.
The next place we went to has quite a few names, including Rosedal, Parque Tres de Febrero and Bosques de Palermo, but essentially it is also a park, though quite different from the Japanese Garden. The most prominent feature of the park is the rose garden, which is quite large and has roses of virtually every color, but it also contains a little lake with an island and a couple of buildings. We spent quite a while in the parks, before continuing on to Palermo.
In Palermo, we spent most of our time wandering around on the cobbled streets, enjoying the atmosphere and the little boutiques and restaurants along the way. We also enjoyed a nice pot of ice cream, which we picked up from an ice cream bar along the way where you could pay per kilo. Overall, it was a day without any major attractions, but we still felt quite satisfied when we got on the metro back to the center.
Back at the hotel, we learnt that the gas had been cut off due to “security reasons” two weeks ago, so we couldn’t actually cook any of the food we had bought the day before. Fortunately, there was a barbecue on the terrace, so we decided to grill all the meat we had bought to save the situation. We were soon joined by a German couple and a guy from Taiwan, so it turned out to be a quite pleasant evening where we all shared the food and drinks we had and talked until long after it had gone dark.
Another funny thing this evening was the new 50 peso bill we received as change when going to buy something to eat with the meat. The interesting thing here is what they have chosen to put on it, which is nothing less than the Falkland Islands, or Islas Malvinas as the Argentineans call them. That’s quite a statement considering that Argentina lost the war over the islands in 1982 and so the islands belong to the UK at the moment.
The morning after, the 11 November, we took it quite easy and eventually went out to buy some medialunas, or croissants, at a bakery for breakfast. Then, we made a quick visit to the obelisk on the super wide Avenida 9 de Julio and Teatro Colon, but soon decided we had seen enough theatres for a while and so we only stayed a few minutes. Instead, we walked through the center to the Reserva Ecologica Costanera Sur. On the way, we changed some money and found that the rate had recovered from the drop two days before.
Once we got to the reserve, we found that it was closed because of a fire the day before. Instead, we took a walk along the water towards the Plaza de Mayo, where we went to the Museo de Bicentennario under the Casa Rosada. They had a nice little collection of historical items and we spent a while watching historical photos and videos. One of them was from Evita’s funeral procession, which gathered an insanely large crowd of people.
After the museum, we took the bus to the colorful neighborhood La Boca. There, we walked through some nice streets, visited a few shops, saw glimpses of tango shows at restaurants and passed the stadium of the incredibly popular football team Boca Junior. The stadium isn’t particularly attractive and, despite being quite large, it cannot even fit all the members of the club. That really says more about the popularity of the team than about the stadium though. The best thing about the team, however, has to be the colors, which are blue and yellow and, we learnt, inspired by the flag of a Swedish ship that was docked in the harbor that’s called La Boca when the club was created.
When returning to the center, we got off close to Florida street and stumbled upon a free tango show on a street corner. We stayed there and watched for a while, taking in this very typical Argentinean dance. It also nicely saved us from paying for an overpriced tango show later, which was great. As a bonus, we got some extra entertainment from some campaign workers for the presidential election on the other side of the street. They’re party had picked the genius slogan “Cambiemos!”, which means something like “Let’s change!”. Unfortunately for them, it also means “Let’s change money!”, which becomes quite hilarious when they’re standing among the hundreds of (illegal) money changers screaming “Cambio! Cambio!” on Florida Street. We weren’t sure they would appreciate the irony of the situation, however, so we never talked to them about it.
Around 6 pm, we were quite hungry and figured it was time for lunch, so we went to our favorite place for empanadas. Then, we went back to the hotel and spent a calm evening calling home and making sure we could stay an extra night. We also made the revolutionary discovery that a rice cooker doesn’t only cook rice, it can cook pasta as well.
About the 12 November, for the first time during this trip, there really isn’t much to say. The weather was quite bad with a lot of heavy rain and thunder, so we spent most of the day inside, watching movies and planning what to do next. We only went out for a short while for a couple of errands and some empanadas.
The morning after, which was our last in Buenos Aires and Friday the 13 November, we woke up to better weather and Kajsa snuck out to buy medialunas from our bakery while Max slept in a bit. Then, we made some breakfast, packed up our stuff and went out for a while. We passed the congress building, which was the last building left on our list, and made a second attempt at the Reserva Ecologica, which was still closed. Then, all we had time to do was change some more dollars and go back to pick up our bags. There was a demonstration going on around the obelisk and part of our street was closed off, so we had to walk a bit to find a bus stop where the buses actually passed, but we still got to the Retiro bus terminal without any major problems and could buy our bus tickets to Puerto Madryn.
Mid-afternoon, we got on the bus for the 20 hour ride to Peninsula Valdes. Apparently a tradition of the company is to play bingo in the bus, so we got to play a round of bingo. Kajsa was just one number away from winning a nice bottle of white wine, but wasn’t all that sad that she didn’t. On the bus, we also discovered something we’ve never seen before: the coffee bag, which is exactly like a tea bag but with coffee. Otherwise, nothing very exciting happened on the way.
We arrived in Puerto Madryn this morning, on time for once, and found our hostel right in the center of the city. Then, we went out to research the best way to visit the peninsula. We quickly realized that the prices, adjusted even for the most extreme inflation, have easily doubled over the past couple of years, so they’ve certainly learnt how to take advantage of all the tourists that come here. Asking around also proved useless since all the agencies quoted exactly the same price. We even had two French women we could share a car with, but the car rental companies had apparently also learnt to charge ridiculous prices, so even with four people it wasn’t worth it. In the end, we chose a tour company where we managed to negotiate a bit of a discount at least.
Having made up our minds, we went for a short walk out on the pier hoping to see some whales. It was low tide though, so there were none at the moment. Then, we picked up some sandwiches and an enormous piece of lemon pie that we shared on the beach. Now, we’re taking care of some practicalities and waiting for the worst heat to pass so we can head down to the beach. Tomorrow, we’ll do the tour to the natural reserve of Peninsula Valdes, where we’ll hopefully see a bunch of marine animals.
FRANCAIS
Samedi 7 Novembre, rencontre d'un couple brésilien, qui nous échangea gentillement un billet de 20 reias qui manquait à notre collection. Visite guidée du théâtre Solis, principal théâtre d'Uruguay. A l'origine construit avec des fonds privés, le théâtre est devenu la propriété de la ville de Montevideo par la suite. Ensuite, déjeuner dans un restaurant du marché du Port, pour célébrer les 4 ans et demi de notre relation. Prétexte puisque nous voulions essayer la viande uruguayenne. Le résultat, le meilleur morceau de viande ever. Bife de Lomo. 300 à 400 grammes de pure bonheur, grillé au feu de bois :). Petite balade de digestion et retour au théâtre pour prendre des billets pour la représentation du soir, le mariage de Figaro en espagnol. Magnifique opéra ... Sauf que c'était la pièce de théâtre de Beaumarchais, l'œuvre originale par la suite adaptée par Mozart. Retour au théâtre dans la soirée. Comme à son habitude, n'ayant pas amené de vêtements adaptés, Maxime est arrivé en short de trekking avec chaussures de marché et pull en laine d'Alpaca... Mais le plus amusant, c'est que sa tenue n'était pas la pire. Superbe représentation par l'équivalent de la Comédie Française. Des acteurs juste exceptionnels, mise en scène excellente, probablement la meilleure pièce jamais vu par Maxime. Bon, honnêtement, on a pas tout compris.
Dimanche 8 Novembre, petit tour de la ville et visite du célèbre marché de Montevideo se tenant chaque Dimanche. Super marché, mix marché traditionnel et marché aux puces. Départ pour la station de bus, puis 2h de bus jusqu'à Colonia. Enfin bateau, beaucoup plus grand que le premier, mais 3 fois plus lent ;(.
Lundi 9 Novembre, échange de Dollars pour commencer la journée. Puis retour à l'hôtel qui avait un taux meilleur. Transfert de nos affaires dans l'hôtel suivant et appel vers la Suède pour l'anniversaire du Papa de Kajsa. Visite du cimetière de Recoleta, l'équivalent du Père Lachaise. Le cimetière accueil de nombreuses célébrités, militaires, présidents... Et bien entendu la tombe de Evita Perrón, l'âme de l'Argentine, femme du Président J.M Perrón. Elle est devenue l'icône du pays de par sa gentillesse et son implication dans l'amélioration des conditions de vie des ouvriers et des plus pauvres. Nous nous sommes glissés dans le centre commercial tout proche pour avoir une vue plongeante sur le cimetière, puis retour à l'hôtel. Soirée cinema avec le dernier James Bond Spectre. Après un malentendu avec la caissière, nous avons payé le double pour avoir un combo boisson/pop corn non désiré. Le combo incluait ÉVIDEMMENT le traditionnel album Panini avec des images à coller... Sans déconner, quel est l'intérêt? Bref le film était bon, ensuite retour à l'hôtel.
Mardi 10 Novembre, visite du Jardin Japonais, construit par la communauté Japonaise de B.A pour promouvoir leur culture. Ensuite les roseraies du Jardin Rosedal, puis le quartier de Palermo, sympa pour se promener puis retourà l'hôtel.
Mercredi 11 Novembre, tentative de visite de la réserve écologique, fermée pour cause d'incendie puis visite du musée du Bicentenaire. Petit tour de bus jusqu'à la mythique La Boca, quartier populaire, habitant l'équipe de football de Boca Junior. Lieux très coloré et vraiment sympa à visiter. Retour dans le centre pour une démonstration de Tango Argentin dans la rue. Retour à l'hôtel.
Jeudi 12 Novembre, rien de spécial, journée détente et préparation. J'en profite pour parler des nouveaux billets de 50 pesos. Les anciens billets représentaient un homme âgé, Hero national quelconque. Les nouveaux billets ont pour thème les Îles Malouines, Sandwichs et Atlantique Sud. Une guerre a eu lieu dans les années 80 entre l'Argentine et le Royaume Uni à propos de ces Îles. Le R.U en est sorti vainqueur et a conservé le contrôle des Îles. L'Argentine ne semble pas oublier et ne laisse pas tomber.
Vendredi 13 Novembre, visite du Congrès et départ en bus pour Puerto Madryn.
Samedi 14 Novembre, arrivée à Puerto Madryn. Organisation des jours suivants et détente.