The coolest way to get to Buenos Aires, or Bs.As., is Buquebus, the fast ferry to Buenos Aires. Half of the bottom deck is a (naturally) overpriced duty-free store, and the ride was very nice. The Río de la Plata is huge and when you're in the middle you cannot see either side of the river. As the sun begins to set, it reflects really intensely on the river, and you can barely see anything because of all the glare. It looks kind of silvery, which is supposedly why they call it Río de la Plata (the silver river). Towards the end of the three hour trip, you begin to see the silhouette of the Buenos Aires skyline appear, and it slowly gets bigger and bigger and bigger until all of a sudden you are docked right in the middle of it.

I chose a hostel from the list in the Lonely Planet, told a cab driver to take me there, and obviously there was never a hostel at this address—it was a shoe store or something, so he took me to this other hostel where I stayed.

As for Buenos Aires itself, it it really nice. Really really really really really nice. I could definitely stay there for a few months. The people are really nice, and the place is not ghetto like most big cities in Brazil. There are tons of trendy cafés, stores, restaurants, and all kinds of other cool modern establishments and architecturally interesting buildings blended right in with old colonial style buildings and monuments. For example, here you go into a bathroom and you have both hot and cold water available to you without fiddling with some sort of incendiary device or worrying that you will be electrocuted (most showers in Brazil outside of Rio/Sao Paulo have wires dangling out of the shower head and running down to a plug right near where the water comes out, which heats up the water.Quite possibly the most idiotic invention ever).

Cabs are plentiful and cheap, and the subway goes everywhere and costs about a quarter per ride. One of the lines even has these really old 1920s style cars that feel like those pictures of the NYC subway from that era. They are made out of wood and they creek at every turn, and you open the doors by hand to exit. The rest of the lines have more modern cars,which are nice too but nowhere nearly as cool.

There is this long shopping pedestrian mall called Florida, where you can find all sorts of leather goods, cheap suits, other clothes and all kinds of other stuff, usually at decent prices. So far I've seen a local rock show in Plaza de Mayo (pronounced "mashow" in porteño), and a couple of random tango performances in the street.

People go to dinner around 10:30 on average, and the other day I had a really tasty bife de lomo steak for about four bucks. Mmmm. The beef is really delicious here, and super cheap.

Nightlife starts at 12am, which is crazy, but fun. I think it's safe to say that I'm having a great time here, and I and going to extend my trip a couple of weeks longer so I can both stay in Buenos for a while as well as travel to the Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, all the way at the end of the world...

Posted about 1 year ago