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If you've been following this adventure in sequence, we left off in Iguassu Falls at the border between Brazil and Argentina.

Argentina

Hank Shiffman
2003-11-29 15:25:07

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Buenos Aires

If you've been following this adventure in sequence, we left off in Iguassu Falls at the border between Brazil and Argentina. Continue now across the Iguassu River, past a long line of trucks (I made the transit on Sunday, while commercial traffic sits waiting for God and the Customs office to go back to work), stopping briefly at the Argentine Immigration office, past an even longer line of trucks waiting to enter Brazil and finally to the tiny under-construction airport at Iguazu. (I'm told it's been under construction for five years now. Even the pyramids didn't take this long.)

And thence to Buenos Aires, the most European city on the continent. From the Casa Rosada (the Pink House), where Evita used to visit her adoring populace to incredibly wide tree-lined boulevards named after dates, this is a city designed to impress. Buenos Aires has some of the grandeur of Paris but adds a warmth and a charm and an accessibility that Paris neither possesses nor wishes to possess.

My hotel was conveniently situated at the end of one of the city's pedestrian streets, which reminded me a bit of Copenhagen's Stroget. And once I figured out how to negotiate the intersections (the city doesn't much go in for traffic lights on smaller streets, while drivers seem to consider walkers fair game) I began to discover the joys of exploring the city's many neighborhoods. I also explored the Buenos Aires subway system, which is cheap, efficient and generally got to within a mile or so of where I wanted to go.

La Boca is one of the city's more colorful neighborhoods, both figuratively and literally. This was once the Italian part of town, where the locals dressed up their corrugated tin houses by painting them in dramatic colors. The Italians have moved elsewhere; the houses remain as a draw to tourists. And enterprising locals take advantage ...