Buenos Aires Day 3

Today was a lovely sunny day. We walked through Saturday markets down to Plaza Armenia where we sat for a bit. I don’t know whether it’s official or unofficial but I think it’s a dog park. There were lots of cute dogs who were let off leash when they arrived at the park.

Plaza Armenia
Souvenir hunting

For dinner we went to a highly rated gourmet sushi restaurant, The Lift. It’s only a couple of blocks from our hotel. After our platter was delivered one of owners described each of our fabulous sushi’s for us.

The Lift restaurant
I forgot to take a picture until we had already eaten half our sushi

The show we went to at the Bebop club tonight was a band called Nube 9. They performed all the songs from the Beatles album Abbey Road. The club was packed. The other two shows we have gone to at Bebop had good size audiences but this Saturday night show appeared to be sold out. The band was really good. The audience was people of all ages and there were a lot of really avid fans who knew the words to every song. We had a great time.

Nube 9. The couple in front of us recorded the whole show.

Buenos Aires Day 2

Today was mostly rainy. We had a lovely relaxing day.

Duke always likes to get a haircut when we are travelling. It allows him to chat with locals. And it is usually cheaper than at home. So this morning he found a nearby a nearby barber and had his haircut.

His hair before, on our way into Buenos Aires yesterday
And his hair after his haircut. He is browsing outside a store that sells mate paraphernalia.

This afternoon we went for a walk in the rain to see some of the Palermo neighborhood that we are staying in.

We stopped for coffee while we were out

Tonight we had a great dinner at Doña, Bocas de Fuego

Our beef platter to share.

Then we went to a jazz concert at the Thelonius club.

The Luis Nacht Quartet

Tandi to Buenos Aires

Today we drove five hours to Buenos Aires. After 5 weeks and 5,220 miles we turned in our rental car and completed our Argentine road trip.

We will be in Buenos Aires four nights. We are staying in the Palermo neighborhood at a hotel called Palermitano. Duke has booked jazz concerts for us each night. Tonight we went to 2 concerts at the Bebop Club right next door to our hotel. They were each great!

The two groups we saw
The Earth Wind and Fire tribute band. The music and energy were great!

Tandi Day 2

We woke up this morning to beautiful blue skies which was wonderful after how grey and rainy it was yesterday. We appear to be the only ones staying here. We were the only table in use at breakfast.

We were surprised when a barn swallow perched on top of the television in the next room. When I pointed him out to the man who set up breakfast and checked us in yesterday, he smiled and said yes. Then he pointed out the swallow’s nest in the corner of the room and said it has 4 eggs in it!

That’s a barn swallow on top of the TV!
The swallow’s nest

After breakfast we went for a walk in the grounds of our hotel.

The oldest tree in this forest

Then we went into Tandi to change the last of our U.S. dollars into pesos. Many restaurants give a 10% discount if you pay in cash. We kind of wish we brought more cash with us. All the ATMs we have tried only let you get out U.S. $70 at a time and they charge about $11 for the transaction.

And the Crediexpress where we change our money offered us a poorer rate for our $50 bill and for a wrinkled $20. It’s all very complicated.

We got back to the hotel midafternoon and then napped and read until dinner. Our dinner restaurant, La Pulperia Parilla, opened at 8:30. We were there by nine and had a great dinner. I had empanadas and Duke had steak.

I’ve run out of room for pictures again. So there aren’t many pictures with this post. I suppose I should have spent the afternoon reloading old pics and making them a smaller size.. Oh well!!

Reta to Tandi

Today was a relatively easy day. Our drive to Tandi as we head towards Buenos Aires, was about three hours. We couldn’t check in before 3 pm so we stopped whenever we saw something interesting along the way.

Our first stop was at a dairy store we just happened to see.

They had lots of old farm equipment
Inside the store. We bought cheese, salame, and honey.

A bit farther down the road we stopped for a picnic.

Picnic in the park

We’ve seen lots of wheat farms and cattle today.

Beautiful farm land

It’s obvious from the amount of standing water that we have seen that they have had a lot of rain here lately. When we finally got close to the place we are staying tonight we followed Google’s directions ( big mistake!) and about a quarter of a mile from our hotel we got stuck in a giant mud puddle. We almost made it but them we slid backwards and there was no way we were getting out on our own.

Our car is stuck.
If I opened the passenger door it was in the water.

Duke stayed with the car and I walked to our hotel. Using Google and my limited Spanish I was able to communicate the problem. A young man walked back to the car with me and he and Duke pushed the car out of the mud while I drove. It turned out that there was a much better road on which we should have a approached our hotel.

The discussion before they started pushing.

We went into the town of Tandi for dinner and had an excellent meal at Bodegón del Fuerte.

Our beef platter to share