Exit to the north

Post by Ella

Last night (Thursday, May 2) we began the journey home with an 8pm flight out of Buenos Aires. 

On Wednesday, we did nothing. To be more accurate, I explored, Grubb slept. Grubb was under the weather so he spent the day in a restful pose. I walked around a bunch but since it was Labor Day (May 1 is Labor Day in many countries) most everything was closed. I did manage to find a few open bakeries so I could bring home some bland bread rolls for the sick guy. No, it’s not Covid. Seems like an intestinal bug. I toddled over to the pharmacy to ask for something resembling Pepto Bismol. They prefer activated charcoal here for these matters. Worked like a charm.

Our AirBnb host kindly offered to let Grubb sit in his apartment after checkout time on Thursday for a few hours before we left for the airport. I took advantage of the last few hours to wander around the streets and the botanical gardens which are just a 3 minute walk from here.

There is a whole area devoted to the plant that produces the Yerba mate.

There were a bunch of statues

Polished off the last hour in a local coffee bar with Avocado toast with egg on top. Well, avocados do grow here. So do eggs.

A rather uneventful end to an eye-opening trip. We often don’t hear much about Argentinian politics or much about anything going on in South America for that matter. I had a lot of gaps in my knowledge of the place.

I wished many times I’d studied up on my Spanish. We got around okay but having conversations with people even using google translate wasn’t really satisfying. Translations from Spanish to English often seemed garbled so I wondered if what I was saying was translated accurately into Spanish. 

We had a fun ride to the Ezezia Buenos Aires airport (which nook nearly 90 minutes because of traffic) with Pedro who spoke fluent English and happily pointed out all the neighborhoods and answered all our questions. We saw where the national soccer team practiced, where the polo matches were held, the Italian neighborhood, the Peruvian and Bolivian neighborhoods. We had to take a circuitous route because of demonstrations in the downtown. A law was just passed that about 20 government companies (among them the national airline Aerolineas Argentinas) were to be sold and privatized. Big to-do about that. A workers strike is scheduled for May 6 and will likely shut down the airports.

We survived the ten hour flight to Atlanta. With our Global Entry, we were through passport control and customs in 5 minutes. Didn’t matter much since we’ve got a 5 hour layover before our flight to Albuquerque. We will be home this afternoon. With too many extra pesos so if you are motivated to go to Argentina, we can get you started with some cash.

I’d recommend travel to Argentina and Uruguay for anyone. People are kind and friendly. Sometimes, it takes a little patience because things are different. But whether you crave city energy or wide open quiet spaces, wine, expansive landscapes, trekking opportunities, a taste of a different cuisine, lots of flora and fauna, Southern hemisphere constellations. whatever, Argentina certainly has it all.