Penguin Island, Antarctica 2008

Sunday, February 20, 2011

SATURDAY, FEBRAURY 19 - Buenos Aires, Argentina Day 2

Today we turn over passengers so the ship is fairly quiet when we head for breakfast shortly after 9AM. We don’t have any set plans. We want to go back to the leather store where we had a jacket made for Dick last time. Carolyn wants to get one. We will see what we feel like doing after that.
We mess around for a while then head for the shuttle buses. In typical Argentine fashion it is an ordeal to get out of the terminal. There are three ships in port changing over today it is a mad house at the terminal. We take the dock shuttle to the terminal, wade through the mob of people, get waylaid by someone who tells us the shuttle to the Marriott is out door "1". Well, actually it is the private shuttle to H. Sterns at the Marriott, but it gets us there. We just pass on going in the store and walk to the leather store off Florida Street which is the Pedestrian shopping street near the hotel. Carolyn is fitted for and orders her jacket, plus two leather vests. She makes out like a bandit, but leather clothing is so much cheaper here than in the states that she doesn't feel too bad.
We then walk back over to Florida Street and shop for a little while. The stores mostly all close at 1PM on Saturday, but that is OK, because we don’t really see anything that rings our chimes.
We take a taxi to San Telmo, to the Old church there, but once again it is closed. It is one of the oldest churches, built in 1732....maybe next time.
We walk up to the Square,

window shopping at the antique stores for which this area is known. They are having a craft and antique market on the square
and there are Tango dancers.
Dick and Carolyn both find some things in a couple of booths we can’t live without plus many craft items that are interesting. There are several outdoor cafés that are full of people and the smells are inviting, but it is a little warm to eat outside, at least as far as we are concerned.

From there we take another taxi to La Boca, the old harbor area. We love walking around here. It is colorful, interesting and full of people.
Again there is a street market, a craft fair, with many neat things but fortunately we have space and weight problems so we have to pass.
It is getting close to 4PM and we haven’t eaten yet, plus we are now also hot.
We grab a taxi back to the terminal and work our way through the maze to get back to the ship. Once on we head straight to the bar in the Horizon Lounge and have several drinks and it isn’t even 4PM yet! We are really being bad today. We visit for a while with two guys from Rio who just got on the ship today.

Refreshed, we head to the room to get cleaned up for an early dinner as we are very hungry. Dinner is one of the best so far, wonderful prime rib roast, garlic mashed potatoes, Caesar salad some really nice white wine and them a red wine from Uruguay. We lick our plates!

Tonight is the Tango Show back in town. We are to meet for the bus at 9:20PM. We go back to the room and work on the blog and pictures and try to stay awake.There are about 90 people from the ship going to the show. It is at the La Ventana in the San Telmo district, one of the oldest Tango houes in the city. The place looks like an old wine cellar. It is down in the basement and is kind of 1920's neat on the inside. The Regent group fills up about half of the tables. There is non-stop wine flowing during the show so most people are in a very good mood! The show starts at 10PM and is two hours of heavy duty Tango and Folkloric. It is really very good, if a little long...there is no intermission, but we enjoy the evening.
Back on the ship we wind up staying up until almost two, I am not sure why other than we had a lot to drink today, but it was a good day in Buenos Aires!

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