Buenos Aires, ArgentinaJan 23, 2012
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| Throughout the night, we sailed through a narrow and shallow buoyed channel on the Rio de la Plata. On some stretches, we only had 3 feet of clearance under the ship’s keel. As we sailed toward the pier, we passed an 865 acre Ecological Reserve, home to more than 500 bird species and a variety of flora and fauna. Deb was glad she got up early to watch the docking. The ship’s pilot backed our ship into a U-shaped dock that already had a cruise ship berthed. Courtney and Deb set out afoot from the terminal in search of the hop on/hop off bus. Deb had heard that Buenos Aires (known to locals as BA) readily took US dollars but that was not the case of the bus. We were finally able to buy tickets at the tourist information office. We boarded the yellow, double-decker bus around 11:00. It was a sunny and hot day so we opted to sit on the lower level to keep from getting sunburned. The disadvantageous to this was we were unable to take pictures. BA is a large city but is full of parks. Nearly every park has a sculpture or statue to commemorate a person or an event. In its town center are the Plaza de Mayo, a square whose buildings include the Casa Rosada (pink house), and other large civic buildings with very impressive architecture. One famous street is the Avenida 9 de Julio which commemorates the date of Argentina’s independence from Spain, July 9, 1816. It is reported to be the world’s widest boulevard. By bus, we were able to see a large part of the city. The bus took a lot longer than the 3.5 hours that we thought so we did not have time to hop off at specific points. Another reason why we did not get many pictures. |
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