January 9-10, 2023 Phoenix to Buenos Aires, Argentina

Tobey and I have hosted two exchange students from Argentina through the Lions Club summer program and they have asked us over the years when we were going to come to Argentina to visit them. We decided that this was the year and after much planning with a tour company from Buenos Aires, we are here! We will be touring around the country, as well as stopping to visit with Emi and Mateo.

We flew from Phoenix since we were there for the holidays departing at 2 pm and arriving into Miami at 8:10 pm which should have given us plenty of time to get our connecting flight to Buenos Aires. One big problem - the gate wasn't ready so we sat and waited, and waited, and waited. FINALLY, they pulled up to the gate and Tobey and I did the bad tourist thing and jumped the line and hustled up to the first class section before most people had gotten up from their seats so we could exit quickly. We arrived at gate D1 and had to run to gate D27 for our 9pm departure. We arrived at 8:50 pm and raced on board with only about 10 people behind us! Then we waited, and waited, and waited again! I'm not sure what happened, but we didn't depart until 9:40 pm - we could have walked! Oh well.

We both pulled up the movie, "Where the Crawdads Sing," ate dinner then tried to sleep. Neither of us are good airplane sleepers and we managed to be awake for most of the flight. UGH. The one good thing was we saw the sunrise and the Andes as we crossed over Chile into Argentina. As we got closer to Buenos Aires we were surprised how flat the coutryside is.

The arrival into Buenos Aires was pretty smooth and our tour guide met us outside the baggage area for our transfer to the hotel - almost an hour into town.

After checking into the Hotel Clasico we are on our own until Thursday. We rested for a while then headed out to change money and to find empanadas for lunch. When you look at the exchange rate online for US dollars to Argentian pesos, the conversion is about $1USD = $175 pesos. The inflation rate in Argentina is horrible. In 2022 it was 95%! YES, 95%. Because they value the dollar, people were exchanging money on the black market. In November, the government authorized the official "Blue Rate" for tourists to encourage people to continue coming here. Now you can change money at many locations and it was $1USD = $330 pesos today. It certainly helps the dollar go farther.

After changing money, we headed to Pizza Kentucky which was recommended for empanadas.

We were disappointed and will try another place somewhere else before we leave Argentina. It was very inexpensive, though. Two carne (meat/green olive), one cheese with ham, and one that was chicken and two soft drinks was only $2140 pesos - about $6.50USD and enough to feed both of us.
After lunch we walked around the Palermo and Soho neighborhoods. There are lots of restaurants, shops and gardens.
There are lots of murals in the area.


They were delivering meat to one of the butcher shops we passed.

We also spotted a shop that did massages and decided to take advantage of the great price. I think mine was a bit longer than Tobey's but they were supposed to be an hour each for $4000 pesos ($12USD!!!) It felt great after the long flight.

 
We headed back to the hotel for showers before dinner at La Cabrera which specializes in beef. We arrived during "happy hour" which means your bill is reduced by 40% if you are finished by 8pm!

We had a nice table outside and beat the crowds because most Argentians don't eat until later than 8pm! They brought us this great appetizer tray and huge bread basket before our shared ribeye steak.This steak was so big! It was really thick, too. The entire meal including lemonade and tip as only $21USD!

We were stuffed! Our walk back to the hotel was leisurely and we are going to bed early - although it is already 9:30 here - four hours ahead of Colorado and Arizona! Tomorrow we will do more exploring in areas that our "organized" city tour on Thursday doesn't cover.