As it was my birthday, the morning started with opening some lovely cards brought from home, plus presents from Jemima and Kevin (including a beautiful silver necklace). Then, as our ferry back to Buenos Aires was at 11am, there was only time left to shower, pack and check out before heading to the ferry terminal.
Breakfast was a very nice orange juice and medialuna from the terminal café (the Argentinian croissant - similar shape but smaller, less flaky and sweeter - made with egg apparently - delicious!). But tea had to wait until we boarded the ferry - they’d run out of hot water.
We were Turista class on the way back but it was still very comfortable. I’d treated myself to downloads of Stacey Solomon’s Sort Your Life Out, and a Michael Macintyre stand up show, so the time flew by. (I also re-did mine and Jemima’s nails with the amazing Glaize stick-on gels - so easy!)
When we arrived back in BA baggage reclaim was chaos, but once reunited with our cases (still SO PROUD of our light packing, and it makes it all so much easier!), we found an Uber and headed to our hotel. We’d decided to stay in a different part of the city for this one night: Palermo, slightly further north and west. Our hotel was like a Parisian townhouse, elegant and small, and we had the top floor with a fold out bed below, a bedroom mezzanine above, and a cute balcony overlooking the tree-lined street. The area was really charming - much less grand than Recoleta, but more appealing because of that.
By this time it was 3.30pm and I was starving, so we popped to a little cafe across the road. It was exactly the kind of place you’d expect in this neighbourhood - delicious pastries, modern decor, young waitresses who spoke immaculate English with American accents. Then there was just time for a little outing before our evening plans!
We’d saved the Japanese Gardens to visit on this return trip, as they were in this area, in a whole section of the northern part of the city full of parks (we love a Japanese Garden).
It was a 40 minute walk through the pretty streets and into the green parks intersected by giant roads, scattered with monuments - everything from Argentinian generals to Gandhi. We took what we thought was a short cut and ended up walking through Ecoparque - a cross between a park, a zoo and a theme park, with strange follies, a lake, some giraffes and free-roaming capybaras (cute!). It was FULL of Argentinians having a lovely Sunday afternoon.
As was the Jardín Japonése - there was a queue to get in. Inside it was beautiful - Japanese landscaping around a central lake with the fattest koi carp I’ve ever seen, criss-crossed by a red wooden walkway. We had a lovely wander (Kevin particularly admiring the niwaki trees - like giant bonsai - which we have in our garden.)
Taxi back, shower, and then my birthday treat: a tango show! Apparently the best way to see tango is in an actual milonga - ie real live dance hall with real live people. Sadly these only start really late, and sometimes don’t finish until 6am! That doesn’t quite work for us, so I found the only tango show in Buenos Aires that started at 8pm (rather than 10pm), with dinner before.
It could have been awful - really touristy rubbish. But thankfully it was GREAT! As it was my birthday treat we got VIP tickets, which meant we were literally right in front of the stage - at one point a lady tango dancer was dipped right in front of me, and we nearly clunked heads. There was a live band - double bass, piano, and guitarist, led by a fabulous accordion player who was just loving it, it was wonderful to see.
The main dancers were three young couples doing the sort of flashy Argentine tango you see on Strictly - amazing. But there was also an older couple doing more of a traditional, understated style - and again, you could see how much they were enjoying the dancing! And there was also a “folklore” section when another older couple dressed in traditional outfits danced, played drums, and played the boleadoras like a percussion instrument, swinging them round to hit the floor in time to the music, with flamenco-style foot stamping to go with it. (He was dressed just like a gaucho from the Museum.) It was all just so great - even the food was really good. I actually cried… (Although the free bottle of champagne and bottle of Malbec may have contributed to that…)
A big muchas gracias to Kevin and Jemima for not only coming along, but agreeing to pose in hilarious tango hats for a souvenir photo - see photo at the end. (It wasn’t Kevin’s thing at all - Jemima described it as being “in the grey area between fun and tolerable”, so I’ll take that….) For me, a birthday to remember!
The fabulous lobby to our Montevidean hotel (love the light installation and the wallpaper):
Birthday breakfast:
Baggage hall chaos:
Our hotel:
Pretty Palermo:
Ecoparque:
Capybara!:
An enormous 11 lane road alongside the park:
Jardín Japonese:
Inspecting and approving of the niwaki:
Tango show - dinner:
Dancing!:
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