We’d discovered last night that Jemima’s pyjamas hadn’t made it out of Uruguay, so after breakfast (more medialunas, yum) and checking out, that was our first mission. I’d found an outdoor shopping centre a short walk from the hotel, so we headed there and bought some (surprisingly expensive) pyjamas - there’s a blog post to come about South American money…
After a few days of “grown-up” sightseeing, we’d given Jemima free choice, so the plan was the Science Museum, apparently with lots of hands-on exhibits, and just nearby. Unfortunately we discovered when we got there it was closed on Mondays.
Plan B: the Planetarium, a slightly longer walk away, and supposedly open. But no, Google Maps lied: also closed on a Monday. Plan C: somewhere I’d been wanting to go, the Museum of Latin-American Art - chosen for its geographic proximity. (Art galleries are not Kevin or Jemima’s favourite, so we promised her a different day where she got to choose.)
We walked there through the beautiful Palermo parks, accompanied by the city’s dog walkers, some with 8 dogs in tow. We also went past a brilliant area where jets of water squirted into an area under some trees, so dogs could play there - it was very barky, but what a good idea!
When we eventually got there, the gallery had some beautiful paintings, lovely sculptures, slightly odd and rather fabulous modern art - see photos. And it was a cool, light and airy space - very welcome after our hot and futile walking!
The other benefit: like a lot of art galleries, it had a lovely cafe! Outside, overlooking the next-door park with the pink-flowering trees they have all over Buenos Aires, shaded, and with water misting jets to cool the air. Wonderful.
It was a popular place - a mix of young people with laptops, older single men in sharp outfits on their phones, and elegant ladies in stylish jewellery lunching together. We started with a drink, and it was so nice we stayed for lunch (stuffed aubergine for me - very tasty).
Then it was back to the hotel, and off to the airport. Our original flight booking had been for the morning, but we’d been emailed to say it had been changed to 5pm (I had a complete heart attack in the art gallery when I found the earlier email and thought we’d missed our flight). Then it got delayed… So after our 2 hour flight we finally landed at 9.30pm, which is later then we normally like to arrive places. (The airport had been rammed but we’d managed to find seats in, weirdly, a bookshop housed in between two gates.)
We were flying to Salta, the capital of the Jujuy region in north-west Argentina for a landscape and wine-tasting road trip. Coming out of arrivals it was clear we’d left the big city behind - the airport was tiny, and the air was warm - it instantly felt more “foreign”. We couldn’t see much of the city as it was dark - trusty Uber once again took us to our hotel, and when we pulled up Jemima and I got a bit worried because it looked awful - but thankfully our actual hotel was on the opposite side of the road… A lovely old building with a no-frills room for our one night - and gratefully, we went to bed.
Palermo streets and parks:
Favourites from the gallery:
This doesn’t work at all as a photo, but it was a brilliant piece with each flexible metal circle turning at a different rate with an individual motor - mesmerising:
Lunch - reading, kombucha, and stuffed aubergine:
Salta airport late arrival:
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