Buenos Aires

How can a city so big, over 13 million inhabitants, be so nice? We have asked ourselves this question everyday for the last week. The city is very accessible, with a 6 lane road circling the city and arms going off to every district you can get to where ever you want to easily, even if you absolutely hate driving in cities. The truth is we only had to drive one day to look for Dakar Moto, a bike shop with people we wanted to talk to about shipping the bike to the U.S. by plane or boat.

We found ourselves a cute little hotel in the center of the city (for a lot less than we expected, in fact the parking cost us just about as much as the hotel) and set out to explore the city, parks and green space everywhere, little sidewalk cafes, a great mix of old and new architecture, and in the evenings, great restaurants, street musicians and tango shows. We didn't find Evitas' grave but we did see Casa Rosada where she used to wave to her many admirers in the 1940's. We are kicking ourselves now for not taking in a futbol game (aka soccor, in Canada) but we did go and checkout the Boca Stadium which was pretty impressive in itself.

The first weekend we were in the city we looked up the friends we made while camping in Chaos Milal, German and Gracie. They invited us to their weekend house outside the city where German prepared an awesome parrilla and Gracie gave me an Argentinian cooking lesson. What a great time we had with them, drinking wine, bike riding and practicing our Spanish (remember they don't speak a word of English). Many, many laughs! Hopefully we can return the hospitality in Canada.

We decided a week in Buenos Aires was a enough for us so we booked passage on a ferry to Uruguay and waved goodbye as we sailed away.

Ken and Gracie displaying our new favorite wine, Colon Malbec and a serving of Berengena (marinated eggplant) recipe to follow.

Berengena

1. 3 eggplant
2. 1/3 c. minced garlic
3. 1 T. oregano
4. salt and pepper
5. 1/3 c. olive oil
6. several bay leafs
7. 1/3 c. red wine vinegar

Peel and slice eggplant into 1/2 inch slices. Sprinkle with salt and let sit for 30 minutes than pat off excess water. Boil eggplant in 1/2 and 1/2 water and white vinegar for about 20 minutes and let cool. Layer eggplant and of remaining ingredients 3 times and let sit overnight in the refrigerator. Mix and serve with sliced french bread. Caution; extremely garlicy therefor everyone must sample at least a little.

Serve with your favorite bottle of wine and good friends!

Argentinos know how to B.B.Q.

Cabra at a Parrilla

Beautiful architecture

Stadium home of the Boca Juniors

Colourfully painted houses in the artsy Boca distrist

Tango street dancers

Wall mural in the microcenter in the new area of down town

The whole mural is made up of smaller murals

Good bye Buenos Aires,

our view as we leave on the Buquebus for Uruguay