Anniversary Blog 06 - Nature, Meat and History in Argentina
After one of the most amazing steaks I have ever had (see Chapter 5), we woke in the morning to hop on a short flight north from Buenos Aires to Iguazú Falls. After a short bus ride from the airport, we arrived at the Sheraton Iguazu Falls (now the Gran Meliá Iguazú). One mile from the Devil’s Throat, this hotel was the perfect launching point for all our Iguazu adventures.
The grounds of Sheraton Iguazu
The view of Iguazu from our hotel room
The hotel had amazing views of the falls from our room. The hotel grounds and the national park were stunning. There have been few times in my life where nature truly took my breath away. I’m not very big on hiking for the sake of hiking, and most forests all look the same to me. Iguazu was different though. I guess it’s not considered a Natural Wonder of the World for nothing.
Iguazu Falls from a mid level trail
We spent days hiking the falls and saw them from almost every possible angle. It is hard to express how magnificent this natural wonder is. The park has enough hiking trails at the bottom, middle and top of the falls to keep anyone busy, and if that’s not enough, the falls are shared with Brazil and you can go over to that side if you have a visa. Every day we were there we took a different route.
A boat explores the waters around the bottom of the falls
On one adventure, we jumped in a jet boat that zipped us around the bottom of, and sometimes through the falls.
Our jet boat tour
More of the falls
At the top of the Devil’s Throat, we hiked across the trails into the middle where Anne got good luck as a butterfly chose to land on her.
Anne views the falls from the top trails
A butterfly lands
When we returned to Buenos Aires, we settled down at the now defunct Hostel Suites Florida. It’s kind of sad looking up places that were so critical to our adventures and seeing that they didn’t make it through the global pandemic. Some have risen from the ashes like a phoenix under new owners and names, but others are simply gone.
Downtown Buenos Aires and The Obelisco de Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is, at the same time, very easy to explore and walk around, and very easy to make a wrong turn and get lost. It never felt like we were the “bad” kind of lost though. With a little help from friendly locals, thanks to my terrible Spanish speaking abilities, we would eventually find whatever it was that we were looking for. Except for a few overt things that stand out, like the brightly colored houses (more on that later), BA is another one of those South American cities that could have been plopped right into the United States, and you’d never really realize it. There were protests, and monuments, and pizza with Ass Burn Sauce. All American hallmarks, right?
Pizza with Ass Burn Sauce
Another thing that would become one of my favorite recurring themes as we traveled was how kids would come up to us obvious Americans, and start practicing their English on us. They wanted to talk about everything, and it was great to see the smiles on their faces as they realized how much they could understand us and how much we could understand them. “Which one of us is better!?” They all did great. Much better than I was doing butchering their language anyway.
El Ateneo Grand Splendid
We visited one of the most beautiful bookshops in the world (just ask National Geographic), El Ateneo Grand Splendid. Once a theatre called Teatro Gran Splendid, the building was remodeled in the early 2000s and became the flagship for the El Ateneo brand. When we visited, each floor retained his architectural beauty, but instead of theatre seats, it was filled with stacks and stacks of books, and comfy chairs to enjoy them in. The basement had children’s books. Each floor had specialty sections. The former stage was now a coffee shop. The ceiling still retained an incredible mural. You could spend the entire day hanging out in this bookstore and never get tired. You could look around to the “private” reading areas in the box seats where locals curled up to read and chat and tell that this was an integral part of the neighborhood. I say it a lot, but it is really hard to describe the vibe in there, you’ll just have to visit Buenos Aires and experience it yourself.
Ceiling mural at El Ateneo Grand Splendid
Another stop we made was to the Recoleta Cemetery. This cemetery is open to the public, and I was amazed at how many people were just strolling through like it was a public park. They even offer tours, and we saw busses pull up with tourists to take it in. The only place in the states I know that even remotely operates like that is New Orleans. Recoleta is full of beautiful stonework and mausoleums. It is the final resting place for many famous Argentinians including Eva Peron, whom you may know from the movie, “Evita”.
Anne explores Recoleta Cemetary
Eva Peron’s plaque at Recoleta Cemetary
Another interesting thing was the cemetery was right in the middle of a thriving neighborhood. We walked across the street and enjoyed a couple of pints and snacks at Buller Brewing Company. This was great, because after so many weeks on the road, it was nice to feel like we were just hanging out at a brewery back home for a bit. A couple of the employees and guests were American, and instead of making us homesick, it actually reenergized us as we kept moving on with our adventures.
Dancers entertain a crowd of shoppers
That night we went wandering around and found the streets alive with people who had gotten off work and were blowing off steam. We left the hostel later in the evening, so it was interesting that there were still street vendors hawking their wares. We caught some flamenco dancers putting on a show, as we strolled around and eventually we found our way to Siga la Vaca.
Parrilleros man the grill at Siga la Vaca
Grilled meat at Siga la Vaca
I promised to talk about the meat. We ate a ton of meat at so many street vendors, but it is so good in Argentina, I never got tired of it. Asado a la parilla is basically grilling meat, usually over coals or wood. Everything was packed full of great spices and seasonings, you hardly ever needed a sauce to accompany it. I talked last time about how good La Brigada was, but another spot we tried was Siga la Vaca. My mouth is watering just thinking about all the sausages, cuts of beef, pork, chicken, and whatever else they decided to shove in front of us. We knew that Argentina was known for its amazing meat, but honestly top two countries in the world for food if you ask me. (The other is Japan, but we’ll get to that trip another time.)
Anne explores La Boca
The next day we ventured back out into the city and checked out La Boca, a great neighborhood famous for its pastel-colored homes, tango and soccer. We wandered around, checking out the art vendors who had set up a market, eating street food and just people watching. Some places are alive because people are scrambling for survival, but this area felt like it was alive because people had figured out how to really live.
A mural in La Boca
Store fronts in La Boca
Anne checks out Retiro-Mitre railway station
We went and explored Retiro-Mitre railway station, which, again, offered some amazing architecture viewing opportunities from eras past. We did a lot of walking, but it was impressive to see just how connected this city was, and how important these historic buildings were to the process. It seemed like transportation stations, museums, botanical gardens, everything had a sense of history to it, and I’m all for that. This station is actually a declared National Monument.
Speaking of history, our next stop was el Museo Histórico Nacional. The museum is housed in the former mansion of an American businessman, Charles Ridgley, and was part of an area that also included Lezama Park, where we hung out, ate some street food, and watched kids play. The museum had some great historic pieces from the region’s days of independence, and some amazing art as well. There were some unfortunate parts of the country’s history represented as well, but I’d rather people face the ugliness than pretend it never happened. Outside there were cannons and bells from earlier eras as well.
Eventually it was time to say goodbye to Buenos Aires and Argentina, but it is definitely one of those countries that are on my “Visit Again” list. It feels like we didn’t even get to scratch the surface of everything it had to offer. We didn’t even make our way into some Argentinian wine country!
All of that will have to wait though, because for our next stop, we were heading to the middle of the world.
