March 01 - Got Here At Last

After what must be on the longest trips we will every take, we arrived in Buenos Aires.  From the time we left home until we arrived at the Eurobuilding Hotel Boutique  it was twenty five hours.

Our plane was delayed in Toronto for about an hour.  It seems that the plane was arriving from Vancouver and had to taxi over to the international terminal from the domestic Air Canada terminal.  This then caused a delay in our stopover in Santiago Chile.  We had to get off the plane there,with all our carry on luggage, go through security again and then wait as they reloaded all the passengers.  To top it off we then hit Buenos Aires right at rush hour which further delayed our arrival.  We got into the hotel about 7pm local time.

Catherine and Gil , our friends from Port Stanley, who are also touring Argentina, had been patiently waiting for us to arrive since the middle of the afternoon.  We were greeted by the front desk with open arms, because I suspect because it meant the end of Catherine paging them to see if we had arrived.   They had a great bottle of Malbec wine, a cheese platter with grapes and wonderfully flavored sausage waiting for us in their room.

The most spectacular site we saw on our flight down to Buenos Aires was flying over the Andes Mountains.  They seem to be higher than our Rockies and the peaks are much more jagged.  This I’m told is a sign of a newer mountain range.  But when you’re dealing with 1000’s of years difference in ages it is hard to comprehend.  The snow caps seems to be larger than our Rockies, which explains why Chile and Argentina have Alpine skiing teams at the Olympics.

After you cross over the Andes you are flying over the Pampas, where there are huge ranches where the world famous Argentinian beef is raised.

For dinner Catharine and Gil suggested an Italian restaurant not too far from our hotel.  Unfortunately they didn’t remember exactly how to get there from the hotel.  It took us a while but we finally found it and had great meal at the  Campo del Flori.

view of Ave 9 de Julie from the hotel