Buenos Aires

Our taxi arrived at the hotel at 8:00 as requested, and by 8:20 we were at the cruise terminal.

The ride was quite an adventure. No one, including our driver, seemed to be obeying any rules of the road. The road had 3 lanes, but there were driving at at least 5 cars abreast, and everyone just changed lanes with no indication they were going to do so, and appeared to be unconcerned that there was already a car in the space into which they were trying to squeeze. It seemed to be very chaotic. If this were happening at home there would be loads of accidents, as it is every day when I drive on I 90 to and from work there are often fender benders, while every one appears to be driving very carefully. However, miraculously our driver did not have an accident. Possibly related to the rosary beads that were hanging from his rear view mirror.

Now, I had expected that there may be some difficulty with us trying to get back on board at such an early hour, but everything went very smoothly. We explained that we were in transit from Queen Victoria, and we were led straight to security, and then to the shuttle bus. The sign said “Costa Pacifica”, so I pointed out that we wanted the Queen Victoria. The woman smiled nicely and said “si”, continuing to point us in the direction of the Costa Pacifica sign. We though that the worst that could happen was that we would end up at the wrong ship, so we went along with her direction.

The shuttle bus left the cruise terminal and drove through rush hour traffic to the entrance to the port, and then along the quayside. In the distance I could see our striking red funnel. Yay, our ship was in sight! We were indeed dropped off at QV. Our arrival coincided with everyone disembarking for the tours, but after a short wait for a break in the downward movement of passenger down the gangways, we were able to head up to the ship, and were welcomed back with a smile. It felt good.

We went up to our cabin to leave our backpacks. There on our bed were the daily programs for the days we had missed. I have been keeping all of the programs, but had forgotten to ask our cabin steward Rick to save them for me while we were off the ship. There was also a 4-day supply of bedtime chocolates. Good man!

We left our passports at the Pursers’ Desk and headed back down the gangway, and took the shuttle to the cruise terminal. The shuttle signs still said Costa Pacifica. We had a quick look at the shops in the terminal – there was an ATM and Cambio, a souvenir shop, and a shop selling an assortment of shoes and clothes. Nothing spectacular. There were Tango dancers however. We then took the shuttle bus in to town. The center of town is not far from the port, but due to traffic congestion it took us about half an hour to get there. We were dropped on pedestrian only Calle Florida, and walked down the street towards the Plaza de Mayo. All along the street there were people offering money changing, tango bars, and city tours. They would not leave us alone, and it was quite annoying.

Finally we arrived at the Plaza, and went to see the Metropolitan Cathedral. This is a huge improvement on the cathedral in Rio. It looks a bit like a Roman Temple from the outside, but inside it is very classic and beautiful. We spent quite a long time looking around it, and admiring the beautiful mosaic floors. This was the Pope’s church when he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires.

We walked across the square to see the Casa Rosado, and imagined what it must have been like when Eva Peron addressed the people from the balcony, or more recently Madonna sang “Don’t cry for me Argentina”. In the middle of the square there is apparently the May Pyramid commemorating the 1810 revolution, but you can’t actually see it because it is covered in scaffolding.

The square remains a prime place for protests, and there is an encampment of Falkland War veterans campaigning for pension rights.

We were ready for lunch, so we walked up Avenue de Mayo to the Café Tortoni which sounded interesting in our guidebook. However, there was a man standing outside the restaurant who rather looked down his nose at us when we approached, so we decided we probably didn’t meet his entrance criteria and continued to walk up the street until we found a more relaxed café where we had a good lunch and fluid replacement.

We walked by the large Obelisk at the Plaza de la Republica to the Colon Theater and the Synagogue. On a prior visit to Buenos Aires a friend had told me that the theater was the ‘most beautiful theater in the whole of South America” and the synagogue was the “most beautiful synagogue in the whole of South America”. So I thought it was worthwhile showing them both to Brian. Unfortunately they were both closed, but they are magnificent buildings from the outside.

It was time for retail therapy. I had previously seen the most beautiful red leather jacket at the Galerias Pacifico on Calle Florida, so we walked there to see if they still had something like it, and possibly a jacket for Brian. Alas, there were no longer any reasonably priced leather shops. We saw a few good quality leather jackets, but they were way too expensive, and the ones in our price range didn’t look that good. Still, I do enjoy the Galerias Pacifico. It is in a wonderful old building, with very interesting (although verging on the pornographic) murals.

It was then time to get back to the ship. We had a brief stop for some photographs at the Plaza San Martin, and hopped on to the shuttle bus back to the port. We had some Argentinean money left so we blew it all on cokes from the café at the cruise terminal. All the patrons at the cafe were on their phones and iPads, so we assumed there must be free wi fi, but we were unable to connect to it, so took the shuttle back to the ship. By now the sign said “Queen Victoria”.

When we tried to get back on board, but were told we had to go though Argentinean immigration in order to exit the country. As our passports were now in the Pursers’ Office we had to explain that they had to let us on board in order for us to get off again and go though immigration. We had to stand in the queue and explain to a very befuddled Victoria at the desk that we needed our passports again. Eventually she retrieved them, and we dashed off the ship. All aboard time was rapidly approaching and we didn’t want to get stuck in Argentina because we had been unable to leave Argentina. We took the shuttle bus back to the cruise terminal. No one seemed to know where immigration was, but eventually one of the ship’s security officers located a man who spoke English and took us to the immigration area. When we arrived there it looked deserted, but luckily we were able to eventually find someone who fired up a computer, took our photo and fingerprinted us, and sent us off in the direction of the ship. It seemed strange that all we needed to do was show our passports at the drive through kiosk to get in to the country, but had to go through more thorough screening to leave. Luckily there was still a shuttle bus there to take us back to the ship.

Apparently there had been a sail away party when the ship left Rio, but nothing for this sail away, so we ended up watching us back up in to the channel from our balcony, which was actually quite nice. We had a good view of the port and the skyline.

We sailed off into the muddy waters; it was like being back on the Amazon again.

Captain Philpott has gone off on holiday for a few months, and Commodore Rynd has replaced him. I do like the Commodore, but I will miss Peter Philpott’s noon announcements, which were always witty and informative.

Luckily we are at the same table for dinner with Keith and Ann. Paul and Carla disembarked in Buenos Aires, and no one seems to have been added to replace them. Not that anyone could easily replace them, they were quite unique and tremendous fun. So it was just the 4 of us at a table for 6. Maybe our dinner companions went to the Lido tonight, or maybe we will need to wait until someone has an issue with their current table to get additional tablemates.

Keith and Ann caught us up with all of the happenings on the ship since we left in Rio. They had experienced high winds the day before they were due to dock in Monte Video, and there had been a lot of movement on the ship. Due to the high winds the ships that were in the port at Monte Video couldn’t leave, and we couldn’t enter the port for several hours. Eventually the winds died down, and they were able to sail in. A couple of the all day tours had to be cancelled, but they were able to postpone most of the tours so nearly everyone was able to see the city.

We were quite tired after our day in Buenos Aires, and decided to miss the show and head for the comfy bed in our cabin.