Today's blog is a collaboration between me and Bunny, my BFF who came for an amazing week in Argentina! Here is what she has to say about Buenos Aires....
Hola chicas!
I’m on my flight home from and AMAZING trip with Kate and just realized that my total travel time is 20 hours. I thought it was only 15 (which doesn’t even make sense, womp womp). My flight left this morning at 6:15 which meant I had to be at the airport by 4:15—way too early for anything productive to be happening!
I arrived in Buenos Aires a little before Kate— she was meeting me there after a great week in Bariloche. It was perfect that I came in the afternoon and she arrived in the evening, because the first thing I did was take a long nap and then freshen up for our first night!
I didn’t know what to expect at all for Argentina. Looking back, I probably should have done more research on the culture but I just knew it was a fun place with great food and great wine, and that’s all I needed to hear to be convinced to go!
Kate and arrived and the first thing I noticed was she is SO TAN! South America has clearly been treating her well. We stayed in a darling Airbnb in Palermo Soho, which is a happening neighborhood…and actually reminds me a lot of SoHo in NYC. Lots of boutiques and great restaurants, we spent a lot of time just walking around in the VERY humid weather window shopping and catching up.
I was surprised by how many dogs there are in Argentina as pets (and also strays, sad). In BA the most popular breed by far seems to be the poodle, clearly they haven’t been introduced to Chihuahuas which is unequivocably the best breed and I think everyone agrees. In Northern Argentina there were lots of street dogs, mostly big mutts but we also saw purebred dogs like a dalmation, a lab, and a hound dog…all living on the streets! I have no idea where people in these rural communities are getting these animals.
Our first stop was a cute little place called Bartola for a bottle of rose and a snack around 7PM because we had 10:30 reservations at a “closed door” restaurant called iLatina with Briel, who Kate met in Bariloche.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Kate taking over the blog post from this point!]
iLatina features a seven (I think?) course tasting menu of Colombian-inspired food. It was definitely better than any food I ate in Colombia, though! We had a great time at dinner savoring all of the flavors and tasting a bunch of different Argentinian wines.
iLatina photo collage courtesy of Briel
The following day, we continued the food theme with an Argentine cooking class, with chef Norma. She is a psychiatrist by trade, but started doing cooking classes at her home after some friends enjoyed her lessons. We learned how to make a traditional lentil stew, empanadas, and alfajores, YUM!
Teaching us how to fold empanadas....Bunny is like "I already know how to do this because I'm a master baker"
Success!
I ate half this plate of cookies
Following our cooking lesson, we met up with Briel again, and checked out El Ateneo, a famous and beautiful bookstore. We don’t read Spanish, so it didn’t take us too long to breeze through and then had a leisurely walk to the Recoleta cemetery, with some shopping stops along the way.
Beautiful bookstore!
The cemetery is famous for its interesting tombs, including those of some famous Argentinians like Evita. We got there not too long before closing, so enjoyed a brief walk among the graves (which feels weird to write).
Bunny’s husband Jake has some friends who are living in Buenos Aires for a few months, so they invited us to meet up for drinks that evening. We had some delicious cocktails and some so-so tapas at a very cool place called Milion. It’s in a cool old mansion whose bar was super bumpin’ when we were leaving, since Argentinians start their evenings when Americans are usually going to bed!
New fraaaaands!
We spent our last day in Buenos Aires checking out some local shopping. First stop was the huge San Telmo market. On Sundays the streets are closed for blocks and merchants line the way selling all souvenirs, art, and clothing. We stumbled upon a little restaurant midway through that had some live music, beers, and empanadas, so we stopped to enjoy some tunes and a beer!
Streets of the San Telmo market.
Then, we headed back to our adopted neighborhood for a delicious lunch of salads at La Panera Rosa, a cute-as-a-button bakery and restaurant with huge cakes on display. We passed on the cakes and instead went in search of gelato, since it was still about a million degrees outside. We didn’t have to walk far to find Tufic, with the helados of our dreams! We did some more shopping in Palermo and Bunny picked up some cute new outfits (I was too hot/tired/full of ice cream to be interested in buying much!)
Pistachio and dulce du leche
Naturally, after a day of shopping, the only thing to do in the evening is to drink a pitcher of ice cold champagne with fruit, which is exactly what we did!
To follow up our champagne, we walked over to Palermo Hollywood to finally get Bunny some Argentine steak at Miranda.
Don't worry, there were way more fries on the side
The next day, we were off to Salta, which you can read all about here, since I have done my blogging out of order this week!
But, since I’m on the topic of Buenos Aires, I’ll talk about the other two days I spent there after Salta. I was supposed to go from Salta to Iguazu, but when that flight was canceled, the alternative flight would have meant that I would have had to stay up all night, which didn’t feel like a good way to visit the waterfalls. So, I instead opted to skip Iguazu, and fly to Buenos Aires for two extra nights.
Luckily, this week the weather was MUCH cooler and more enjoyable. I decided to take these couple of days as a rest from exploration and just take it easy. The airline put us up in an adequate hotel the first night, and the second night I used some accumulated hotels.com points to stay at Home Hotel in Palermo Hollywood. It’s so amazing that I regret staying there because it will be hard to go back to hostel living for the next 3 weeks!
There isn’t too much to say about what I did the last couple of days, I just strolled around the neighborhood, relaxed by the hotel pool, and got a much-needed pedicure. I ate some amazing pasta at Cucina Paradiso, and had a very disappointing steak at Las Cabras, a fun neighborhood spot, and, my last meal in Buenos Aires was a healthy salad at a cute cafe called Ohsawa, a macrobiotic place that would fit right in in LA!
And now, off to Peru!