To Buenos Aires!

Thursday 10 March: Checked out at 10am and headed for Bariloche airport. We flew to Buenos Aires - our seats were in row 3 with a window! We liked the snack on LAN, it was a small box containing cheese biscuits, a lemon galletita (shortbread style biscuit) and a chocolate alfajor. Alfajores are typical Argentine (as well as much of Latin American) snacks, and Havanna is a local manufacturer that produces them. An alfajor consists of a sandwich cookie (with a cake-like consistency) filled with dulce de leche (like our condensed milk boiled caramel) and coated in chocolate (other varieties had a vanilla coating).

Our arrival at Buenos Aires domestic airport was 'interesting'. We had to wait almost 15 minutes for somewhere to park. It seems that the airport traffic has grown and is busy - but there is no land left to expand the airport! We finally 'parked' opposite the terminal and had to walk down the stairs and step straight on to a bus. Hence as soon as I was on the bus, I stuck my camera out the window to take a picture to show what was happening! A quick drive to the terminal and we found our carousel. No bags came.... We had to wait 30 minutes for the baggage to start coming through and a further 30 minutes until ours came out - LAST. We were starting to wonder if they had our bags at all!

The airport was busy and crowded. We went out the front to find our bus and it was chaos. Finally our bus arrived and we loaded, headed for the city centre. It was a short drive, but past the shanty town (slum). We drove over a bridge past the slum and found on the other side, tall apartment buildings and the city. Streets were crammed with traffic and very narrow, except for the main promenade which is the widest street in the world with six lanes in each direction!

Arrived at our hotel: Gran Hotel Orly in Paraguay Street. Great location, only two blocks from Florida, the central mall area. I was a little fazed when we got off the bus to find a woman and her children sitting on the footpath outside the hotel, begging. We walked as a group to Florida Street and found the Galleria Pacifica - a very modern shopping plaza with a vast array of shops. We had some lunch and wandered around. To finish off, we wanted coffee and found a restaurant/bar. Took a photo of the food presented: coffee is always accompanied by a small glass of soda water or water; beer is always accompanied by a silver tray containing potato chips, nuts and pretzels. A HUGE slice of tart..... Wow - very nice! Special occasion treats only!