Buenos Aires + Salta

Kristen at Recoleta cemetery

Jeff in Plaza 9 de Julio in Salta

We landed in Buenos Aires on the morning of December 10 to 90 degree weather – a far cry from the New York winter.  After taking a cab to our hotel, we napped for a while and hit the streets.  The first day in a new country is always weird.  My Spanish was pretty rusty, and we didn’t really understand how things worked.  We were super thirsty, but couldn’t buy water because we had no pesos and there was no ATM at the airport.  So job 1 was to find a working ATM, which was no small feat.  It took 2 hours and tries at 4 different banks before we found one that both took our card, and had money to dispense.  Ugh.  Finally we were able to buy some water and a light lunch.

We spent most of the rest of the afternoon walking around our neighborhood (San Telmo-ish) in the heat.  It wasn’t very nice, to be honest.  There was a significant amount of trash in the streets, and things looked a little run-down.  At night, the place felt a little sketchy.  After dinner, we decided we were not fans of Buenos Aires.

The next day, we spent a solid 8 hours walking to various neighborhoods – Microcentro, Barrio Norte, Recoleta (including a visit to the cemetery), Retiro, and Palermo.  As it turns out, Buenos Aires is gorgeous and nice!  You just have to be in the right neighborhood (far from our hotel).

The next morning we were scheduled to fly to Salta, the capital city of Salta province, where Kristen’s parent’s house is located.  Salta felt WAY different from Buenos Aires.  It’s a colonial city, with and old layout and architecture, and a significant amount of native (ancestral Incan) influence.  It felt more . . . authentic.  It’s certainly not the international metropolis that Buenos Aires is, and the pace was a lot slower – in fact, they keep siesta hours there.  And wow were the people friendly - an old man stopped us on the street, asked us where we were from, and said ‘welcome to Salta!’.  Welcome, indeed.