Buenos Aires, Argentina - Day 4

Tuesday, March 7, 2023

It’s hot in Buenos Aires — really hot. The air temperature hasn’t dropped below 80 degrees since we arrived on Saturday with daytime highs averaging around 90 degrees. Andi and I decided to get our day started earlier today in an effort to take advantage of the cooler parts of the day.

We hailed a taxi to the Puerto Madero neighborhood around 9:30am. It took us about 30 minutes to get there from our Palermo neighborhood apartment. I guess I forgot how much traffic there is in a big city. It wasn’t necessarily rush hour, but there were people moving around everywhere. Families walking with their kids, people biking to work, tour groups milling the city streets — there’s so much activity happening all hours of the day.

We decided to spend our morning walking around Costanera Sur Ecological Reserve. This expansive park is the biggest and most biodiverse green space in all of Buenos Aires with 865 acres of lowlands near the Rio de la Plata. The park is free, and it’s gorgeous with marshes, shady canopies of trees, and tons of wildlife.

Aden was having a hard time walking around in the heat. His hair is so thick; he seems to sweat from the top down. He refused to walk faster than a turtle’s pace, so Andi stopped to give him a little pep talk. It was hot —he’s wasn’t wrong — but, we’re only here for a week so we’ve got to make the most of our time.

There’s a nice promenade that connects Costanera Sur Ecological Reserve to the Puerto Madero neighborhood with lots of food trucks along the way. I read that these vendors sell some of the best street food in all of Buenos Aires, but none of us were particularly hungry for choripan or bondiola sandwiches. Loaded sausage or pork sandwiches are not light meals, by any means. We decided to walk along the Rio de la Plata instead toward the Puente de la Mujer (Woman’s Bridge).

Buenos Aires’ Rio de la Plata (Plate River) isn’t a beautiful body of water. The river is the estuary formed by the confluence of the Uruguay River and the Paraná Rivers, and sediments coming from the rivers give the water its brown color. The Rio de la Plata is the widest freshwater river in the world, and forms part of the border between Argentina and Uruguay. The large, shallow estuary eventually drains into the Atlantic Ocean forming a funnel-shaped indentation between Argentina and Uruguay on the southeastern coastline of the continent.

For about fifty years between the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, Puerto Madero was a working port for ships and cargo, but was eventually abandoned and left in poor condition. It wasn’t until the 1990’s that a city revitalization project began, renovating the Puerto Madero neighborhood into what it is today. Now, as Buenos Aires’ youngest neighborhood, it is one of its wealthiest.

The most notable landmark in the Puerto Madero neighborhood is the Puente de la Mujer pedestrian bridge that connects the east and west sides of the river. The sleek-looking bridge is said to represent a couple dancing the tango, with the man’s arm stretched out from his body. The bridge rotates 90 degrees to allow boats to pass through the water.

Both sides of the river are lined with restaurants and high-end shopping. I picked a place called Chana Cafe for our lunch because it had a mix of sushi (Andi’s choice), hamburgers (Tory’s choice), and chicken (Aden’s choice). We were seated inside the cool (literally and figuratively!) restaurant which was a welcomed break from the heat.

For lunch, Tory and Aden each ordered smoothies to drink. We also ordered grilled chicken, a mixed greens salad, and a sushi roll. Tory’s burger was so cute stacked high on a brioche bun.

Before traveling to Argentina, I’d read that it’s next to impossible to find chicken on the menu because Argentina is known for its beef. It is true that Argentinians love asado (the grilling technique and social event of hosting a BBQ) and consume they more beef than any other South American country. That said, grilled chicken is available on almost every menu, and we’ve enjoyed every single one of the dishes we’ve ordered because they’re perfectly grilled and so flavorful.

I also appreciate that most restaurants have a selections of salads on the menu, so while we may not be consuming as many vegetables as we would at home, they aren’t impossible to come by here in Argentina.

We finished lunch around 2:00pm, and decided to go back to our airbnb apartment to ride out the heat of the day. It was a short 15-minute taxi ride to get there. We hung around our condo unit for the rest of the afternoon — Andi had some calls, I blogged, and the kids played games on their iPhones.

Slight miscommunication for our evening plans — I was planning to visit Buenos Aires’ Recoleta neighborhood, but Andi had calls until 7:30pm. The famous Recoleta cemetery closed at 6:00pm.

By 8:00pm, the kids and I didn’t feel like leaving the apartment anymore, so Andi offered to go out and bring back something for dinner. He returned an hour later with chicken, spinach, and rice bowls for he and I + burgers & fries for the kids. There are oodles of restaurants and cafes in our Palermo neighborhood — every street is lined with trendy places. The place Andi picked up dinner was called Proteina which served mix & match bowls of protein + veggies + grains.

Tomorrow is Wednesday — our designated work & school day. Fortunately, we have good internet in this airbnb apartment so Andi’s video calls should be able to take place.