Let’s Start at the Very Beginning, A Very Good Place to Start . . .

I will start this post by apologizing for how long it’s taken me to put up details about our expedition.  Suffice it to say, life intervened after our return from the White Continent in a way we hadn’t planned or imagined, and blogging had to take a back seat.  But I’m back now, so here we go . . .

Our journey to Antarctica began on Thursday, January 24, with what I had feared the minute we planned the trip — snow at home that would somehow disrupt our travel.  Fortunately, it was only an overnight dusting.  Still, for the first time ever, our usually reliable go-to cab company was a no-show, despite our having booked a taxi to the airport the night before.  This caused some very tense moments in the morning until the dispatcher was able to get us another cab.  Once we got to the airport for our flight to Newark, our “on time” flight turned out to be a couple of hours late.  We were not concerned about this, as we had plenty of time to make our flight to Buenos Aires.

The flight to Newark was on a small regional jet, configured 1 by 2.  I’d never been on such a plane.  The folks at United had told me over the phone that normal carry on rules applied.  HA!  Before we boarded the plane, the gate agents were gate checking all roll aboards.   And when we walked onto the tarmac to board the plane, I was told I could not carry on my bag with my cameras.   Naturally, I protested, but they made it clear that I was not getting on board unless the bag were gate checked.   That turned out to be the least of it.  As soon as we took off and the too-small (for me) plane bounced around like a marionette on the end of a string, I was terrified, and that’s how I remained until we touched down in Newark.  MP wasn’t particularly happy about the flight either.  Never again.

Our overnight flight from Newark to Buenos Aires was far different.  The plane, of course, was a wide body, and we’d been able to use frequent flyer miles to get Business Class seats.  This was our first experience with “lie flat” seats, and they certainly made a big difference!  Thanks to the seats and some pharmaceutical assistance, I actually got about five hours sleep during the flight, enough so that I wasn’t a total zombie that first day in BA.  And, in the incredibly small world department, the woman in the seat across the aisle from us was also traveling to BA to join the same expedition to Antarctica.  Our first new friend!

We touched down in Buenos Aires on Friday morning, January 25.  Since the Lindblad trip didn’t officially start until Sunday, I’d booked a local guide for us, Virginia Panetta, for the first day and a half that we were in BA on our own.  Although BA is very much a DIY city (“do it yourself”), with our time so limited I knew we’d see and learn much more with a guide.  I’d chosen Virginia based on Cruise Critic reviews.  She was absolutely terrific, and we would highly recommend her.

As we’d arranged with Virginia, there was a driver waiting for us at the airport, EZE, and we headed off to check in to our hotel, the Caesar Park (which was where Lindblad had booked everyone on the expedition), in the swanky Recoleta district.  We had a large and comfortable room on a high floor, and the staff at the Caesar Park turned out to be the most polite hotel employees we’ve ever encountered anywhere.  At 4PM, we met Virginia and our driver for a tour starting in the southern part of BA, and worked our way northward through the various and distinct neighborhoods of the city, visiting, on that first afternoon, the very colorful neighborhoods of San Telmo, La Boca, and Puerto Madero.

Lie flat seats notwithstanding, by the end of our planned three hours of touring that afternoon, we were pretty exhausted from a day and night of travel.  All we wanted was a very simple dinner, particularly since we were going to a parrilla (steak house) the next night.  Virginia recommended El Sanjuanino — several blocks from our hotel  — a perfect local place where we enjoyed a pitcher of sangria (house wine and orange soda from what I could see) and an assortment of empanadas (I loved the corn empanadas and the cheese and onion empanadas in particular).  I remembered enough of my high school Spanish to be able to order in Spanish, which made me feel good too (that, or the sangria).

The next day, Saturday, we met Virginia and headed off for an inside tour of the Casa Rosada, given only on weekends since this is a working government building where the President of Argentina has her office.  For a history buff and a Broadway musical fan like me, the Casa Rosada is on the must-see list.

Naturally, I asked Virginia which of the many balconies was THE balcony.  She’s obviously been asked this very same question countless times by tourists, and we had a lot of good natured kidding all day about this.  The guide who conducted the tour of the Casa Rosada (in Spanish, with a little English thrown in every now and then for the few Americans in the group) actually seemed to have had enough of Evita (the musical Evita, not the historical one).  At one point, she said quite emphatically, in Spanish, that “Evita was not a singer!!”  I have to say, though, that it was fairly surreal to be able to walk out onto the balcony right next to THE balcony and look out over the Plaza de Mayo.  (I did, however, refrain from posing with my arms up in the air.  :-))

Outside the Casa Rosada, Virginia’s narrative took on a very serious tone, as she recounted the horrifying period during the late 1970s and early ’80s, when Argentina was ruled by a military dictatorship and people literally “disappeared” during the night.  Many were tortured and murdered; some were dropped from planes.  As we sat there mesmerized, Virginia told us the story of Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo  — the courageous mothers who silently circled the plaza every week in anguish over their children who had been taken by the military, never to be seen again.  Some of Las Madres then “disappeared” as well.  Virginia had been in high school during this dark period of Argentina’s history, and two of her own friends had “disappeared.”  We could not even begin to imagine what it was like to live through this.  The story haunted us. . . Today, the bricks lining the Plaza bear the symbol of Las Madres, the white diapers or scarves with which they had covered their heads to represent their missing children.

Somehow, we put this aside and went on with our tour, stopping for lunch at the famous Café Tortoni before heading for the Church of La Recoleta and the famous Cementerio de La Recoleta, an amazing city of “fantastic” mausoleums, tombs, and statues, crammed together in narrow streets, as the wealthy citizens of Buenos Aires tried to outdo each other in  death as they had in life.

The cemetery is so large that you either need a good map or a guide to find your way around.  Perhaps the most famous person buried in La Recoleta is Eva Perón.  As we walked with Virginia, she told us how, after Evita’s death from cancer at age 33 in 1952, her body had been stolen by the Argentine government, hidden for years in Argentina, and then buried in Milan as the remains of a fictitious Italian who had died visiting Argentina.  It took twenty years for the Peronistas to get Evita’s body back to Argentina, where it was buried under concrete and steel in the Duarte family’s mausoleum.  Not surprisingly, the mausoleum is as much a tourist site as is “the balcony,” and I had a big laugh as we walked through the cemetery and some Brazilian tourists asked Virginia how to find Evita’s tomb.  It’s not just the Americans!

Next on our tour was a drive through Palermo, after which it was time to call it a day and get ready for our dinner at Don Julio — a well-known parrilla that Virginia had recommended to us as more “authentic” than some others that are popular with tourists.  Our new friend from the flight to BA accompanied us to dinner, and we had a wonderful evening.  We began with baked, melted cheese — yum!!  Then we each had a steak (of course!); I ordered bife de chorizo (sirloin), and MP and our friend each ordered bife de lomo (tenderloin).

Along with the steaks, we had papas fritas — really great!  The steaks, oddly enough, although good, were our least favorite part of the meal; we each found them a little bland, something Virginia had mentioned to us was a comment that foreigners often made about Argentine food.  Still, it was a wonderful meal, capped off by a chocolate mousse dessert that was so rich and thick my spoon stood upright in it!   Many glasses of malbec were consumed over the course of the evening; not by me, as I don’t drink red wine, but MP and our friend said it was extraordinary.  I have to say, it was the most gorgeous purple/red wine I’d ever seen.

It was pretty late by the time we’d finished dinner (not by Argentine standards, but by tired American standards), time to call it a night.

(photos by turtles06)