The Buenos Aires streets

Buenos Aires is an extremely varied city. Parts are beautiful: full of wide, well-maintained boulevards with plenty if space for pedestrians, and large plazas with statues that earn the city's nickname of the Paris of South America. Parts are very upscale, with posh apartment buildings with fancy individual garages and boutique and designer shops. Other parts are dirty, smelly and have homeless people on most corners. Until recently, I thought that Buenos Aires must have a very poor trash collection system, because trash bags were piling up on street corners. Turns out, though, that the trash collection workers were on strike. now that strike has ended, and the streets are mercifully free of trash. Much of the city is covered in cobblestones (adoquines in Spanish), especially in the older area of San Telmo and the fun, fashionable area Palermo. At first these were charming and picturesque, but after tripping over many an uneven cobblestone, they have become less attractive. 

Lindsay and I live in downtown, an area full of both tourists and locals going to and from work. This makes for a very lively place to live and lots of restaurants and cafes right next to our apartment, which I like. It also makes for a frustrating mix of slow walkers and fast walkers on packed, unevenly paved sidewalks. Also, Argentinians are generally never in a hurry, so even the locals don't walk very fast, while Lindsay and I like to move speedily and decisively through the city to our destination. So, our ten minute walk to the nearest Subte stop becomes a daily game of Frogger as we dodge and weave our way through the mass of humanity. 

One of my favorite things about walking around the streets in Buenos Aires are the dog walkers. There are lots of dogs in the city: both stray and with owners. But since everyone lives in a little apartment with no backyard, people need to walk their dogs around the city. But not everyone has the time to walk their dogs, so being a dog walker in Buenos Aires is a legitimate occupation (and quite a workout!)

Tonight, Lindsay and I are taking a 15-hour bus to Mendoza, the arid wine-producing region in the central east of Argentina, directly west from the Andes at the border with Chile. Our bus leaves at 8pm, arrives at 11am, and is equipped with super comfy seats that lean most of the way back to make a little bed. Fingers crossed that we arrive in Mendoza well-rested and ready for wine tasting!