Buenos Aires adventures

Note: I wrote this over a month ago, and got discouraged because I couldn’t add photos from the ship. I’m going to finish this off, and then write about Antarctica! 🇦🇶

I arrived in BA on Tuesday morning (3 December). It was a long flight and I discovered that my upgraded seat was great for service and amenities, but not so great for sleeping. The seat was wide and it reclined, plus it had a footrest, but it was still uncomfortable sleeping. And I’ve been kicking myself—every trip I’ve taken in the last year or two, I’ve brought my neck pillow and Rumpl travel blanket. This time, I though I wouldn’t need them—upgraded seats, etc. Wrong! The neck pillow would have made a big difference and I was cold on the flight! I asked the flight attendant for an extra blanket and she said they only load one per passenger. 😮 Later, she happily presented me with one she had found “in the back.” I discovered that another perk of the upgraded seat is that we had fleece (lightweight) blankets, while the back had thin cloth ones. Still, it helped. And I did get a fair amount of sleep.

The airport arrival was smooth, and I’d arranged a driver, who was waiting for me when I exited customs. So that was all smooth, and my hotel, CasaCalma, was lovely. It was a skinny hotel, with only 2 rooms per floor, but the rooms were spacious. I had a jacuzzi, which I didn’t use unfortunately. The staff couldn’t have been more helpful. I checked in early (which did cost me $60 😳) and slept for about 5–6 hours. When I woke, I went to the desk and asked for a recommendation for dinner. Their recommendation, Huacho, was about 2 blocks away, and was a winner! I was too loopy for wine, but the food was amazing!

You can‘t really tell from the picture, but the filet was enormous. And as good as Argentine beef is supposed to be! Then I finished with a flan and waddled back to my hotel (stopping to buy sparking water on the way). Oh, btw, the whole meal was US $41.

Luckily, I was able to get to sleep easily, as I had an early start on Wednesday. Last month I’d contacted the company I used to find a birding guide in Cape Town, to see if they had anyone in BA. They didn’t, but they cc’d their answer to their agent here for suggestions. Alejandro contacted me and said he could guide me himself.

---

Ah, now it’s 2 days later. I’m on the plane to Ushuaia, no WiFi of course, so I don’t know where I left off! I can’t even use my blogging app, so I’m writing in Pages.

I think I had stopped while describing my first day of birding with Alex, and I may have gotten as far as the snakes, so I’ll start after the Costanera Sur Ecological Reserve and blend it together later today (I hope).

Welp, now I’ve got WiFi (sort of) and I hadn’t written about the reserve yet, so I’ll start there, because it was wonderful. My guide, Alex, has been active in birding and conservation for decades, and was actually involved in the formation of the reserve. It’s on landfill that was originally supposed to be developed, but they convinced the government to make it a reserve. It has fresh water, marshes, woods, and riverfront, and a wide variety of birds. We birded the trails for over 2 hours (covering only a part of the reserve) and I saw 40 different species, about half of them new to me.

Here’s a sampling of the birds I saw.

One of the coolest things I saw wasn’t a bird at all, but a snake. It was a beautiful! Also very venomous. The species was Bothrops alternus, a pit viper. I never heard the common name. We saw two of them crossing the trail.

Our second stop was a preserve at the University of Buenos Aires. Probably the most interesting thing we saw there was a wood rail eating an eel. Actually, eating is not the right word, since for the time we watched, the bird just kept tossing the eel in the air. By the time we moved on, the eels was no longer moving, but the wood-rail hadn’t gotten it down yet.

Our third stop was a children’s park. The highlights there were the Southern lapwings, a white-faced ibis, and the many monk parakeets that came close to us, looking for snacks.

I haven’t talked about the monk parakeets yet. They are native, but so numerous they seem like they should be invasive. The farmers consider them pests, and I can’t really blame them. On my second day of birding, when we drove north, I saw their huge communal nests everywhere. I told Alex that I’d just go back and add 300 monk parakeets to each of my eBird lists for the day, and that is probably a low count.

After I got back to the hotel, I napped again, then asked the hotel clerk where I should eat that night. He recommended an Italian restaurant nearby, so that’s where I headed. I finally got my first glass of Malbec, and it was yummy! I had a funny encounter with a fellow American though. The clerk had told me that this was one of the best restaurants for Italian food. There was a single American at the next table who was paying his tab, and complaining to the waiter about the pasta. After the waiter left, the guy saw me looking over the menu, and told me not to get the pasta, that they didn’t know how to cook it correctly. He said his was not good at all. I don’t know what his problem was, but I think it was probably his problem and not the restaurant’s, as everyone else there seemed quite happy. (It was not quite 8 PM, so the restaurant wasn’t too busy—everything really gets hopping here closer to 9–10PM. They eat later here.) Anyway, I ordered chicken in lemon and caper sauce, as that really appealed to me, and it was delicious.

Then it was back to the hotel. I tried to go through my photos to upload them to eBird with my checklists, but I didn’t finish. Too sleepy! I’ve still not gone back and finished them—hopefully I’ll catch up with everything tonight, but I thought I would last night too.

Alex picked me up at 6 AM on Thursday (my second full day in BA) and we drove north. The large river in Buenos Aires is the mouth of the Rio Plata. It’s about 50 km wide at Buenos Aires, and you can take a ferry from there to Montevideo, Uruguay. If I had had more time, I would have like to have taken a day trip over, but maybe next time.

As we drove north, after about an hour we were in the northern floodplain of the river. There was a reserve there, but Alex said he didn’t bird there anymore. Some squatters had built a village in the reserve and would rob visitors. Alex told me that recently a colleague of his had taken 4 clients there and they were robbed at gunpoint in the parking lot when they arrived. Four men on motorcycles with guns pulled up and cleaned them out. Alex said there were good birds there but he doesn’t risk it. Fine by me!

We continued north for about 150 km into the region called Entre Rios (between rivers), then started exploring along the side roads. This is the pampas region, and the side roads were dry and dusty, but there were streams, ponds, and wetlands and plenty of birds.  I was so thankful for Alex! I might have made it to this area, but there is no way I could have identified the numerous small birds we saw: spinetails, tyrants, finches, and many raptors. It was breezy, so that impacted the birding somewhat, but I still saw many birds. Here’s another sampling.

We stopped for lunch on the main highway, then continued exploring the small side roads. At this point, we both had grainy eyes from the dust, and I had it in my mouth—you know that feeling after the dentist, when the grit is still in your mouth from the cleaning? That’s what it was like. And it didn’t do any good to rinse, as I just got more in my mouth the next time I opened it.

Right before I left Virginia, I was looking at the potential birds in the area with my birding friend Elizabeth. We were both excited by the Southern screamer. We loved the name! Well, there were dozens of screamers! In one place, I counted 50 standing out among the cows. Another highlight was a huge mixed swallow flock, that included a bunch of cave swallows, which was actually lifer for Alex! I’m sure that doesn’t happen very often.

As we headed back to the main road, Alex spotted an American kestrel on a post. We stopped to watch, and I got some amazing pictures as the kestrel worked on his catch, a yellowish songbird (maybe a saffron finch). It looked like he was plucking the bird prior to chowing down. Incidentally, this is the same American kestrel that wen have in the US, but the coloration is a little different here.

All in all, it was a lot of fun birding. I saw over a hundred species in 2 days, and many were new to me. And I got some really good images.

We got back to my hotel around 6:30, and I was dusty and tired. I asked at the desk again, this time for something easy I could bring back to eat, and they recommended a Pho restaurant around the corner. Well, this was my only bad meal so far. They would only do a large pho for takeout, not a small one, and it wasn’t particularly good. There were only 4 small pieces of beef, almost nothing other than noodles in the bowl (and wide noodles at that), and the broth was cold! I literally walked 5 minutes back to my room and ate immediately, so the broth didn’t have time to cool off—it must have started that way.

I crashed soon. The next morning, I had to pack and move to the Hilton, to meet the group for Antarctica. I had breakfast in the hotel, then packed. They let me stay until noon (an extra hour) before I Ubered to the Hilton. Once there, I had to wait until 3 to get my room, but it was very comfortable in the lobby. I was so glad that I had come in days ago, as there were others waiting who had flown in on the same flight from Atlanta that I had, i.e., they had very little sleep.

The tour director, Marina, had a table in the lobby, so I met up with her too. She a character and like every TD I’ve had with Gate 1, is very competent. She’s really funny too!

I finally made it to my hotel room at 3. My first job was laundry! I had planned to just have everything washed by the hotel, but the prices were outrageous! A shirt was $14! The prices on some items would have been more than I paid for them! Luckily, I had brought soap concentrate and a clothes line, so I did laundry and got that out of the way.

The initial group meeting was scheduled for 6 PM, so I still had enough time to go to the spa and have a 75 minute massage—luckily, they had an appointment available at 4 PM, and it was lovely and relaxing.

I’ll stop here, and begin later with the group meeting.

————————————-

Having a group meeting to start out is normal for Gate 1 trips. You meet your tour director and get the dreaded name tags on the red Gate 1 lanyard. Marina went through a lot of information, then we all introduced ourselves. I thought that my last trip (Nepal & Bhutan) had the most well traveled group I’d ever been with. Well, this group has them beaten by a mile! There are 37 of us, and some couples had done over 30 Gate 1 trips. All except for a few had done 10 or more. And, for a fair number of the group, they were here to get their 7th continent. (I’m jealous, as it’s only my 6th—I need to plan my Australia trip!)

From the meeting, we tramped to the bus to head to dinner. Gate 1 did not skimp on this one, as the restaurant was a very nice steakhouse. I had another Malbec and steak, and got to know a few of my fellow passengers. Believe it or not, there is another  Kristi on the trip, spelled the same as me. (I had my name tag changed to Kris later, which is what I had asked for anyway.)

The next day (Saturday) we had a city tour. It had a late start of 9 AM which helped all the people who had just flown in. We toured the government area and a really fun neighborhood called La Boca. Amazingly colorful!

Finally, we headed across town to a very famous cemetery (La Recoleta Cemetery). It was huge and full of crypts, some modern and some old and not maintained. It was interesting, and Marina had some good stories about various graves. We saw the crypt of Evita Peron, and heard more than I wanted to know about her.

After the cemetery, we could get back on the bus and go to the hotel, or we could hang out in the fancy neighborhood nearby. I chose the latter and had a lovely lunch of black ravioli with shrimp. I got a complimentary aperitif (something bubbly) and drank most of it. Since it was Saturday, there was a huge craft market open in a nearby park, so I strolled around window shopping for a while, then started the 4 km trek back to the Hilton. I was about a third the way back when I realized I was super sleepy (see “drank aperitif with lunch” above 🤪), so I Ubered back to the hotel. I got to my room, closed the curtains, and slept for over 5 hours. It was a lovely sleep!

When I got up, it was around 9 PM. I ordered empanadas and a Paraguayan cheese snack that has become popular here, They are sort of like mozzarella sticks, but much doughier. I didn’t actually care for them, but the empanadas were perfect.

For some reason, they seem to put sugar on everything here. The empanadas had some sugar on the pastry, and my morning croissant at the CasaCalma had a sugar glaze too.

After I ate, I had to pack for the big day. I left a small bag at the Hilton, since I won’t need any tee shirts where I’m going, so that made my packing easier. I had everything done before midnight, so I got almost another 4 hours of sleep before my 4 AM wake up call for our 4:45 AM departure to the airport. There was an optional dinner on Sunday night, with dinner and a tango show. At $87 it was a little pricy, but I really wasn’t interested anyway. The group who did that excursion left at 8 PM and didn’t get back to the hotel until after midnight! They are sleep-deprived today.

And that catches me up! I’m currently on the flight to Ushuaia, with less than a half hour to go. It’s a 3 hour flight, and I was laughing with another woman that I now consider a 3 hour flight to be a short flight.

We have 2-3 hours in Ushuaia then we board the ship!! 🛳️ 🗺️ 🇦🇶 !

More later!