What's new Buenos Aires?
I'm new--I want to say I'm just a little stuck on you
You'll be on me too!
~ Evita - music by Andrew Lloyd Weber, lyrics by Sir Tim Rice
I’ve been waiting eight years for that musical quote…
I sat out on the back deck as we sailed into Buenos Aires, and the song was running through my head. Evita was one of my favorite childhood musicals, and I have some iconic cruise memories from this city beginning 20 years ago. I was a little emotional. I couldn’t wait to get out and reacquaint myself. Three days and two nights - woohoo!!
Tough start. Hot, Brazil-levels of humidity, mosquito-y, unpleasantly aromatic, trash and litter strewn, nonsensical, and overall seedy feeling. Was this still my beloved city? Is it the city or is it me? Who is “new’?
Apart from some city orientation memory checking, I had three goals:
find a place to get my nails done;
get a Sube card (for public transportation); and
get Argentine pesos.
I first figured out where to get the Sube card - many websites advised that the metro and bus system is vast and inexpensive, but that the mandatory Sube cards are hard to purchase. I actually saw several places to buy a Sube card - the closest to the ship terminal is at a little newspaper kiosk in the Retiro train station (10-15 minute walk). This can be purchased with local currency, the Argentine peso.
Cash is preferred in Argentina - it’s an interesting history and challenge. This article is one of the best I have read explaining why.
So, how to get the Argentine peso? The best rate of exchange is with the “blue market.” It is not legal, but, from what I hear, largely ignored by law enforcement. There are some risks and I am a rule follower, so I was not entirely comfortable with this. I thought I’d try the ATM route. Nope. It looked like the max to withdraw was about 40,000 pesos (approx $50 USD), but then the ATM would say insufficient funds. I know that I have the funds in my account, so I am guessing it was the ATM itself or some rule I don't know about how much you can withdraw as a foreigner. After several attempts at several ATMs (with pretty high transaction fees - in several cases about approx 8000 peso for a 15,000 peso withdraw), I gave up.
It has also been suggested to just use credit cards. This is well and good unless you want to use Uber (Uber works here but you have to pay cash), buy a bottle of water, get a Sube card, etc. Next time, I might try to make a small store purchase with USD and get pesos as change. I’ll let you know if this works.
Mani and pedi, though - tick, done! And truly fun. Getting to know a destination by its cuisine is rightfully a popular notion these days, but I am going to venture that seeing some of day-to-day life through the salon is another way to go. While it takes some figuring out what various services are called, there is a comforting familiarity at the salon - friendly chatter, comradery. The salon hostess and a woman a few seats down from me both spoke some English and I can speak some Spanish as well as use Google translate, so we all had a grand time. Nail Bar by OPI,
I was able to pay with a credit card. The hostess advised me this would cost a bit more - but after my challenges of trying to get cash, the $2 USD difference was worth it.
For our evening out, we changed larger US bills to smaller bills at Guest Services onboard (no peso exchange available). Taxi ride to drinks was only $6 USD; taxi home our driver quoted us $3-4 USD. I think it was closer to $2-3, but we happily gave $5 USD and the driver could not have been happier. Some folks will still haggle over those couple of dollars and if that’s your jam, go for it. Drinks at Alvear Rooftop Bar and dinner at Parilla Peña were both paid with credit card. Do keep in mind that Visa and Mastercard both receive a tourist dollar rate (again this article explains). We had a lovely evening out.
Wellness Round Up
Nutrition: Cash may be king, but meat, especially beef, is also king in Argentina. So, yes we got our protein fill on our night out. Beef empanadas, mollejas (sweetbreads), provoleta (grilled provolone cheese) and bife de lomo (filet).
We like to have at least one thing new to our palates - so pre-dinner cocktails included a Malbec sour (Malbec wine, squeezed lemon, egg white, simple syrup) and a John Collins (Scotch, squeezed lemon, simple syrup, sparkling water).
Onboard I have been making some baby steps on the veggie intake - in retrospect this is more than I thought I had accomplished:
breakfast omelet with lots of veggies
vegetable breakfast frittata
salad for lunch
splitting a cobb salad for dinner (ok, and with quesadilla),
ordering a plate of steamed vegetables with our dinner
cauliflower steak entree on dressy night
If I go to the dining room for breakfast (a happy place for me), I will try to eat a lighter lunch. Cue the smoothies! The most ingredients for smoothies can be found in the Lido during breakfast time. I feel a little silly going there after having just eaten in the Dining Room, but I do my smoothie “shopping” then.
First stop is the beverage/yogurt station. Options include Greek yogurt, flavored yogurt, chia seed pudding, chia seeds, nuts, toasted coconut, fresh berries, banana, mango puree, strawberry puree. Juices include orange, pineapple, cranberry, apple, prune, tomato. Various milks - soy, almond, rice skim, whole, oat are available. Peanut butter and cottage cheese can be found at the homestead station.
The various stations have fruit - and it isn’t the same at each station, so this takes some wandering - could be cantaloupe, honey dew melon, watermelon, green apple, red apple, plums, pears, bananas, oranges, pineapple, grapes, and occasionally kiwi, mango or other more exotic fruits.
If I want to add vegetables, I gather those at lunch time from the salad bar - usual go-to’s for me are spinach, carrot, cucumber and occasionally chickpeas, broccoli or beets.
So the flavor possibilities are pretty endless. Some of the above do have added sugars, so something to keep an eye on. In the past we have kept protein powder and moringa powders in our cabin, but as we joined the ship in Chile, we thought it best not to try to bring these into the country. I have seen some vitamin stores in port and might see what I can pick up. Our mini blender is USB powered, so not a problem to have onboard and easy to clean in the bathroom sink. Voila!
Hydration: 48-80 oz /day. Could be better.
Sleep/Stress: The air flow in our bedroom was adjusted, so it is much cooler now, and this has made for better sleep. Stress overall less this week as well.
Movement: While I did not walk as much on the sea days (3.1, 3.6, 1.7 & 2.3 miles), I walked Mediterranean style in Montevideo and Buenos Aires (7.6, 7.7 & 12 miles).
The onboard spa offers a few complimentary group fitness classes - sunrise or sunset stretch, abs class and total body conditioning. While I have enjoyed the stretch classes, total body conditioning has sounded a little terrifying. And 30 minutes of abs sounds torturous. This week I challenged myself to go to total body conditioning - and I enjoyed it! Next week I might be brave enough to try the abs class.
~ ~ ~
I wasn’t planning to go into town today (Sunday) as I have various projects to get done. But, this was moot. At 4am this morning a severe storm (announced as the worst seen here in 50 years) rolled in. Part of the cruise terminal roof collapsed, trees down, containers tumbled in the port, etc, so there is no shore leave. Fortunately, there is no news if this is affecting our departure.
And it is the start of the Christmas cruise with a tree lighting ceremony to look forward to.
So, that's it for now. Bon Voyage & Bon Appétit!
Post updated August 17, 2024
Comentários