February 25 and 26, 2023

This is our third time to visit Buenos Aires, so we decided to try to do much needed updates to all of our devices and to try to solve an email problem with my iPhone and my iPad. We intended to go to a hotel but found that the WiFi in the terminal, while not really fast, was good enough to get things done in about an hour and a half. By then lots of passengers for the other two cruises that started here were coming into the terminal so we returned to the ship and spent the rest of the afternoon before preparing for our evening world cruise event. The iPhone issue was fixed but not the iPad – that is still a mystery.

Buenos Aires is the capital of Argentina. It is the fourth most populous metropolitan area in the Americas, with a population of around 15.6 million. There is a lot of European architecture here, one area is mostly French architecture. The city is a melting pot – considered one of the most diverse cities of the Americas.

There will be 5 Around the World special events during this 6 months and today was the first. We traveled by bus to a place called La Rural. Here is the description of the event. It was a wonderful evening and really gave us a taste of the culture of Argentina. There were stations spread around the huge pavilion that featured body painting, puppetry, tango lessons and photos in tango accessory costumes.

Here are some photos of the evening. There were wonderful musicians, traditional gaucho acts, singers and amazing tango dancers. I don’t know how those women wear the 5 inch heels and dance in them too! The lighting wasn’t good to capture most of the tango scenes but I did get one of the opening which depicted the early days of tango when settlers arrived. The later ones with the wonderful costumes and groups of dancers didn’t come out well enough. I might be able to get some from others who sat closer to the stage.

We had a dinner that was served throughout the entertainment – way too much food – and they did have some non meat items for those who had requested it in advance – like me! It was a great evening.

On Sunday, we met with one of colleagues from ICF, Ines Colle. She picked us up at the terminal and took us all around the city, pointing out lots of things of interest, and we had a walk in one of the parks. There are a lot of open areas and parks with beautiful trees. Some of the wide streets have trees that almost form a canopy over the street. We enjoyed a nice brunch together at the lake and overlooking the golf course. What a pleasure to meet people all over the world and share time together.

A wonderful two days in Buenos Aires. On to Montevideo, Uruguay tomorrow.