Day 13: Beefy Buenos Aires

We did more city sightseeing today.

Cabaña las Lilas was our lunch destination. Big. Fat. Steak. Too bad the service sucked. But at least we had lots of beef in Argentina before we came home to the the largest beef recall in U.S. history.

We finished gorging and met our hired driver for a private tour of the city, and we invited Aerogirl to come along for the ride. The La Boca neighborhood was so colorful! We found some young attractive tango dancers, too. Yes, I did leave them a nice tip for snapping away.

The San Telmo neighborhood had Old World charm, cobblestone roads, and lots of antique stores.

El Obelisco in the Plaza de la República reminded me of the Washington Monument.

Recoleta is like the Beverly Hills of Buenos Aires and has many of the same luxurious stores. Our main objective in Recoleta, however, was to visit the grave of Eva Perón.

It was interesting to walk amongst all the mausolea. We also visited a neighboring historic church.

The water in Buenos Aires is muddy, brown, and a far cry from the beautiful green lake we admired in Peulla, Chile.

Our driver took us to his favorite little inn off the beaten path, where we shared mate and some afternoon jam and toast. Mr. Monkey and Aerogirl likened the mate experience to sharing bong hits. Mate is usually served in a calabash gourd, but the inn offered a less traditional plastic version, which we passed around.

After tea, we returned to The Moreno Hotel briefly, where I took a quick photo of Aerogirl and Mr. Monkey. We went up to the rooftop to enjoy the cityscape for awhile before we headed to another tango show.

We asked the concierge for a recommendation for a tango show, and he recommended the Confitería Ideal. Mr. Monkey, Aerogirl, and I piled into a taxi. When we got to the Confitería Ideal, though, our cabbie was incredibly emphatic about our not going in. He spoke only Spanish, so the WeezerMonkey Cliffs Notes version of his tirade is that the Confitería Ideal is a tourist trap, and in no uncertain terms should we fall into it.

The cabbie convinced us to try his favorite local hangout instead, the place he claimed to take his mujer all the time.

To tell you the truth, it was sort of a dump. In fact, I even spotted a few cockroaches. Plural. The three of us were alone for some time, and we wondered if we'd been tricked. Maybe this was the cabbie's uncle's restaurant.

But then the place got packed. We enjoyed watching a young couple tango and several good singers warble. The dancers even asked us to join them. Aerogirl was quite the natural!

Fabulous day! We had so much fun from morning to night!

Tomorrow we resume our naturefest. Iguazu Falls, here we come....