6. Buenos Aires
DAY 228 - 241
I am in Buenos Aires. I rented a small apartment right in the centre of the city. I have a nice modern apartment with everything I need. the hall building are rental apartments. There is a nice bistro two floors above me and there is a rooftop swimming pool there as well. My bike is in the private parking garage underneath the building with 24/7 security. This place is dirt cheap by any standards. but I am in the middle of the capital city of 3 million people, only 1 km from the presidential palace. I pay $43 a day. Parking for my bike is two dollars a day. I pay more for a tent campground in North America. Mind blowing.
Anyway, I'm here for 10 days. I generally don't like big cities, but I like to see what Buenos Aires has to offer. Everything is in a walking distance from my place, which is exactly what I wanted. And I do lots of walking. I'm trying to get the vibe for the city. But after only one day., the weather changed. The cloud cover the horizons, and the heavens opened up its taps. I tried to get out between the storms. My effort to stay dry was not too successful. it wasn't just raining it was pouring down. The storms back home in the fall or just small sprinklers compared to this. I was having a dinner in a restaurant, which had a TV in one corner. And on the screen was a rainfall warning. There supposed to be 130 mm of rain in the next few hours. That's lots of water. I managed to get back to my apartment before the apocalypse started. I've seen many storms in my life in different parts of the world by never seen anything like this. It was kind of interesting looking from inside out when you sit in the nice dry place. It was absolute mayhem outside. There was a lightning every few seconds with associated ear splitting thunders. It felt like I was in the a war zone under artillery bombardment. The thunders were so loud I couldn't sleep all night. I could see the aftermath the very next morning on TV. there were many neighbourhoods flooded under more than 1 m of water. The city subway system was flooded. It was incredible. The locals are saying, they have never seen anything like that in their life. That's my luck, always some unusual weather wherever I go. I'm not looking for it, it just happens.
And it wasn't only one storm, it was one storm after another. The frustrating part was the fact that the whole continent from north to south was clear except area on Buenos Aires and neighbouring Uruguay. I was stuck in the city where I couldn't do too much. I couldn't get out of here either. It will take me days riding through the worst storms I've ever seen even if I could get through all those flooded roads.
There are some brief moments between the storms which I quickly took advantage of. Thank goodness for all those weather websites, applications, radar and satellite pictures. But I also could see that there is no quick and in sight. Very frustrating. But I always venture outside when it wasn't raining. Quick walk through neighbourhood, grocery shopping or a dinner in a restaurant.
When it was time to leave, I've decided to extend my stay. It was putting rain outside. The forecast was much more favourable in the next few days. I'm in no hurry anyway and I have a pretty comfortable set up over here.
I managed to take a city bus tour one morning. It was actually nice and sunny. It was a different story later that evening, though. But the city tour was very nice. It took three hours which went by very very fast. We went through many different neighbourhoods from a poor working class neighbourhood of Loca Boca to very posh parts like Palmero or Puerto Madero. The city is a collection of wide boulevards line with tall trees, reaching height of 8 floor buildings and small, mostly one-way streets. The city has incredible amount of parks, all of them public. They are all nicely maintained and mostly clean. Almost every single one of them have a kid’s playground. There are bike lanes everywhere. The running paths stretch for dozens of miles. The outdoor exercise stations are every block or two. The city is doing a lot for its citizens. And everything is well maintained. I haven't seen a city with infrastructure like this anywhere. The country is going through one of the wars economical crisis in its history. The inflation in 2023 was 240%. Interestingly enough, as a visitor I don't see it anywhere. Yes, there are homeless people on the streets, some of them just a few hundred metres from the presidential palace. But there are significantly less people on the streets here, then there are in Vancouver. Another thing just occurred to me. I haven't seen any baggers on the street. Not one. Nobody's begging here. Interesting. Another observation, the restaurants are full. Especially the better ones. And on the weekend everybody is out. Another thing, everybody is dressed up in the restaurants and on the weekends. Especially in the evenings. It is hard to see anybody just in jeans and a T-shirt there.
So, today is my last evening in Buenos Aires. Out of 14 days I spent here it was raining full 10 days. And I was also sick for four days. It was only a bad sinus infection, according to Dr. Adam. I'm almost back to normal. As you can see my timing here was impeccable. It was a nice place to visit but I will be very happy to get back on my bike tomorrow morning.
I'm heading north towards Iguazu Falls and then off to Brazil. I'm looking forward to see some nature again. I guess I am no city slicker. But I knew that already ;-)