We were picked up from the airport in Buenos Aires. It was now just over 20 degrees outside and of course I still had my thick winter jacket in my hand and my winter shoes on, but I would change that immediately at the hotel. My plan was to change into lighter clothes after the bus journey to the hotel. Fortunately, the bus was air-conditioned. 🙂
The Hilton is a very nice hotel, but the rooms were not immediately available, but only from 15:00. This meant that we had to continue sweating, as there was no opportunity to change.
A demonstration took place outside the hotel.
Claudia, whom I had met at the airport, and I wanted to know what the demonstration was for. A German-speaking employee from the hotel explained it to us. These are farmers and indigenous people from the north who are demonstrating against lithium mining. Lithium mining requires a lot of water, which the locals then lack. A lithium conference was being held at the Hilton and so the peaceful demonstration took place right in front of the hotel. We also took a photo of the flyer.
After we were able to leave our suitcases, rucksacks and warm jackets at reception in a small room, we had a brief meeting with Hurtigruten Expedition, where we were told how to proceed with the itinerary. It turned out that there were still 2 free places on the city tour and so Claudia and I, who was also travelling alone, were able to join a city tour after all. There was still a little time before we left for the city tour, so we had a look round the area around the hotel and hoped that the rooms might be ready a little earlier.
We were back at the hotel about 30 minutes before the start of the city tour. Our two rooms were actually already ready. There was just enough time to swap our winter shoes for trainers and our sweatshirt for a T-shirt.
The city tour was nice. There were many building sites and the gap between rich and poor was clearly visible. There was also no denying the European influence, for example the street lamp at the bottom centre of the picture. As in any big city, Buenos Aires has a lot of cars and therefore also traffic jams.
Our first stop was to look at an old famous cemetery. Only people who had a lot of money were buried here. Today, nobody is buried there anymore.
Then we went to the La Boca neighbourhood, a football-loving district. Unfortunately, we only had 20 minutes there before we had to move on. A little more time would have been great. We found a restaurant here. The food looked delicious, but unfortunately we didn’t have time to try it because we wanted to see more.
The La Boca neighbourhood is very colourful and Messi can be seen everywhere. There are various shops to the right and left of the streets. Messi and the Pope stand prominently at the entrance to the shopping arcades. But there are also many murals.
Then we continued with the city tour.
After the city tour, we were dead tired because we really hadn’t slept much. And the next morning we were due to have breakfast at 3am. That meant getting up at 2.30am at the latest, then having breakfast and then driving to the airport at 4am, as the charter flight would be leaving at 7am. So a night with little sleep, but what the heck. We then have more time to sleep on the ship, as we first have 2 days at sea until we arrive in Antarctica. Claudia and I then went for a pizza near the hotel. As discussed, I left my suitcase in front of the room door at 8pm. They were collected and transported to the airport so that we only had hand luggage tomorrow. Before I went to bed, I uploaded a few photos to my WhatsApp status and Instagram story for my friends and acquaintances at home so that they knew I was still alive and then I fell into bed dead tired.