Warm weather was a welcome change and I went bike riding the first day. Nafisa had already been in Buenos Aires and had the main attractions of the city picked out. I didnt make it to an official tengo show while in BA, but I did see some performances on small platforms setup outsde restaurants. I peered over the edge of a crowd to see some tengo action.
The next day included the highlight of BA. I went to a petting zoo for adults ! We're talking about lions tigers and elephants oh my, the bears we were not allowed to pet. Two people were let in at a time to the animal areas with two zoo attendants and you could pet and cuddle them to your hearts content, although not the big animals of course. The lions fur was short and course, it reminded me of holding a baby lion stuffed animal but it was real ! The zoo attendants said they raise the animals from birth with human interaction.
Stretched my legs a bit my last day in BA and did a walking tour that visited the city cemetery, where Eva Peron is buried. Next came the contemporary art museum where I quickly realized that the Spanish explanatory notes combined with my lack of appreciation for modern art made for a short visit. However, The Museum of Decorative Art provided several hours of open mouthed wandering. Similar to the Isabella Stuart gardener museum, a family collected many artifacts during the early 1900s and arranged them in their mansion. The house and artifacts were then put on display for the public. The ballroom was designed around three enormous tapestries the family owned previous to building the house. The almost as large dining room was built with 5 or 6 hues of marbled granite.
Somewhere along the way we went to Jumbo which bears a resemblance to Super Wal-Mart. This might not seem so striking until you realize other similar types of large standardized stores simply do not exist in South America. Smaller family stores comprise the vast majority of businesses.
The next day I relaxed in the airport for 6 hours passing the time with an excellent Brandon Sanderson book. When i arrived for an 11 o clock flight it turned out that I had been bumped because of a strike the day before. They had rebooked me for a flight the next day but the line was long to get a hotel voucher.
Location:Buenos Aires
