This post is about our travel to and time in capital city of Argentina, Buenos Aires, which we visited on three separate occasions for 6 days in total. Our last visit to Buenos Aires was about a week ago. I will recount our three separate experiences to show how it fits into our other posts.

Travel to Buenos Aires from Bangkok

We booked the cheapest flight from Bangkok to get to Argentina at the end of our South East Asian leg of the trip on the 29th of March. This took us from Bangkok to Stockholm (12 hours) Stockholm to London (2 hours + 6 hour layover) and finally London to Buenos Aires (13 hours + 3 hours grounding due to bad weather).

As we knew this journey would be too big to complete in one sweep we opted to stay the night in Stockholm, Sweden to break up the journey. This is worth mentioning because the airport hotel we booked was the most lush accomodation we have stayed in for a very long time. Of course after staying in $17 a night guesthouses in SEA we were outraged at the price initially but it was absolutely worth every cent and I kind of want to go back and stay there again 🤤.

Although it was 4 degrees outside the hotel was toasty warm and the bed had multiple mattress toppers making it feel like sleeping on clouds. We enjoyed the novelty of drinking the most pure icy cold TAP water without worrying about contracting some sort of parasite. The best part was the buffet breakfast in the morning with the kind of food we love to eat that we hadn’t had in several months. Homemade granola, yogurt, eggs any way, salamis, a nut bar, espresso coffee, earl grey tea and a sparkling water tap together really rejuvenated our souls ready for the 21 hour journey still ahead of us.

After breakfast we made the most of our time in Sweden and went for a walk in the 2 degree temperatures around a ‘nice’ industrial area (everything was so clean)!

We arrived on time in Gatwick feeling reasonably well rested and started our 6 hour layover with a couple of steak and ale pies and some drinks at a restaurant.

The flight to BA was perfectly fine despite being grounded for three hours in Rosario because of heavy fog at BA airport. We even had a spare seat so we could take turns lying down and sleeping. We arrived feeling pretty tired with no real idea of the time or date.

We had read all of the comments online about the dangers of Buenos Aires and how as tourists we should be expecting to be mugged at knifepoint or scammed at some time during our stay. For us these things couldn’t be more false and we felt nothing but safe the entire time. We did however use common sense and always made sure we knew where we were going, particularly at night, didn’t carry lots of cash or our passports and didn’t draw attention to ourselves by speaking loudly and enthusiastically in English.

The most difficult adjustment (still ongoing) is obviously the language barrier. Both Matt and I speak minimal Spanish and don’t know enough to hold a conversation. We are definitely getting by and have found that por favor, gracias and a smile goes a long way. In SEA everyone speaks English and almost everything is translated from the local language but here, unless it is at a hostel or tourist attraction people don’t really speak English. We like that the locals do appreciate us trying though and we are slowly learning the key nouns. I like to practice these with taxi drivers. The next step is sentence structure so we might take a class or five in Chile!

During our first couple of days in BA we were adjusting to the time difference and were falling asleep at 4:30pm in the afternoon after indulging in muchos empanadas and dulce de lèche donuts for dinner?

We also visited the Recoleta cemetery which is an impressive assortment of tombs and masoleums of the rich and famous. It is one of the most exclusive cemeteries in the world.

Second visit

After visiting Iguasu falls we returned to BA for another two nights. During this time we visited the botanical gardens, explored the city and viewed the Floralis Generica sculpture. This sculpture is unique because it opens and closes from dawn to dusk like the actual plant does.

We then flew to Patagonia before returning to Buenos Aires for the third and final time for just one night and day. We visited the central area of the city and ate some incredible pizza and a famous local restaurant.

Overall we really enjoyed our time in the capital. The people were nothing but friendly, the food was delicious and the European architecture everywhere was very charming. We found that although there are some modern aspects, it still felt like an older city with a real emphasis put on smaller family owned shops for fruit and vegetables as well as magazines and books.

The idea that BA is a dangerous city truly depends on where you stay and what activities you partake in. We saw some pretty rough looking areas from the window of the taxis but had a relaxing and enjoyable time in the beautiful suburbs of Recoleta and Palermo! Below are photos in the order of our stay which can be identified by the weather.

In transit – A beautiful day for a stopover in Sweden and some pies in London.

Buenos Aires City