Wahoo!! We’re in Buenos Aires.
Buenos Aires combines the best of many cities – the energy of New York, the architecture of London, and the traffic of Bangkok. We keep trying to look in all directions at the same time. Will have lots to write about, but we’re going to start today with our apartment.
We didn’t want to live in a hotel room for two months, so we asked my uncle – ‘Big Tommy’ – to help us find a nice place to live. Well, he knocked this one out of the park.
We are in Puerto Madero, the waterfront district of Buenos Aires. It is a safe, quiet oasis in the heart of the pounding city, a 10-minute walk to San Telmo or Downtown, 20-minutes to Recoleta. It’s a bit like Battery Park City at the bottom of Manhattan.
The neighbourhood focuses inwards towards the harbour, rather than outwards to the ocean. Both sides of this harbour are lined with restaurants, cafe’s, hotels, and low-rise condo developments in converted warehouses – the developers were careful to keep the original facades and styles.
The cranes you see are the old harbour cranes for unloading ships. This harbour was a typical Argentine fiasco – it took 20 years to build, and it was obsolete by the time it opened in the early 20th century. Ships had gotten larger, and could not pass through the four dams. It was abandoned until about 1990, when the government created a company to redevelop the land.
Out of sight towards the Rio de la Plata (river), there are another legion of cranes – there must be a dozen luxury high-rise projects currently underway, some 50 stories tall (which makes them among the tallest buildings in this city). They are looking down over both the port and the large ‘Ecological Reserve’ park behind – and out to the ocean.
Many of the condo projects are affiliated with a hotel, and rented out when the owner is away. Ours is managed by the Faena-Universe, one of the three 5-star hotels in Puerto Madero, who takes care of cleaning, changing the linens, concierge services, etc.
Our little flat is about 1000 square feet of luxury everything. We’ve rearranged the living room a bit – moved out the table, rolled up the carpet, and moved the couch back. That gives us a little space to practice tango – well, it’s bigger than the dance floor at some of the clubs we’ve been to.
November was the hottest month in Buenos Aires in 50 years. It’s cooler this week, but the hot summer months are coming. I’ve been up to the roof, and it looks like we’ll be able to beat the heat just fine.
And a complete fitness center – which is good because we may have put on a bit of weight in Mendoza.
Lot’s of things we don’t like about this apartment. It’s a bit fancy to our taste, too much marble and cut glass. And lots of windows, so we have to be careful about walking around. It takes four different remotes to make all the features of the entertainment center work. But we’ll survive…
We thought we would have to get room service to deliver our morning coffee – there was no coffeemaker – but the Faena leasing agent also noticed, and just popped in with one.
We have a few friends who might be dropping in to visit over the next two months – the big couch in the living room is available.
And we are going to be having the time of our lives here in Buenos Aires.