Tuesday, April 8, 2008

We woke up at 8:30, since our half-day tour was supposed to leave at 10am. We had breakfast in the hotel, then went on our way. We started in Palermo and generally worked our way to the southeast. First we saw all of the parks in Palermo, which were within walking distance of our hotel, so we planned on seeing them the next day. Then we visited Recoleta, stopping briefly at the Cemetery.

Then we visited the downtown area, or Micro Centro, with the obelisk, the Plaza de Mayo, and so on. We went inside a massive church, the metropolitan cathedral. From there we went down to La Boca and checked it out briefly. It was sort of like Venice Beach - you see it once and then you're good. We headed back up along the riverbank, first in the La Boca region and then in the Puerto Madero region. Puerto Madero reminded us a little of the embarcadero region in San Francisco, with gentrified warehouses and whatnot. Finally we passed through Retiro and headed back to Palermo.

We had lunch at La Cupertina, the place we tried to go the night before. We had dessert at some ice cream place that was very good. In the afternoon we walked around Palermo looking for stuff. We should have just zig-zagged, because as it was we did twice as much walking as we should have. Back at the hotel, we got ready for dinner at Bar Uriarte. The food and drink were good there. Justin had a "Viva Peru," which was a mix of Pisco, Lemon, Mint, Ginger Ale and Bitters, which was very good. We had so much food, and dinner took so long, that we were too tired to go out for drinks at Casa Cruz - perhaps another evening.