June 23, 2019: One, Dos, Tres---Atlanta, Buenos Aires, Montevideo

Paul enjoys the work of South American artists at Museo Nacional De Belles Artes in Buenos Aires

“What an absurdity to go and bury oneself in South America, where they are always having revolutions.” 
― Agatha Christie, The Clocks

     For the last three days, Paul and I have been mostly about getting from one location to the other with some fun stuff and great meals (of course) thrown in for good measure.

    This trip started in December of 2017 when I was trying to think of a nice anniversary gift for Paul.  We had talked about going to Patagonia at some point, but then I remembered there was an eclipse in Chile in 2019. But it was already SOLD OUT.  Remote locations don't have many hotel rooms, and the Atacama Desert hotel rooms had been snapped up. But across the border in Northern Argentina, there was some space left. So I purchased it and the concept of this trip was born and has finally come to fruition. 

     We left Knoxville on Friday afternoon and landed in Buenos Aires at roughly 9 o'clock in the morning. It's a roughly 9+hour flight from Atlanta. The airlines are into the overnighting scenario, presumably so the customers sleep and don't ask for refills on Jack Daniels. Sometimes I can sleep on airplanes and sometimes not. This time NOT. So I was thrilled to check into our tiny 7 room inn, the EZE Boutique Inn. The immigration agent had never heard of it and seemed to doubt its existence, but my tired carcass can tell you it most definitely was no figment of the imagination. Thank heaven. 

This hotel is small, only about 10 minutes from EZE airport and has a free on demand shuttle and breakfast at a reasonable price.

We chose this place because we were flying out the next day to Montevideo, Uruguay, and it is close to the airport. Fortunately, we had enough time to administer a small dose of Buenos Aires. I had been to B.A. about 30 years ago with a medical conference and it seemed smaller, fewer tall buildings and amazingly, a bit more formal on my last hurrah. Now an even bigger, more bustling city, I don't think I would recognize anything much. We had time to go the Museo Nacional de Belles Arts which had a wide selection of work. We very much enjoyed early 20th century pieces by various South American artists, esp. Xul Solar as we named our cat after him.

Xul Solar

Xul Solar

We really enjoyed this museum which covers quite a gamut of both European and South American artists and dabbles in Native American craft, pottery and artwork in the region.  I love the colorful and whimsical nature of these artists. 

This was one of my favorites showing stevedores on the docks in Buenos Aires. 

From here, we went to a lovely restaurant called Aramburu in downtown Buenos Aires, about a mile from the museum. Just a little hint for those of you who go to foreign countries and don't know where the best chow is. ASK PAUL. Even if he has NEVER been there, he will find THE BEST restaurants in town. Don't forget to talk to a loan officer as well... 

Aramburu has a great eating concept: 17 one bite courses, all delicious and many presented as a work of art. I don't have photos of all the courses, but here are a few tantalizers.

Pumpkin cannoli ----pumpkin fruit leather with a soft, lightly sweetened cream filling

A molecular  gastronomical cloud of very light scallop

Mushroom soup. Simply outstanding

Paul got us the chef's table so we could peer into the kitchen and watch the show in action.

Gotta love a chef with a hydroponic herb garden

It was a long 3 hour "one bites" meal and we loved the Argentinian wine pairings, surprisingly mostly whites. Then we were back to Eze Inn and off to bed before we left for Montevideo today.

So, you know those Latin American countries with the hot, sticky out of date airports. Well, Montevideo is NOT included. This has to be the most modern airport I have ever been in.

The beautiful and fully modern Carrasco Airport, Montevideo

Not only is the architecture stunning here, but the customs is fully automated and takes only a few minutes compared to the hour we spent in Buenos Aires the day before.

Our hotel for this stay will be the Axsur Design Hotel. I wanted to stay in an aparthotel but we could never get payment to work on Paypal and Western Union, so here we are:

Thirty rooms in the Ciudad Viejo secton, close to the docks. We have a great view and friendly staff as well.

The rooms are spacious and the prices is very accommodating as well.

Rooms are sleek, comfortable and spacious and overlook Montevideo bay.

We had a nice lunch at a local Italian bakery. called Siracuso.

 They have a main pedestrian street that is closed to traffic completely. I read in a guidebook that the Ciudad Viejo is pretty dead on Sunday and that does seem to be the case. Almost no restaurant, shop or museum is open, but so far we have managed.

The old city is "dead" on Sunday. Apparently it will become a hive tomorrow

Who says we cannot find a tasty and beautiful Sunday lunch in Cuidad Viejo on Sundays?

From this point, we thought a nice walk on the 25 mile long La Rambla which meanders along the Bay of Montevideo sounded like a good idea. There are bikers, walkers and fishermen all along the way. It's a great look into the bay of Montevideo which is predominantly a river basin where numerous rivers meet the sea, hence the brown waters.

The docks of Montevideo Bay

Paul along La Rambla with ship in the background.

After our "ramble," we had a nice rest in the hotel and then off to dinner at Primuseo.  For anyone who wants to visit Montevideo, the good and bad, is GOOD: People here are family and friend oriented and would rather NOT make money and instead spend time with those they love.BAD: This creates a situation in which virtually no one is open on Sunday night. While that is a lovely thing, although, we thought we might like to eat dinner. Hours for meals in Uruguay are reminiscent of Spain,with breakfast around 9am, lunch at 2-3 p m and dinner certainly NOT before 8:30pm (if you are comfortable with being the only person in the restaurant.) So we booked an OPEN place near the hotel called Primuseum. The restaurant concept is a meat forward Uruguayan experience with wine, water, roasted meats and veggies with tango music and dance. It is admittedly a bit touristy but we thoroughly enjoyed it. The restaurant does in fact have a large number of cooking devices from many years of old , mostly gas powered such as a primus stove, Coleman lanterns and even very esoteric varieties of gas powered cooking devices of vintage stock. They even have a 1950s functioning Coke Machine from Washington, DC. The food was good. Not excellent but tasty and you got tango dancers and singers and musicians including an accordion player. Paul recalled seeing Astor Piazzolla playing tango music in Atlanta in years gone by. The restaurant staff all know Piazzola as a pioneer of tango which didn't start until the 1920s. For anyone reading this, if you are adamantly opposed to tourist experiences, do not go here. If you can enjoy local grilled meat and veggies and very talented tango musicians, what's not to love?

Primuseum Restaurant for wood grilled meat veggies and TANGO

We look like we enjoyed . Right?

A photo can never do justice to tango .

What he said

Paul's Ponderings:   We had a nice start to our trip in Buenos Aires after the usual lengthy overnight flight.     We started our evening with a great meal.  The food at Aramburu was pretty outstanding, as were the selections of Argentinian wines.   It appears the US wines from Argentina only scratch the surface and oddly the meal was dominated by white wines.....so much for Malbec!   It was actually quite warm when we landed and the pleasant temperatures continued into Montevideo.   It did rain a bit late in the day however.

I can't resist commenting on the Montevideo airport either.    It looks a bit like the iconic old TWA terminal at JFK in NYC that's recently been converted to a hotel, updated to the 21st century.   And the entry for a "priority" flyer (I guess we qualified) was all electronic with no interaction with an immigration agent, using only your passport and a pretty cool photo being taken of you after the passport scan.    All airports should be this friendly.    It is a bit of a drive into town from the airport.

We finished our first day in Montevideo with some nice local food and tango music (and dance) at at local restaurant.....it seemed to be the only thing open near our hotel, but was a real pleasure.   Local wine, food, and entertainment in a small space.   Very much a pleasure.

All things considered, we are off to a great start for our South American stay.....