The Blog of Chris Stott

After a fifteen-hour flight, which included a 90-minute wait on the plane in Sao Paolo, we arrived in Buenos Aires. I had arranged for a local private driver to pick us up, so it was cool to come out of the baggage claim hall and be met by Ana Luna who was holding my name on a sign. Maybe I should have picked a cooler name. Anyway, this made if far easier than sorting out a taxi, and we were soon on our way to our apartment. There was a lot of traffic on the journey that took around an hour from the airport. The slight delay was welcome, as it meant that we arrived at the apartment just on time to meet the agent to hand over the keys in exchange for a the money. We were a bit concerned about having to pay for the apartment in cash, as we wouldn’t normally walk around Manchester with that much money, let alone an unfamiliar, South America city like Buenos Aires. Everything worked out well and we were soon tucked up in bed in our air-conditioned apartment for some much needed rest.

We have a studio apartment, which means that it is just one room with a separate bathroom. We have a balcony that overlooks a road that isn’t a main one, but due to the number of buses sounds much busier than it is. Although the apartment is small, it is very cheap (compared to the rest of the world) and has everything we need.

Thankfully, the apartment has a large supermarket just a minute away so it’s easy to stock up with food and we don’t have to carry the bags too far through the heat. It seems that we have picked a fantastic location for our apartment, which is in the middle of the trendiest and most interesting neighborhoods. BA is famous for it’s neighborhoods, so more to come on that in a future post.

First impressions of Buenos Aires are that it’s a bit rough around the edges, with a heavily European influenced architecture. It is however very cosmopolitan and has a wide mix of brand new and old buildings. All the apartment buildings have marble lobbies with smoked glass that makes them look very eighties and colonial. We’ve spent our first week just walking around the local neighborhoods of Palermo, which is sub-divided in to small areas. Palermo is rather like Didsbury really I suppose, with lots of coffee shops and designer boutiques, and then there are sub-areas such as Palermo Viejo which is like West Didsbury.

We haven’t ventured out with the Camera yet. As we aren’t in the tourist area, we blend in very well, walking around with a camera will soon make us stand out. Due to the temperature (around 32 degree with about 60-70% humidity), everyone is wearing flip-flops and shorts anyway, so we don’t stick out. Having said that, we’ve felt perfectly safe here and as with anywhere as long as you are sensible and avoid the bad areas you’ll be fine. 

So that’s the first week over, and not too much to report. I’ve managed to do a lot of work on my websites, which is good (it’s a bit hot to go out until late afternoon). We are enjoying just taking things at a slow pace, and we’ve got plenty more to come in future posts, but I just wanted to let everyone know are settled in, and not write too much for this first update from BAs.

Adios!