September
2009
Buenos Aires: The Anti-Santiago
Ashley and I just returned from an excellent four-day weekend in Buenos Aires, capital of neighbouring Argentina where we celebrated Chile’s birthday being out of the country. Santiago is literally a ghost town on this weekend as most people leave town for the beach, country or mountains. We found a cheap Air Canada flight and a deal at the Marriott so headed east to BA.
This city must be the antithesis of Santiago in just about every way. Despite being geographically close and in many ways culturally similar, it is the polar opposite of our adopted hometown. Long the leading capital in Latin America, it has since fallen into a little disrepair given the turbulence of Argentine politics/economy. That said the architecture is beautiful, the food excellent (and cheap), the nightlife wild and the car exhaust abundant. For all the bad wrap that Santiago’s air quality gets, it’s really not the Chileans’ fault–they have strict regulations on emissions but happened to build their city in a valley and suffer accordingly.
In BA we enjoyed the waterfront at Puerto Madero, excellent shopping and food in Palermo and took in a tango show in San Telmo before returning home on Monday night. We will definitely be back!
Full set of photos here.