Part 2 of 2 – Buenos Aries, Argentina – 2023!
If you had access to my federal tax returns, you would notice that my occupation is listed as “World Traveler”. I knew the IRS wanted me to be “something” and that’s the best I could come up with.
If a person plans their retirement properly, they should be able to do just about anything within reason that they want to do. When I retired I spent the first couple of years supervising the building of our house. When that was done it was time to move to my full-time “World Traveler” job description. I haven’t let off the accelerator of that pursuit sense. That was 20 years ago.
Just another comment on retirement. I commonly say that in retirement if you don’t like what you’re doing you have no one to blame but yourself. I will also tell you I traveled the world where we were building our house. Every time I was traveling and a home decision needed to be made that I couldn’t be a direct part of I regretted that. I didn’t regret the traveling. I just regretted the decision that was made that I wasn’t fully a part of.
It is with this as some background that I headed off to Buenos Aires, Argentina. I would end up spending three hours at a venerable old race track in Buenos Aires, but the rest of the trip to BA would be pure adventure. I hope you tune in for the adventure.
Very few of my trips are what I would call “simple”. They all require a good deal of planning to get just enough of a structure built so that the elements don’t fall down around my head when I take the trip.
I’m always going to need a pretty good plan to get me from points A to B and as you will see from this trip to points C, D, and beyond. I’ve done this a lot. Nevertheless, staying on top of stuff is still a big deal.
When I travel to foreign cultures that are just a little deeper into “foreign culture” than driving across the border into Canada it’s going to be helpful if I get some “local people” to help me out. I could not have done any better with the help of local people.
By the way, I don’t use travel agents. I don’t use financial planners. I never want my advisors to have a financial interest in the outcome. That’s just me. Don’t be offended if you like to do it differently.
Most of my trips are going to have at least a minor component of auto racing. That’s where my hobby of “trackchasing” comes in. I enjoy traveling the United States and the world trying to see racing at places that I have never visited before. For this particular trip to Argentina, I would visit two different race tracks for a total of maybe seven or eight hours. The trip itself would take nine days. That might give you some indication about the amount of time that is spent at a race track relative to the overall length of the trips I take.
I pretty much started from scratch with contacts in Argentina. Through some online electronic detective work, I came up with two people, Alejandro (above left), and Maximiliano (above right with Pipi), who helped get me all set up with the racing. Not only did they help me through the Spanish-speaking maze of racing information they set me up to be an “insider” within the Argentina culture. Max introduced me to his family and friends. They fed me, they transported me and they entertained me. I told y’all about that trip to Bahia Blanca in Part 1 of the Argentina report.
This newsletter focuses exclusively on the Buenos Aires part of the trip. I would spend a couple of days in Buenos Aires, to begin with, and a couple of days at the end of the trip as well. This is what happened. Some of this may sound risky. I don’t think it was. However, everyone assigns a different level of risk to different levels of behavior. Sometimes, in my judgment, this restricts a person’s life experience but then that’s just me talking.
I left our modest seaside cottage very early on a Saturday morning. I flew into Phoenix, Arizona. I ended up seeing a race at The Podium Club @ Atessa club track in Casa Grande, Arizona. This is a brand-new racing facility. They have a lot of work to do. When that race was finished, I hopped on a jet airplane and flew from Phoenix, Arizona to Newark, New Jersey for the evening.
On Sunday my flight to South America wasn’t leaving until the early evening. This allowed me to ride a train from Newark into New York City. I spent the afternoon in my all-time favorite touring city just gawking at the tall buildings and eating street food.
I grew up in central Illinois in a small town. I first started coming to New York City for business when I was about 23 years old. I was a hick from the sticks. I couldn’t walk down the streets of Manhattan without having a firm grip on my “billfold”.
Now several decades later, I have been to New York City two or three times a year and well over 100 times in my life. I no longer carry a billfold. That thing used to be so thick. It hurt my butt. Now my phone carries everything that I need including currency.
I have several methods that I use when flying on these longer trips. For my flight to Argentina, I used just 30,000 Alaska Airlines’ frequent flyer miles to get me from New York City to Buenos Aires, Argentina. I was shocked when I came up with that offer when American Airlines was charging about four times that amount of miles to make the same trip.
When it was time to fly I rode the subway from Manhattan to JFK airport. I was pretty much the only guy who looked like me on the train. I noticed there was one fellow kind of keeping an eye on me on the train. It would be easy to project a negative future outcome on his behavior.
He noticed I was carrying my luggage for the trip on the subway. That made him conclude that I was probably going to the airport! When it was time to switch to another train, he gave me a heads-up and told me this was the train I needed to switch to. It turned out this fellow, dressed in civilian clothes, was from Ecuador. He worked for Delta Airlines and rode the same train to JFK to work every day. We spent a few minutes talking. What a nice guy and very helpful in my situation. I was, once again, reminded that you can’t judge a book by its cover.
When I take these trips, I do everything I possibly can to make things run smoothly and provide a comfortable experience. I’m a member of the Priority Pass Club. This is a benefit of my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card. PP allows me into private airline clubs at no extra charge. Today I stopped in the Prime Class Lounge at JFK. This wasn’t the best lounge that I’ve ever been in but they did offer free food and drink.
Yes, I was getting a tremendous value with Alaska Airlines’ frequent flyer miles but that value came at a bit of a time expense. I would need to first stop in Santiago, Chile from New York City on my way to Buenos Aires. Honestly, I didn’t mind that 10-hour flight a bit. Although I’ve been to Chile, I don’t get to Chile all that often. They’ve got a beautiful brand-new airport in Santiago.
The flight from Santiago to Buenos Aires was only two hours in length. When I landed, I immediately got a text message from AT&T. What did they want? They were telling me that for $10 a day, I could use my phone in Argentina just as if I were at home in San Clemente, California. I thought that was a fantastic deal. I would sign on for that every day. Normally, I use my phone as a GPS unit with my foreign rental cars but I would not be renting any cars on this trip.
When I landed at the Buenos Aires airport, I had an opportunity to get an official taxi to take me wherever I might want to go. I rode all over Buenos Aires on this trip. I didn’t use a taxi a single time. I used Uber. Uber was fast, convenient, and cheap.
One of the biggest advantages of Uber in foreign countries is you don’t have to mess with foreign currency or battle any language barriers. I used my phone’s Uber app to order each Uber ride. The drivers showed up in five minutes or less. I hopped in the front seat so I could take pictures. I arrived at my destinations safely and on time. I love Uber.
When I landed in Buenos Aires, I noticed they had a McDonald’s. I don’t think anyone should ever eat at McDonald’s when they are in a foreign country. Nevertheless, I don’t always follow my own advice. If I look at the menu and see they have an Item that isn’t on any menu in an American McDonald’s I might stop and try it. I did that today.
The use of electronic kiosks is much more prevalent at McDonald’s outside of the United States than it is in the US. Why is that? I have a couple of theories. I’ll tell you about those next time. My first expenditure in Argentina came to 2,230 pesos.
I noticed that they had a grilled cheese sandwich on the menu. I had never ordered that in America, so I figured I would give it a try. The sandwich was only marginal in terms of tastiness. You could probably get the same thing in Sheboygan, Wisconsin if you simply ordered a McDonald’s cheeseburger and have them hold the burger.
Now it was time to ride from the airport via Uber to my Sheraton hotel in downtown Buenos Aires. I checked Uber. Each time I pulled up the itinerary the price was different. At one point they wanted 10,090 Argentina pesos for the ride. After I played around with it a little bit I got a rate of 5,870 pesos. If you know how to do the right thing, you’re likely going to be able to save some money when you travel. I guess that’s true about everything in life. If you know how to do things the right way you will win most of the time.
I probably used Uber 8-10 times when I was in Buenos Aires, maybe more. None of the drivers spoke English. Nevertheless, they were all super friendly.
I had been to Argentina one other time. That was back in 2009. In reading my review from that trip, I noticed that I could exchange one American dollar for three Argentina pesos fifteen years ago. Now the bank rate offered everywhere in the city was one American dollar would get you 190 Argentina pesos. Folks, that’s inflation.
When someone tells you that you can exchange one American dollar for 190 American pesos is that a good idea? Without a little bit of research and knowledge, you won’t really know. I kept my ear to the ground and soon found out that there was a “black market” for exchanging U.S. dollars for Argentina pesos. If you went to the black market, you could get somewhere around 350-375 Argentina pesos or nearly twice the official bank rate offered in Argentina.
If you hear the phrase “cocaine black market” does that upset you? Is it the word cocaine or black market that is most offensive? I have never used cocaine, but I am not above participating in a black market if that provides a financial benefit.
Later in this trip, I would be a willing participant in the black market. I would go with a “friend” to the home of another “friend”. We would sit down in a somewhat sterile environment and make an “exchange” not unlike what John DeLorean was purported to do. I wasn’t trying to save my car company. I just didn’t want to get hosed on a simple vacation.
I would be staying for just two nights at the Sheraton Hotel & Convention Center in Buenos Aires. I carry the frequent stay status of “titanium elite” when I use Marriott properties of which Sheridan is one of their hotel brands.
What does titanium elite get you? For me, it gets pretty much anything that I can think to ask for. I am a strong believer in the adage that says “If you don’t ask you don’t get”. I always ask.
When I checked in, I asked if they had a suite. They did. The Sheraton was an older hotel built in the early 70s. It caters to conventions but has a good location. Their suites are sort of the “old line” suites. You get a separate room with a huge sofa and several chairs and a bar. They gave me a beautiful suite at no extra charge.
Then they asked me if I would like to have a complimentary bottle of wine. Although I drink wine, I prefer soda. I asked if I could grab a bottle of soda from their Marketplace shop. They told me no they couldn’t do that. I would have to go with the wine. Even though I didn’t expect to drink the wine, I told them to deliver it to my room. When I checked into my room they already had a bottle of wine waiting for me. Then they delivered a second bottle of vino. Sometimes these folks give me stuff faster than I can ask for it.
I would also have admission to the “Sheraton Club”. This was a private club for the hotel’s best guests and was open from 2 p.m. until 8 p.m. every day. The club was up on the 22nd floor. It offered free beer, wine, soft drinks, and heavy hors d’oeuvres. I visited that place frequently.
Of course, with my titanium elite membership, a beautiful complimentary buffet, as well as a cooked-to-order breakfast, was included with my room at no charge. Sometimes Marriott gives me so much “free stuff” that the value just about wipes out whatever I ended up paying for the room in the first place. It’s kind of like going over to your grandma’s house when you were a kid. She can’t give you enough stuff. That’s always a nice feeling, isn’t it?
The middle part of my trip (Part 1 of 2) would take me to a small town in Argentina. That was going to be a real highlight of the trip. At the same time, I wasn’t going to be shortchanged with my couple of days at the beginning and the end of the trip here in Buenos Aires.
I’m a big one for riding the “hop on; hop off bus” for a quick way to get an overall visual of the city I am visiting. I did that on Monday morning in Buenos Aires. A highlight was driving past the stadium where the Boca Juniors football club plays.
I wouldn’t say that I was super impressed with the three-hour bus ride. The bus was a nice way to simply relax after I had been flying for so many hours in the past couple of days. Of course, with these types of bus rides, you have the option of getting off and on whenever you want. My experience has been that once you get off the bus, you sometimes have to wait a good long time to get back on the bus. More often than not I’ll simply ride the entire circle and then go back to the areas that held the most interest.
This afternoon I was going to be in the heart of the Buenos Aires carnival celebration.
Wikipedia describes the Buenos Aries Carnaval this way.
“The Buenos Aires Carnival is an annual event that takes place during the Carnival festivities, usually at the end of February, on the streets of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The two-day event features murga parades, colorful costumes, water bombs, and many other amusement activities.
During the 20th century, the Carnavales at Avenida de Mayo (de Mayo Avenue) were very popular, but they were discontinued first during the military government of the 1970s, and then during the 1990s. Mayor Aníbal Ibarra promoted the comeback of carnival (mainly into the barrios) in the mid-2000s, and the Avenida de Mayo show returned in 2006.
Starting in 2012, Carnival dates are considered public holidays.”
The weather was perfect but a little bit on the warm side with temperatures in the mid-80s. I am accustomed to ocean breezes and prefer temperatures in the low 70s.
I ended up walking about a mile and a half from my hotel to where the carnival celebration was going to take place. I was in the last week or so of my one-year odyssey to walk four miles every day. I’m glad to report that on March 1, 2023, I achieve that goal.
I’ve seen the Mardi Gras parade celebrations in New Orleans a couple of times. I enjoyed that. What they were doing here in Buenos Aires late in the afternoon was similar.
If I was the only guy who looked like me and acted like me on the New York subway, then I was equally “that guy” hanging out amid a huge crowd of carnival revelers in Buenos Aires.
The crowd was wild. The music was loud and intense. Don’t miss the video! Wanna see it right now? Click HERE. This was a huge BRESH party. Bresh is essentially a Latin dance party. To be honest I don’t go to a lot of Latin dance parties. Therefore, I was not up to speed on what a Bresh party actually was. However, when I told two twenty-six-year-old Argentina friends (Coti and Fio) that I went to a Bresh party they were suitably impressed. That was good enough for me.
One of the things they do at Carnival is people have spray cans of what looks like shaving cream. The contents come out in a fine mist. People are constantly spraying everywhere and everybody. The stuff lands on your hair and your shirt and if you get too close to it, you look like you are about ready to shave. I was busy taking a photo of a woman getting heavily sprayed down when one of her friends sprayed me down the same way. It was pretty wild.
I hung out with my “people” with the music, and the bands and marchers float by for a couple of hours. The streets are beyond jammed packed. I could see and hear the next group of marchers coming from two blocks away with their flags waving in the breeze and their band playing that incessant drum beat. This is one of the wildest things I’ve ever been in the middle of.
I started to get hungry. Then I realized that I was in a neighborhood where they probably didn’t take credit cards all that much. I didn’t have any Argentina pesos. It was time for me to experience the black market in a very informal way.
I simply walked up to a kiosk that was small and independent. They were selling candy bars, sodas, and the like. They had a huge metal security fence across the entrance with an opening that might’ve been 6“x 10”. Maybe they were trying to protect themselves from the carnival crowd. Nevertheless, I asked if they might be able to exchange pesos for my $20 bill. They gave me an exchange rate of 350 pesos for each of my American dollars.
With my newfound pesos, I marched into another kiosk just down the street and ordered a “Pancho”. No, it wasn’t raining! Pancho is Spanish for “Uruguayan hot dog made with a sausage in a pan de Viena bun. The sausage often sticks out from the bun as it is usually longer than pan de Viena. My pancho and a bottle of Pepsi Max cost me about two dollars U.S.
It has been a pretty long day. The time zone in Argentina was five hours ahead of back home in California. I had already walked more than four miles. I checked on Uber. Soon I had a ride for 630 pesos back to the hotel. This was a 10-minute ride. At my most recent exchange rate of 350 pesos/dollars the ride cost me $1.80 U.S. Folks if you can get someone to pick you up in a foreign country and drive you for ten minutes to your destination for $1.80 you’ve done well. And yes, another friendly Uber driver.
On Wednesday I would begin my venture to Bahia Blanca. if you read my review of that portion of the trip (Part 1 of 2 – Argentina 2023), you will notice I included a lot of local, and behind-the-scenes experiences that most tourists wouldn’t come close to having. Traveling to Bahia Blanca was the highlight of the trip. But this is my review of Buenos Aries so let’s continue.
It was on Saturday morning that I returned to Buenos Aires with a couple of fun things planned. I’ve been talking to the concierge at the Sheraton Hotel. He was most helpful. I had an interest in going to a “real” Argentina futbol/soccer match.
I’m a huge sports fan. Whenever I can see “sport” in foreign countries, that’s going to be a true trip highlight. I’ve seen cricket played at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds (above), one of the largest stadiums in the world that seats more than 100,000 people, and Japanese major league baseball in Nagoya. I’ve seen rugby played in Croatia at a huge historic stadium.
I’ve also seen soccer played in Panama at the highest level and in a fairly dodgy environment. I was happy to have our driver shepherding Carol along with that one.
This past summer I saw Belgium host Scotland, in a European league football match in another one of those massive stadiums. The atmosphere was intense. Everything felt safe because there were so many policemen riding around on horseback!
At the Sheraton, for about 35,000 pesos or maybe about 100 bucks, they would set me up with transportation to and from a soccer match at the José Amalfitani Stadium. Velez Sarsfield would be hosting Boca. The Boca Juniors are sort of like the New York Yankees of Argentina futbol. I couldn’t see a match at the Boca stadium, but seeing the Boca Juniors play at Velez would be my next best opportunity.
When it was time I hopped in a van with about eight other soccer fans who were visiting Argentina. They wanted to get a feel for their favorite sport. I was the only native English speaker in the group.
It was now nighttime. The ride to the futbol stadium from my hotel took about an hour. I reminded myself that paying about $100 for round-trip transportation to the game including my ticket wasn’t such a bad deal after all. Our friendly but not much English-speaking guide (above) kept track of the money part of this deal.
I would come to find out that some of the people on the van trip were staying at the Sheraton as part of a worldwide mover’s convention. One guy from Mexico City and another from Guatemala spoke English well enough to give me a little bit of background on what we were about to see tonight.
I’ll be the first want to tell you that I am not a big soccer fan. At the same time, I will be all over the opportunity to see a soccer match in a foreign environment anytime that I can. I am all about the experience. I’m always searching for that extra experience that I’ve never seen before.
The football match ended up with Boca beating Velez 2-1. It didn’t matter to me who won the game or what the score was. I was just there to soak up the experience. The most ardent Velez fans beat a drum and cheered from the moment the match began until it ended over the space of about two hours. These are avid fans. They make most American sports fans seem as if they are paralyzed.
On Sunday morning, I grabbed another Uber for a ride out to the Autodromo de Buenos Aires, Oscar y Juan Galvez racing facility. This place was built back in 1952 and seats 45,000 people. The circuit is located in a city park.
I was most surprised to learn that the famous World Formula 1 race organization held the Argentina Grand Prix here from 1953-1998. The place didn’t look like it would be up to that to me. It was interesting to note that the Argentine Grand Prix was dropped from the 1982 calendar because Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. If it’s not one thing it’s another! I’ll bet you had forgotten that.
The racing at today’s course could not have been any more different than the racing I saw in Bahia Blanca. In Bahia Blanca, they raced open-wheeled midget race cars on a short quarter-mile dirt oval track. At the Autodromo de Buenos Aires, the racing was done on a 3-4 kilometer paved road course. Today the TC 2000 race group was the featured attraction.
In the racing world road racing is referred to as the “wine and cheese” set. The short-track racing is often called the “beer and pretzels” group. Not only is that true in the United States it appears to be true everywhere that I’ve seen it across the world.
I knew that I would need a race ticket for today’s event. I was advised to get one in advance of showing up today. That sounded like a good idea. This was not easy to do.
When I went to try to get my ticket the website was in Spanish. I would need to create an account in Spanish and then order my ticket. I bailed on that idea until I got the Bahía Blanca.
When I did get the Bahia Blanca, I asked my friend Coti (above center), who is a native Spanish speaker, to help me out with the ticket. Coti laboriously went through their website and created an account for me complete with my username and password. She ordered a ticket for a total of 2500 pesos or about eight bucks. What a hassle.
When I showed up at the track today I just kept walking and nobody stopped me. Why didn’t they stop me? I’m not sure but I don’t think they frequently encounter 6‘3” white guys all that often.
In reality, I never needed a ticket today at all. I just kept walking past this person at that gate and the next person at the next entry point. Soon I was inside the facility. I figured I could plead ignorance on several levels. I could use the age card or I could use the language barrier card or any other cards that seemed like they might work today.
With this approach, I walked into all of the most secure areas of the paddock area, and the sponsor hospitality areas as well. I was dining on the delicacies of these sponsorships and drinking their liquids just as if I was one of their highest-paying customers. Remember, if you don’t ask you don’t get.
The temperature seemed warmer today, possibly in the low 90s. I walked around and soaked up all of the ambiance as a beneficiary of being a road racing fan.
With road racing, you can’t get that up close to the actual racing action. Oftentimes, you can’t even see the entire race course. This is why I will take a quarter-mile dirt oval every time over a road course.
Nevertheless, it is the “ambiance” of these events that I find most attractive. After I had soaked up all of the ambiance that I could possibly soak up in a three-hour time frame on a very hot day in Argentina, I got in touch with Uber.
It was now a Sunday afternoon. I had an option. I could try to fly home this evening. If I didn’t make it, I could simply stay another night at the Sheridan, which was my original plan.
One of the benefits of the titanium elite frequent stay status is that I can check out as late as 4 p.m. Tonight’s flight wasn’t leaving until 9 p.m. I checked out at four and then hung out in the Sheraton Club for another couple of hours until it was time to head to the airport.
I waited in line to clear security and get checked in. That took more than an hour. It was kind of fun to listen to “rookie” travelers, who had just gotten back from a cruise. They were worried about whether or not the security line was going to move quickly enough for them. They were in line four hours ahead of time! I didn’t worry. Some people simply enjoy worrying. This allows them to have something to talk about. I prefer not to worry and not to talk about things that worry people but then that’s just me.
I still had about $50 worth of pesos to spend. I wasn’t sure when I might be returning to Argentina. Holding onto pesos, as evidenced by the change in the peso exchange rate from 2009 until this trip, told me it would not be a good idea to hold onto the pesos I had.
I walked into the duty-free store and got the attention of an attractive saleswoman. I told her I had 50 bucks to spend. I asked her to give me a recommendation on what might be the very best fragrance for my wife. I like to put myself in the hands of the most capable and qualified people who know what things are all about in their specialty.
She gave me a recommendation. Off I went to stand in a long line to buy the fragrance. Then, when I got to the head of the line, I was told that it was “too late to buy liquids for the flight that I was taking”. That was a first. What could I do? Carol wasn’t going to get a beautiful fragrance but she was going to get $50 worth of Argentina pesos!
Carol will hold onto these pesos just like she does every other currency that we bring home from our trips. Then two years down the line or five years or fifteen years from now she will raid her stash and give me the money we need.
Readers might want to ask why doesn’t Carol come on all of these trips. It’s rather simple. I prefer to travel more than Carol does. For us, travel is not all or nothing.
Folks as you know we’re not talking about my preference for travel being twenty days a year and Carol’s preference being ten days a year. My preference is around 200 days of travel each year. Carol feels more comfortable with 60 or maybe 80 days a year. She is also quite willing to let me go on trips by myself when my desire to travel exceeds hers.
It might not be accurate to think of Carol as a “stay-at-home person”. By gosh, she is willing to travel 60-80 days a year. That’s probably more travel than just about anyone reading this particular section of my review.
It just turns out that within a week of my return from Argentina, we will be heading off to Australia. I haven’t been to Australia for eight weeks. It’s time for me to go again. I think Carol’s last trip to Australia might have been in 2019 when we celebrated New Year’s Eve in Melbourne, which was quite the experience. Someday a message will pop up in your email box telling you about what Carol and I did in Australia. I will predict this right now. We will have a good time and we will have a good story to share.
I was able to fly from Buenos Aires to Dallas, Texas. Then using my Global Entry capabilities, I cleared U.S. border control in the space of about 10 seconds. This allowed me to make an early morning flight from Dallas back to Los Angeles.
Argentina had been fun. The highlight was meeting the family and friends of Maximiliano in Bahia Blanca. They took me in as one of their own.
In Buenos Aires, the highlight was attending their carnival celebration and seeing, their highest level of soccer in one of their historic, huge older stadiums.
That’s it from Argentina. I just told you how I did it. You might prefer and feel more comfortable doing it some other way. It doesn’t matter. If you go out on a trip and have fun that’s a good trip.
Randy Lewis
IRS identified World Traveler
P.S. Yes! There IS a video from my visit to the Carnival celebration in Buenos Aries and the futbol match in BA.
Check it out! Click HERE