Buenos Aires - March 1, 2016

After spending our first night on the Star Princess, we had a full day in Buenos Aires before we would set sail for Montevideo, Uruguay in the evening.  This was our first cruise with Princess and our first on a very large ship.  We were quite apprehensive because we love the smaller ships.  We were so glad we had booked a balcony and as the trip progressed, we enjoyed sitting on the balcony at the end of the day and witnessed many wonderful sunsets.

We booked a shore excursion for the day.  We headed out on the typical "cruise ship" tour busses ....  loaded with every shapes and forms of humans.  The tour started with a drive through the city to the Plaza de Mayo (scene of yesterdays geocache), but we were not able to see this area or get off the bus because all traffic was diverted because the new government was taking over.  This made the traffic absolutely horrible for most of our trip.

It was cool to drive through North Palerno, past the parks and see the "dog walkers" handling as many as 12 dogs on each hand.   Here the majestic old homes, referred to in W.E.B. Griffin's novels, have been converted to embassies.

The main focus for us today was La Recoleta Cemetery, located in an exclusive neighbourhood in Buenos Aires.  It is a city of 6,400 Neo classical, Neo gothic, Art Nouveau, and Art Deco mausoleums.  Included here is the black marble crypt of legendary Eva Peron.  We were fortunate to tour for an hour and were glad to have a guide as a person could get lost here.  Certainly makes New Orleans look tiny!

Eva Peron's Mausoleum

Entrance to the Duarte Family Mausoleum 

One of the many roads in the cemetery

Real estate in the cemetery is very expensive.  Families have been buried here for many generations.  Rents can be as much as apartment rentals, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.  When families discontinue payment, the remains are removed.

This family did not pay their rent.   Monty Python ....  "bring out your dead"

La Boca District is a  historic neighbourhood at the mouth of the Riachuelo River and has a strong European flavour, multi-coloured houses, vibrant street art scenes and a number of atmospheric tango cafes.  Unfortunately, it started to rain quite hard while we were there ...  but we did manage to shop.

La Boca District ....  rainy, but you get the idea how cool these shops and building were

La Boca District ....  these looked so real

The traffic was still extremely busy as we headed back to the ship, but it gave us lots of time to see the city.  Buenos Aires certainly would merit a return visit.

We boarded our ship once again and settled in for our cruise.  The compulsory lifeguard drill was interesting.  We have been to many and seen them done quite a few different ways, but this one had a unique ending.  We were shown how to hold our nose and jump into the water.  Trust me, there was no place on that ship we would have jumped into the water from.

It was nice to enjoy the sail out of the harbour at sunset, of course a nice glass of Argentinian Malbec helped.