Southern Exposure

Tuesday, April 14

We woke up early today and caught a ride with Fernando and Adela to downtown Buenos Aires (BA). Our main objective for today was to get information on shipping the bikes to Houston. We’ve done prior research and identified two shipping companies that handle motorcycle air freight, so we planned on visiting their offices in the morning. We had ruled out sea shipping based on other riders’ reports that claimed that while the initial costs might be cheaper, the paper process was tedious, the cargo took much longer to reach its destination, and the port fees were brutal and unregulated.

For some reason the car ride was tough on us, we both felt slightly nauseous, may be because we have not been riding in car in a city traffic for a long time. After Fernando dropped us off we went to a coffee shop to wait until the offices opened at 9 am.

My first impression of BA was that of a large but neat, orderly and lively metropolis. It is the world’s twelfth largest city with nearly 14 million inhabitants in the Greater Buenos Aires area. Its wide streets with five lanes of traffic in each direction reminded me of broad prospect streets of Moscow. While the streets are buzzing with cars and pedestrians you don’t feel so suffocated as in New York. BA has an eclectic mix of tradition and culture, classic and modern architecture, world-class arts and incomparable lifestyle. Its sense of spaciousness and open air is enhanced by the city’s countless parks, gardens and plazas, and the abundance of trees lining the often cobbled streets.

There are restaurants, bars and cafes to suit every taste and pocket. A myriad of shops, theatres, museums and galleries, beautiful French-style palaces and nineteenth-century townhouses with Italianate facades are all located within half a dozen of central barrios (neighborhoods) each with its own unique style and attractions. Being born and raised in a large and sometimes overbearing city like Moscow, and now having found pleasure living in medium-sized but incredibly green and beautiful city of Seattle, Buenos Aires seemed like the best of both worlds. I instantly fell in love with it. It didn’t take me long to realize this was my favourite city of the trip and I could not wait to spend some time here and explore it together with Matthew.

But first, we had to figure out our shipping situation. After coffee we walked to the offices of Navicon where we met with an air freight agent. He was professional and knowledgeable, but it was apparent that the company works mainly with large clients and he recommended we use an outside agent in addition to them to help us deal with customs, paperwork, etc. From Trevor and Nina’s report we knew we could omit this agent and do the paperwork ourselves. We had received a detailed quote from him based on a guess weight of 300+ kg a bike which came to about $1,200 per bike. We were hoping to save some money by putting the two bikes on one shipping palette, which he said was not possible with them.

We walked to the next shipper, All Cargo, getting a bit lost in the streets. We ended up taking a slight detour, that lead us to a Starbucks and produced an imminent craving for a Seattle-style latte, which we decided to get on the way back. Generally, at home we avoid going to a Starbucks, preferring to support small neighborhood coffee-shops, but when you are away for six months you start craving the most mundane things from home, like a Starbucks latte or a Burger King burger, which we never eat at home.

The All Cargo office was much smaller without a waiting area or a conference room, it was just a number of cubicles and busily working people, who paid little attention when we walked in. We were finally attended to by a woman in her window-corner office who gave us the shipment details in five minutes and said she would email us the quote shortly. Unlike Navicon, All Cargo could put the two bikes on one palette and will help us with all the paperwork and customs clearance.

We were quite satisfied with the results and decided to have an early lunch and coffee while we waited for the All Cargo quote. Since most cafes and hotels have free wi-fi, Matt was able to retrieve her quote on his iPhone within an hour. After a few emails back and forth, and suggesting that she book us on Continental vs American Airlines which we knew from the Navicon’s quote had cheaper rates, we calculated that All Cargo would be cheaper and easier for us to use, and confirmed with her that we would be using them for Thursday’s shipping.

In the afternoon, I was set on doing a city bus tour. Normally, I am not a fan of organized tourist tours, but because BA is such a big city, I felt like it would be helpful for us to see it as a big picture and then visit the individual neighborhoods in the days to come. Matt was not so keen on the idea but agreed to do it in the end.

It was a 3.5 hour tour that started in the micro center. For the next hour we were riding around the center collecting additional tourists which got on Matt’s nerves and seemed to justify his claim that city bus tours are worthless. But soon (or not soon) enough we finally started with the real tour. We drove through the main barrios of the center. One of the first things the guide pointed out was the Russian Orthodox Church which I never expected to see in Buenos Aires.

Retiro and Recoleta barrios were all about chic streets lined with boutiques, art galleries and cafes, and the largest concentration of French-style palaces owned in the past by the BA elite and now occupied by embassies. I put on our to-do list a tour of the famous Recoleta cemetery and a visit to the 25-meter-high aluminum and steel flower sculpture I saw from the bus window.

The Palermo barrio had the largest concentration of the city’s museums and gardens, including a Japanese Garden, a Rose Garden and a Botanical Garden, as well as the Museum of Modern Latino-American Art (MALBA) that I had read was a must visit for art lovers.

We then drove through the Boca barrio, which is famous for its soccer team the Boca Juniors, and their stadium La Bombonera.

Next up was the San Telmo neighborhood, with its colorful crumbled facades, cobbled streets, and improvised tango performances outside cafes and restaurants.

This is mostly a working class area, but it’s superb architecture, antique shops and artsy atmosphere attracts bohemians, tourists, and students for a less polished and/or developed look at BA.

The tour ended by taking us through the Puerto Madero barrio to the east of the city center that consists of four large docks that run along the Rio de la Plata. The main stroll is lined with brick warehouse buildings that were once storage spaces for grain from the Pampas, and now house voguish restaurants, luxury apartments and business offices.

One of the highlights was a white modernistic looking bridge by the famous Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, which was a reason for me to come back here later for a closer examination of this cool piece of modern architecture.

The bus dropped us off at the center and as we walked towards our meeting place with Fernadno and Adela to catch a ride home with them, we noticed a curious exhibition of bear sculptures on one of the plazas. The bears were arranged in a large circle and each represented a world country painted in traditional designs by an artist from that country. “The United Buddy Bears” is a charity that raises money for children in need and the exhibit had already been to five continents before arriving to South America.

I was a bit disappointed with the Russian Buddy Bear, there was nothing Russian about it. I would have done a Matreshka Bear or something cute like that. Matt however seemed very happy to hug his stately Bear of Liberty.

It was a lot of fun looking at the bear designs guessing their country of origin. Some of them were exceptionally artistic and humorous, others not so much. I bought a “Buddy Bears” t-shirt and a few stickers to support the charity, and we hurried to meet Fernando and Adela.

Back in our five-star residence, Adela cooked a delicious beef stroganoff which I had been craving for the last six months. Once on this trip in Baños, Ecuador, I was close to satisfying my craving, but the sauce had a very unsavory flavor, so much so that I had to send it back. This time though, they had to take away the serving dish from me, as I was keen on eating it all by myself.