Saturday, July 30, 2016

Heading To Buenos Aires 2016: Part 3 - The Ecological Reserve

We had two missions on our third day in Buenos Aires.
Locate:
  • T.G.I.F.
  • Costenera Sur Ecological Reserve
We took a train and headed towards Puerto Madero to find the T.G.I.F. that we'd gone to three years ago. We were keeping our fingers crossed that this one hadn't been replaced by a NIKE Store like the one in Alto Palermo.
AQUAMAN SIGHTING: I know it's difficult to tell, but this guy had the tightest and greenest pants I've seen and his sweater was orange. For some reason it reminded me of Aquaman.
Puerto Madero was still beautiful despite the fact that the sky was gloomy. At least it didn't rain at all.
Mission Accomplished!
We started off with some appetizers! So far, T.G.I.F. is the only place where we can actually get Jack Daniel's sauce in Argentina.
 Then it was time for the main course
Of course, we couldn't leave without having dessert. I've been dying for some cheesecake, the decent kind and not the poor desiccated excuse I've found sold in some of the local bakeries in our host province.
The total came out to about 1,150 Argentine pesos ($76.56 USD). Three years ago, the cost of a meal at T.G.I.F. was 80 Argentine pesos (15.00 USD). Granted, we skipped dessert the last time, but that was a huge cost increase. Not that I'm complaining. The food was great and it was worth every peso.

Now we were off to find the ecological reserve. Since we'd never walked to the other side of Puerto Madero, we weren't entirely sure where this thing was. We ended up asking for directions quite a bit.
Of course, some people were a bit stiff.
Clearly Zach had something totally different in mind
The area heading to the reserve was lovely. There were plenty of buildings. What can I say? I'm not much of a nature lover. I love seeing tall buildings, shopping centers and lots of traffic. I'm just a big city boy.
WHAT???
We Have A Jumper!
Give Me Five
You don't look so tough!
Peek-A-Boo!
We finally reached the ecological reserve and you'd swear you'd crossed through some kind of wormhole. Alright, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but it was certainly a huge departure from the busy city.
I'm from South Florida, and I've visited the Everglades on several occasions. So this was somewhat reminiscent.
 We thought this was the Atlantic Ocean, but it turns out, it's a river called "Rio De La Plata". If you crossed it on a boat you could end up in Uruguay.
It's been awhile since I've been near a body of water. As a kid, my parents would take me to Miami Beach to play. While I certainly wouldn't want to walk barefoot on these shores here, the scenery is still spectacular.
I really didn't want to head back, at least not right away. But the sun would start to go down in an hour or so, and it was quite a walk back to the city. So we figured we'd start right away.
We considered going to the casino, which wasn't too far from the reserve, but we did a lot of walking for one day. Criticize me if you must, but I just turned 39 on July 9th. I'm not an active person and these old bones were weary and needed some serious rest.
We did however go to the casino the next day, so click on the link below to read about our experience on day 3 in Buenos Aires.