Buenos Aires, Argentina February 20 and 21

Our ship will spend two nights in Buenos Aires and the changeover of guests will take place on the 21st.  Of course we arrived about 45 minutes late and all the tours were pushed back.  In this port you have to get on a bus to get to the terminal (about a 10 minute ride) and then walk a winding path through the terminal to get to the tour buses.  We did not have a tour during the day so we spent our time reading, napping and packing up our cold weather clothes.  About 10 minutes after we put the suitcase under the bed our steward showed up with our coats and hats (gift for "Grand Cruise" passengers) that were supposed to be delivered at the start of the cruise.  It would have been nice to have those coats when we were in the cold weather!

We had an evening tour that went to a tango show.  It was really great, one of the best entertainments we have seen.  Unfortunately they would not allow photos once the show started.  There were eight dancers, five musicians, two singers, and two gauchos.  The costumes were fabulous and we could not believe how many costume changes they made right down to jewelry and shoes.

The Tango Show was in a very nice restaurant 

The stage was quite small and it was amazing to see 4 couples dancing the Tango at the same time in such a small area

So many passengers went on the tour that we pretty much filled the restaurant















On Sunday we had the changeover of passengers and began the Buenos Aires to Rio segment.  We took a tour as they are applying a "sanitation barrier"  all over the ship and if we stayed on board we would have to be confined to the horizon lounge until the task was completed.

Our tour included a bus ride through the northern suburbs which are very nice.  There were lots of large homes, and many restaurants and nice businesses.  The President's home is in this area.

We made a stop to visit a gothic cathedral and then continued on to the town of Tigre located on a delta where two rivers join.  We boarded a nice tour boat (it was air conditioned!) and cruised for an hour .  The area is very popular and being Sunday we saw hundreds of families enjoying the day on or near the water. We saw many small vacation or weekend homes on islands.  The only way to reach these homes is by water.  These homes are serviced by "market boats" and they even have trash collection.

The San Ysidro Cathedral

Our tour boat

There are about 25 "rowing clubs" on the river and this is one of the oldest, founded in 1905 

There are hundreds of weekend vacation homes on the islands.  Some are shacks and some are very nice like this one 

Historic home preserved under "glass"

The area also had many "resort clubs", many with restaurants and beaches















It was an enjoyable tour and we came back to the ship in time to get a late lunch (2 pm).  Many of the new guests were already on board sitting around with their hand luggage waiting to get into their suites.  It ended up being a long day for them as the sanitation process apparently ran very long and the rooms were not ready until 4:30.