These days, whenever I’m in
Buenos Aires, I prefer to
get around on foot—while it’s more time-consuming than the
Subte, city
buses or taxis (all of which I use on occasion), walking offers the opportunity
to view the city at a slower pace and also provides some exercise that can be
otherwise hard to find on the unrelentingly flat terrain. During my recently
stay, I walked as much as 11 miles (about 17 km) per day, though most of the
time I did half that or a bit less. At some point soon, I’m planning to write
about Buenos Aires specifically as a walker’s city—both the good and the bad.
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| Outside Buenos Aires Bus offices, on Diagonal Norte |
I rarely take tours but, shortly before leaving
Argentina
earlier this month, I chose to see the city through two services I’d not
known personally—
Buenos Aires Bus
and
Biking Buenos Aires. Buenos
Aires Bus is a hop-on/hop-off tourist shuttle that runs two separate routes
around the city, between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. (though the northerly
recorrido verde operates only between 10
a.m. and 6:50 p.m. Frequencies are 20 minutes on the central and southerly
recorrido azul/rojo and 30 minutes on
the
verde.
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| The Buenos Aires Bus stop on Avenida Libertador in Palermo, two blocks from my apartment |
While the company has its offices downtown, a short walk
from the central Plaza de Mayo, it has convenient stops throughout the most
visited parts of the city, and it’s possible to purchase tickets online and
board near your accommodations. In my case, there’s a stop just a couple blocks
from my
Palermo
Botánico apartment, where I boarded for the ride downtown.
 |
| Aboard a roofless Buenos Aires Bus |
The buses themselves are double-deckers, sometimes open to
the sun and sometimes shaded by a tarp; the lower deck is available when it
rains. There are trilingual guides on board—Spanish, English and Portuguese—but
there are also audio guides in seven other languages, including German, French,
Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew and Arabic. Every passenger receives a pair
of headphones to hear the narration.
 |
| The iconic Obelisco, from the upper deck of Buenos Aires Bus |
Sitting in the upper deck, I got a view of the city that was
rather different from that of a pedestrian and I only regret that, as the end
of my stay approached, I was not able to take full advantage of the service.
For a first-time visitor to the city, though, it’s an option worth
consideration, available either for 24 hours at Ar$670 (about US$34) or 48
hours at Ar$850 (about US$43) per person.
Biking Buenos Aires
On another day, though, I was able to indulge myself on a
bicycle tour through parts of the city I’ve long known. Based in
San Telmo,
Biking Buenos Aires offers a variety
of excursions, ranging from a five-hour “Heart of the City Tour” to a
seven-hour “Ultimate City Tour” and thematic tours on architecture, urban art
(including graffiti) and even a combined bike and kayak trip to the northern
suburbs.
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| The Biking Buenos Aires offices in San Telmo |
In the last week of my stay, I chose the “Heart of the City”
option, which started around 11 a.m. with an orientation meeting, at Biking’s
offices, for the eight of us (all Americans except for an English-speaking
French couple). Our guides were Cristina Marey, a Galician woman who headed the
group, and Olaf Menger, a Dutchman who brought up the rear and directed traffic
at intersections where notoriously aggressive
porteño drivers might plow into us.
 |
| At Parque Lezama, with the Russian Orthodox Church in the background, at right |
Our first stop was
Parque Lezama, only a few
minutes from Biking’s offices, where Cristina spoke about the city’s supposed founding
here by
Pedro de
Mendoza in 1536, and pointed out local landmarks such as the
Iglesia Ortodoxa
Rusa. We then rode on to
La
Boca for a stop at the traditional
Caminito, where I was a
reluctant recruit for a tango lesson with Olaf—I have two left feet and no
sense of rhythm (at tango’s beginning, men danced with each other in brothels
while waiting for a prostitute).
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| The Caminito is an obligatory stop in La Boca. |
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| Until April, Ai Weiwei's "Forever Bicycles" will occupy the sidewalk outside the Fundación Proa. |
The lesson was mercifully brief, followed by a short walk
around the Caminito, where I saw two interesting novelties: first, at the
Fundación Proa, a bicycle-oriented art
installation by
Ai
Weiwei (here until early April), and then a fresh-squeezed orange-juice
cart. Increasing in numbers, the orange juice carts are a welcome phenomenon in
the city’s summer heat, are increasing in numbers.
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| Fresh-squeezed orange juice carts are an increasingly common sight on the city's streets. |
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| Local boy Carlos Tévez is a hero in La Boca. |
I heard, in the orientation, that we would see murals in La
Boca, but I anticipated the
historic
paintings on the walls of
La Bombonera,
Boca Juniors’ iconic
soccer stadium. Instead, we proceeded to a part of the barrio I didn’t know,
where newly painted murals, such as this one of barrio hero
Carlos Tévez—who recently
re-signed with his original team—cover the sides of high-rise apartments. La
Bombonera is visible in the distance, but in the other direction.
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| Puerto Madero's Reserva Ecológica is a reclaimed landfill. |
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| Also atop the reclaimed landfill are luxury apartment buildings. |
From La Boca, we rode toward the shores of the
Río de la Plata and
the
Reserva
Ecológica Costanera Sur, where grasses, shrubs, woodlands and birds have
colonized a landfill that was once off-limits. It’s part of the city’s newest
barrio,
Puerto Madero,
which is also the wealthiest but, not so far in the future, its luxury
high-rises might require canoe or kayak access as rising seas also raise the
river’s level in an already flood-prone zone.
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| Biking's clients lunch at Puerto Madero, with the Reserva Ecológica in the background. |
Emerging from the woods, we lunched at a sandwich stand
before continuing to the classic
diques
(basins) of the old port, now surrounded by the city’s priciest real estate,
and the landmark
Puente
de la Mujer pedestrian bridge. Cristina commented that Puerto Madero is
unaffordable for all but the wealthiest porteños, and that’s certainly true,
but as
Andrew
Graham-Yooll once remarked to me, its ample public spaces—not limited to
the Reserva Ecológica—are open to visitors of all social classes.
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| Spanish architect Antonio Calatrava's Puente de la Mujer has become an icon of Puerto Madero. |
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| Puerto Madero's public areas are open to all, for activities like pickup soccer games. |
Leaving Puerto Madero, we had our only uphill segment—a short
one, but still a bit of an effort on a relatively heavy bike—before reaching
the central
Plaza de Mayo
and its landmark buildings. Unfortunately, the Plaza itself is undergoing a
major remodel (at the height of tourist season!), so we soon looped back to
Biking’s offices and the conclusion of a satisfying 17-km two-wheel trip.
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| Shortly after I took this photo, from the balcony of the colonial Cabildo, the Plaza de Mayo closed for a major remodel. |
