Breakfast at the Reino Del Plata is a fairly elaborate buffet, with very strong coffee. Andrea, our guide, met us in the hotel lobby at 9, for a great private 4 hour city tour of various Buenos Aires neighborhoods. Julio drove the large sedan. It was a beautiful late summer day. The first stop was the busy Sunday morning San Telmo neighborhood flea market. The next stop was La Boca, a colorful tourist neighborhood. Tango was invented here. We walked around La Boca, stopping at shops and for pictures. Houses here display the flag and colors of the immensely popular Boca Juniors soccer team. On the way to our next stop, we passed by the Boca Junior soccer stadium. Julio took a slight detour to show us the elegant mansions of the Chico Palermo neighborhood. The final stop of the tour was Recoleta, a very busy upscale neighborhood. Here, Andrea seemed to know people, from all walks of life, from the elderly artisan woman selling her linen crafts at the flea market to the honorable and distinguished Elisa 'Lilita' Carrio', a popular politician who finished 2nd in the last presidential election. People strolled the park-like cemetery behind the church this Sunday afternoon. The cemetery has neatly laid out streets, filled entirely with upper class family mausoleums. We paid our respects at the Duarte family tomb, where Eva Peron has been securely buried for the past 24 years. (The whereabouts of Eva Peron’s corpse for the prior 24 years would fill a book.) At end of tour we chose to remain in Recoleta. We walked around the flea market and we sampled great street food - baked beef empanadas, purchased from a street vendor for about $1.25 each. We walked to the nearby National Museum of Fine Arts. This free and outstanding museum houses world class paintings, drawings and sculptures by impressionists and other well known artists. After about 90 minutes in the museum, we took a taxi back to the presidential palace area for pictures. Then we we walked down into the Peru St subway station, near the hotel, looking for the 100 year old wooden cars that are still running. We saw only a modern train with graffiti. We rested at the hotel for a few hours before being picked up by the Esquina Carlos Gardel bus for their tango dinner show. There were around 200 tourists at the tango show. We sat with a couple from Holland and a couple from Brazil. We had a very nice 3 course steak dinner, with wine. We enjoyed the 1.5 hour professional tango show with several intricate dance numbers, accompanied by a 7 piece orchestra. We got back to the hotel around midnight for a few hours of sleep.
The trip was not only memorable for the amount of animals we saw but also for the people and accommodations at the two camps where we stayed. Our first guide, BK, was a wealth of information about the animals, landscape and down to the plants and what they were used for. Everyday out was a learning experience with him. All the people at the camps were gracious and the food was excellent.
Our second camp in the Okavanga was just as good as the first as far as the staff, accommodations, food and animals. After our experience at the first camp we amazed that the high quality remained the same. Our guide, G, made sure we were able to enjoy every experience including a rush through the bush to witness a cheetah and an ensuing hunt that he heard over his radio.
In both camps there were enough guides out that if they saw something the other guides were informed which helped in seeing as much as possible. It was also nice that the concessions were large enough that we did not have vehicles following each other throughout the day.
Normally there is always something in a trip of this length that we think could be improved upon but this is the rare case where we cannot think of anything. From the time we left the States to when we returned it was one of the most hassle free vacations we took.
Perhaps emphasizing the use of the laundry facilities at the camps would be useful because of the luggage restrictions would be the only thing I can think of as an improvement to future clients.
Kenneth Dropek
1 day ago
Mary was so pleasant and professional. She made sure all of our questions were answered.