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A row of towering buildings were just beginning to peak through the early morning haze as the Crystal Symphony made its way to historic Cartagena Bay where Spanish galleons once departed for the Old World filled with emeralds, silver and gold.

The modern skyline was not what we had expected to see from a 500-year-old Colombian city that remains one of best preserved examples of Spanish colonial architecture in the New World. Yet the high-rise condos that line the beaches of Cartagena’s Bocagrande quarter made a striking statement about the wonderful diversity of this spectacular city.

Once ashore, we began our bus tour by visiting the Popa Monastery, which is perched atop a hill that overlooks the entire city. The 17th-century monastery was built on the foundations of a razed Indian temple and now features a beautiful courtyard, a statue of the Virgin of Candelaria, and sweeping views of the city and bay below. 

Our next stop was the Castillo San Felipe Barejas, the fortress commissioned in 1536 to protect the city from marauding pirates and English invaders like Sir Francis Drake. Since Cartagena was one of the main holding stations for South American riches bound for Spain, the King decided it should have the largest and most expansive fortress in the New World. The result was the massive Castillo standing 41 metres above sea level that took 121 years to build.

After leaving the Castillo, our bus took us to the city’s old quarter where we found cobblestone streets filled with colonial-era mansions, grand cathedrals and balconies with bright flowers. Surrounded by a ring of stone walls that took over 200 years to complete, the city’s historic old town is so beautiful and historically significant that it has been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Since it was an extremely hot and humid day, we decided to begin our tour in a horse-drawn carriage, which wound its way along the quarter’s narrow, winding streets past street artisans and colourful plazas. We then returned to see several of the major landmarks including the late-16th century Catedral of Cartagena, the beautiful Church and Museum of San Pedro Claver built in 1580 and the stunning 450-year-old Iglesia Santo Domingo. The latter fronts onto a beautiful square where we stopped for a delicious lunch of ceviche, creole-style fish filet and fried plantains.

After lunch, we walked through Plaza Bolivar, the lovely city square dedicated to the hero who led the fight for Colombia’s independence. Then we re-boarded our tour bus and drove through the beach resort area of Bocagrande on our way for some shopping at its high-end jewelry stores.

Almost from the time of its discovery, Cartagena has been associated with emeralds which soon became the most sought-after jewels of the Spanish Crown. The brilliant green found in Colombian emeralds comes from the high content of chromium oxide in the region’s rich soil, which makes them unique in the world. Their composition also makes them ideal for cutting, which explains why there are so many jewelry stores, emerald cutters and gemologists in Cartagena.

We were tempted by the lovely and expensive green stones, but gave them a pass in favour of some locally made replicas of pre-Columbian jewelry, the originals of which can be found in the city’s gold museum.  They weren’t quite as dazzling as the emeralds favoured by Spanish kings, but as we made our way back to our ship for our sail-away to Key West, my wife Gail convinced me that the money she had just saved me was probably enough to pay for our next cruise!   

 

 

 

 

It was still two hours before sunrise when the Crystal Symphony turned into the Gulf of Guayaquil and began to weave its way along the Rio Guayas to the bustling port city of Guayaquil some 30 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean.

Located in the southwest corner of tiny Ecuador, Guayaquil is one of four distinct regions in the country that include the Galapagos Islands, the Amazon basin and the Andean Sierra. Its strategic location makes it a convenient gateway to all of these places, and to the lush valleys, plantations and jungles that ring the city and seem ready to overgrow it.

Like the rest of the country, Guayaquil was ruled by a group of tribes called the Canari who were eventually conquered by the Incas in 1463 and then the Spanish in 1532. Over the next 300 years, Guayaquil became one of the leading ports in South America where the Spanish built grand churches and public buildings.

Unfortunately, most of these early buildings were destroyed by earthquakes and fires in the late 19^th century, and the city has been struggling ever since to recover its lost grandeur.  As a result, some visitors prefer to travel northeast to the capital of Quito or southeast to the charming city of Cuenca where there are still original examples of the country’s colonial architecture.

Indeed, a significant number of people on our cruise opted for excursions to either Quito or Cuenca, which require a flight from Guayaquil, cost between US$400 to $500 per person, and take between 10 to 11 hours to complete. Others decided to take a 13-hour tour of the Galapagos Islands ($1,944 per person) which departed the ship at 7:00 am. Luckily, these types of lengthy land excursions were possible from Guayaquil because our ship was staying in port for 17 hours instead of the standard 9 to 10-hour visit.

Despite the appeal of getting up at 5:30 am for 12-hour excursion, Gail and I decided to take a six-hour bus tour of the lush valleys that that surround Guayaquil.

Our first stop was the Ecuagenera, a research centre and nursery started in the mid-20^th century to protect one of Ecuador’s most precious natural resources, the orchid. There are more than 4,000 species of the orchid in Ecuador, making the country one of the world’s most richly populated areas of the magnificent flower. During our short tour of the Ecuagenera, our guide told us how orchids are cultivated and grown, and then took us through a greenhouse where we saw dozens of different types of orchids in full bloom.

After leaving the Ecuagenera, we continued along the highway to the Hacienda El Castillo. The hacienda is a working farm that grows a variety of local crops including cacao (used to make chocolate), mango, noni (whose juice supposedly is good for treating diabetes and cholesterol), achiote (saffron), cashew nuts, bananas and hardwood trees, including teak. While not as traditional as the haciendas found in the central and northern highlands of Ecuador, the 300-hectare estate features lovely grounds, a handsome hacienda, an open-air restaurant, and a small processing facility where cacao beans are collected, dried, roasted, sliced and made into delicious chocolate.

During our tour in extremely humid temperatures that hovered around 32 C (low 90s F), we walked through tropical green fields and forests with local field hands who told us about the two types of cacao trees in Ecuador and how the country provides 70% of the world’s supply of beans. We tasted samples of the cacao bean during various points of its production into chocolate, and  enjoyed some of the fauna in the form of beautiful black and yellow birds, brightly coloured butterflies, and even a one-metre long iguana that sauntered down a tree trunk right in front of us.

Following our tour, we returned to the Castillo for an Ecuadorian-style lunch of steak, rice, plantain and cheese pie, braised lentils, squash and fruit with freshly made chocolate sauce all served outdoors on a beautiful patio atop a hill overlooking the fields.  Then we picked up some chocolate at the gift shop, and made our way back into Guayaquil to board the Crystal Symphony.

While we hadn’t made the trek to Quito or Cuenca to see the country’s legacy of colonial architecture, or spent a day in the Galapagos Islands watching the amazing giant tortoises and marine iguanas, we had seen a part of Ecuador that was rich with lush flora and tropical scenery. And equally important, we had made it back to the ship in time for late afternoon cocktails by the pool!

A low mantle of grey cloud hovered above the valley that was once home to the great Incan empire as the Crystal Symphony slid into her berth in the port city of Callao, Peru.

Long before the first Europeans arrived in the Americas, a vast and powerful civilization thrived here that stretched across the continent from Colombia in the north to Argentina and Chile in the south. The Incas called it Tahuantinsuyu (or the Kingdom of the Four Regions of the Universe), and its capital was Ichma or what we know today as Lima, Peru.

Ichma was eventually taken by Spaniard Francisco Pizaro who renamed the city Ciudad de los Reyes (City of Kings) to commemorate the date of his conquest (January 16, 1535 which also happened to be the day of the Christian Epiphany). However, over time the city became known as Lima, which is believed to have come from the native Indian word “limaq” once used to describe a famous oracle in the nearby Rimac Valley.

Under Spanish rule, Lima evolved into a regal metropolis that dominated political and commercial life in South America for the next 300 years.  It was considered the most beautiful colonial settlement on the continent, and enjoyed great wealth thanks to its monopoly on the overland trade route to the Atlantic. However, earthquakes eventually destroyed many of Lima’s landmark buildings, although some were rebuilt in the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

Unfortunately, Lima today is a rather tired looking and chaotic city that most tourists avoid on their way to more appealing destinations like Machu Picchu in the Andes and the Huascaran National Park in the North Central Highlands.  That’s a shame because there is still a lot to see in Peru’s capital, including some of the region’s best museums and some great examples of Spanish Colonial architecture in the city’s old historic centre.

In order to see as much as we could in one day, we opted for an organized city tour which included a tour of Lima’s colonial quarter, the Plaza San Martin and several museums including Peru’s National Museum of Archeology, Anthropology and History, the Casa Luna collection of nativity scenes, and the amazing Enrico Poli Museum.

An Italian who relocated to Peru in the 1950, Mr. Poli has dedicated most of his adult life to collecting archaeological objects from all over Peru and has one of the most exquisite private collections in the country. The museum is housed inside his own villa located on a quiet, unassuming street in Lima, which belies the astonishing richness and size of the collection.

The Poli Collection contains some of the best examples of the Inca and other pre-Hispanic cultures, as well as examples of colonial art. In fact, among the many private collections of pre-Columbian art in Peru, Enrico Poli’s is considered the finest, once hailed by National Geographic as one of the worlds “25 great adventures.” The museum is crammed with paintings, Colonial silver, furniture, pottery, weavings and a variety of artifacts from as recent as the 1800s to as far back as 2000 BC. One of the many treats of this museum is that the guided tour is usually conducted by Mr. Poli or his son Enrico Jr. whose knowledge and love of the collection shines through in their passionate descriptions. 

After visiting the museums, we stopped near the Plaza Mayor in Central Lima for a wonderful lunch of artichoke mousse, sweet potatoes and braised beef in a colonial-style mansion called the Casa Aliaga. Then we walked down to Plaza Mayor where we found Lima’s baroque 18^th-century La Catedral, the Palacio del Gobierno (Presidential Palace) and the Palacio Episcopal (Archbishop’s Palace) with its classical ornate wooden balconies which are typical for buildings from the colonial period.

We eventually arrived at the Covento y Museo de San Francisco, which is one of the most beautiful colonial-era churches to survive the great earthquake of 1746. The exterior features a grey baroque-style entrance between twin yellow spires, and a cloister with walls that are lined with spectacular glazed ceramic tiles from Seville and hand-carved Moorish-style wooden ceilings.

As we left the church to board our bus for the return trip to the port of Callao, I was reminded of what author John Gunther once said about this grand city and its importance to South America over the centuries.   

“It still has overtones of an imperial metropolis, and it still utterly dominates Peru, so much so that it is sometimes ironically called ‘a city searching for a country’.”

After sailing from Valparaiso along the serpentine coast of Chile, we arrived the next morning in the sea-side town of La Serena some 450 km north of Santiago.

Founded in 1544 by Spanish conquistador Pedro de Valdivia, Chile’s second-oldest city is an interesting collection of colonial architecture, splashy condos, busy markets and sandy beaches. It’s also the main gateway to the nearby Elqui Valley, the region’s main agricultural area that features small villages, pretty orchards, sprawling vineyards and the Puclaro Dam.

We began our tour in the historic heart of La Serena near the Plaza de Armas, where we discovered some fine examples of Spanish Colonial architecture including the 16^th-century Iglesia San Francisco with its metre-thick walls and Italian Renaissance design. We also explored the Templo San Agustin, which is the only church in Chile constructed entirely of stone.

After a short walk through the two-storey Mercado La Recova where we shopped for local handicrafts, we made our way up the street to the Archeological Museum to see its exhibits from indigenous cultures including the Tarapaca, Atacama and Coquimbo. The exhibits feature pottery, petroglyphs, mummified bodies, and a Moai statue from Easter Island as well as a timeline describing the history of South American native peoples.

Following the museum, we boarded our bus for a 90-minute trip through the fertile Elqui Valley to the town of Vicuna, birthplace of the celebrated Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Poetry in 1945. Her remarkable life has been commemorated with a statue in the town square and in a small museum found among the town’s old wooden buildings and brightly painted houses.

While it’s dry and cloudy near La Serena during the summer, the sunny and semi-arid Elqui Valley makes it the perfect location for growing fruit and grapes, the latter of which is the primary ingredient used in distilling the country’s national drink, Pisco. As a result, the region is the country’s Number One producer of Pisco, and several local distilleries graciously provide samples of the magic elixir.

Luckily, our trip included a visit to the nearby Capel Distillery, where we were given a tour of the facility and a presentation about the various types of Pisco and how to enjoy them. We were told that it comes clear or golden coloured, ranges from 30 to 45 proof, and is best when mixed with cola (a Piscola) or blended with ice, lime juice and sugar (a Pisco Sour). After sampling several types of Pisco, we decided to purchase a bottle and bring it back for our friends Pav and Montse, who recently moved from Santiago to Toronto and are suffering from severe Pisco withdrawal.

Another popular pastime in this region is stargazing. Since the Elqui Valley is free of light pollution and offers clear skies at night, several international observatories have been set up in the region that some believe is the magnetic center of the Earth. In fact, in 1982 scientists measured the Earth’s magnetic force for the first time by satellite, and discovered the planet’s greatest point of energy was in South America around Chile’s Elqui Valley.

Magnetic centre or not, the region remains one of the most magical places in the country.  But in order to schedule a visit at one of the observatories, you must register at the Observatory office in Vicuna near the main plaza at Calle Gabriela Mistral 260.

It was now late afternoon and time to return to our ship for its departure to Lima, Peru. Our day in the north of Chile, or El Norte Chico (The Little North) as the locals call it, had gone by far too fast. But at least we had a great bottle of Pisco that would help us remember it for a long time to come.

Nestled between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes Mountains in Central Chile, the sprawling city of Santiago enjoys a marvelous Mediterranean-style climate with easy access to a variety of great attractions including wineries, beaches and ski hills (in winter). And while Santiago may not be as beautiful as Buenos Aires, it does have a style of its own that makes it one of South America’s leading cities and the cultural soul of Chile.     

In order to get acquainted with that style, Gail and I decided to visit some of the local landmarks via the local Hop On, Hop Off double-decker bus than runs a two-hour circuit through the city ($US36 each). The bus stops at 11 different locations including several in the downtown region where most of the major attractions can be found between the Mercado Central, the Plaza de la Constitucion, and Cerro Santa Lucia.

We began our tour just south of the Mercado in Santiago’s Plaza de Armas, which dates back to 1541 and is the historic centre of the city from which all distances to the rest of the country are measured. It features several grand palm trees, a marble fountain and a statue of Chile’s founder Pedro de Valdivia on his horse. The park is surrounded by a number of historic structures including the Santiago City Hall, the Central Post Office, and the beautiful Santiago Metropolitan Cathedral which spans an entire city block.

The Cathedral is the city’s grandest place of worship and the fifth church to be built on the same site (the others were destroyed by earthquakes). Designed by Italian architect Joaquin Toesca in a neoclassical-baroque style and finished nearly 30 years after construction began in 1750, the cathedral’s interior features soaring columns, an arched ceiling and an altar made of marble, bronze and lapis lazuli.

After touring the cathedral, we jumped back on the bus for two stops before exiting at the expansive Plaza de la Constitution which houses some of Chile’s most important government buildings including the neo-classical Moneda Palace. Built as Chile’s Royal Mint (hence its name), the Moneda later became home to the President and was the site of the country’s infamous coup d’état led by General Augusto Pinochet in 1973 that ousted Marxist president Salvador Allende. While the Moneda Palace was considered too lavish when it first opened in 1805, it is now viewed as one of the best examples of neo-classical architecture in South America.

Walking east from the Plaza de la Constitution towards Santa Lucia, we came upon several historic structures including the Church of San Francisco which is the oldest standing building in Santiago. The church has a small museum with an impressive collection of 17^th-century South American art, as well as a lovely garden filled with beautiful flowers.

The late afternoon shadows were now starting to appear along the streets of downtown Santiago, so we decided it was time to retire to our hotel to get ready for our evening repast. An acquaintance in Toronto had arranged for us to meet his two best friends in Santiago, and sure enough Lorena and Palo showed up at 8:00 pm and drove us to an eclectic seafood restaurant called Ocean Pacific not far from Santiago’s Mercado Central.

The Ocean Pacific has been decorated to resemble the inside of a submarine complete with water-tight doors, instrumental panels, and nautical décor filling its many dining rooms.  It also has some of the best local seafood dishes in Santiago including machas a la parmesana (a clam-like mollusk), locos apanados (fried abalone), mero (white fish from Easter Island) and grilled lenguado (a mild-flavoured white fish).

Our hosts were warm and delightful people, and we enjoyed a thoroughly wonderful evening with them that continued over wine and Pisco sours (an addictive local cocktail) until one in the morning at the Bar Liguria next to our hotel. It was a great way to end our two-days of discovery in and around Santiago, even though it did make our early morning transfer to our cruise ship in Valparaiso just a little bit rougher than it should have been!

The snow-capped peaks of the Andes Mountains filled the sky to the east of Santiago as our Copa Airways jet made its slow descent into Comodore Arturo Merino Benitez Airport. After a 10-hour flight from Miami via Panama City, Gail and I had finally arrived in Chile’s cultural and political capital, where we would spend the next two days eating and drinking our way through Central Chile before embarking our on 15-day Panama Canal cruise from nearby Valparaiso.

Once through customs and immigration where we had to pay a reciprocity fee (about US$130 per person) to enter the country (this fee applies to a variety of nationals including Canadians and Americans), we were met by our driver and tour guide, Christian Montenegro (aka “The Van Man” at christianroymx@hotmail.com). We had learned about Christian from online postings by fellow cruisers, and had decided to hire him for transfers to our hotel and ship, as well as for a tour of the Cochalgua wine region. It turned out to be a great decision because Christian’s services are not only competitively priced, he is also a knowledgeable and delightful guide who speaks perfect English.

Since we had been to Chile before and felt comfortable going our own way, we decided to forgo the expensive cruise ship hotel package at the Grand Hyatt Regency in favour of a small boutique hotel in Santiago’s trendy Providencia neighbourhood. The cozy Hotel Orly is a renovated Parisian-style mansion with a glass-enclosed courtyard and a pretty sidewalk café that overlooks Pedro de Valdivia Avenue. While most of its rooms are small, its location is wonderful and the cost is a bargain — less than half of what the major brand name hotels usually charge.

After checking in to the hotel, we walked next door to a delightful Chilean Bistro called Bar Liguria for a late night dinner of avocado salad and a beef fillet sandwich with guacamole, mayonnaise and ripe tomato along with some wonderful red wine from the J. Bouchon winery in the Colchagua Valley. Since it is now summer in South America and the sun doesn’t set in Santiago until 9:00 pm, we were able to sit outdoors on the crowded patio where we met several local residents who generously gave us advice in English on what to see and do in the city.

The next morning Christian picked us up at 9:30 for our tour of the Colchagua Valley, some two hours south of Santiago. There are several great wine regions around Santiago, including the Maipo, Rapel, Cachapoal, Colchagua and Casablanca Valleys. And like every winery in the country, they all produce grapes from original, ungrafted Vitis Vinefera rootstock that was brought over from France before that country’s outbreak of root louse phylloxera in the 19^th century.

While all these locations produce good wines, we decided to focus our time on the Colchagua Valley because of its unique location (surrounded by beautiful mountains on all sides), and for the superb quality of its wines that come from world renowned vintners like Montes, Lapostolle, Las Ninas and Viu Manent.

We began our tour at Vina Viu Manent, which is located in a rustic bodega that has been in the Viu family for three generations. For $12 each, we were given a tour of the bodega, a carriage ride through the vineyards, and a tasting of four different wines – two whites and two reds. We loved all of the wines, particularly the 2008 Reserva Malbec (a grape more commonly found in Argentine wines), and the 2007 La Capilla Cabernet Sauvignon (recently rated 90 points in Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate).

Following a delicious lunch of Rack of Lamb with sautéed potatoes and roasted red peppers in the Bodega’s Llaveria Restaurant, we took a short drive along a narrow country road surrounded by beautiful green vineyards to the iron gates of the Montes winery. Started in 1988 by four partners who believed there was a market for premium Chilean wines, the winery now produces some of the country’s most sought-after wines including Purple Angel, Montes Alpha M and Montes Alpha Cabernet Sauvignon. We decided to skip the winery tour and just do the wine tasting, where we purchased eight bottles of wine including the Montes Alpha 2007Carmenere and the 2006 Merlot, as well as a bottle of its new line from Mendoza, Argentina called Kaiken Ultra Malbec.

We made our final stop at what is arguably the continent’s finest winery, the gorgeous Lapostolle estate which was founded in 1994 by the Lapostolle family of France, the producers of the world famous Grand Marnier liqueur. During our tour ($40 each), we learned that the Lapostolle family has invested millions of dollars in building one of the highest quality wine facilities on the planet, and that their aim is to produce world-class wines using French expertise combined with the superb terroir of the Colchagua Valley. This vision has paid off for the Lapostolles, as their Clos Apalta red has made the Wine Spectator List of the world’s top 100 wines on many occasions, including in 2005 as the Number One wine in the world. We loved the Clos Apalta, but at $140 it was too expensive for our taste, so we settled for some 2007 Cuvee Alexandre Cabernet Sauvignon for a more reasonable $24 per bottle.

It was now late afternoon and time to head back north through the lovely green valleys of Central Chile and into the heart of downtown Santiago. We had enjoyed our day in the Colchagua Valley, but we were now anxious to reach our hotel, put up our feet, and open one of our 17 new bottles of premium Chilean wine.

From the snow-capped volcanoes of Chile’s spectacular Lake District to the beautiful boulevards of Buenos Aries, a South American cruise offers some of the most stunning scenery in the world.  And with some cruise fares starting below $65 per day, a South American voyage represents one of the greatest vacation values afloat.

Most South American cruises sail around Cape Horn between Buenos Aires, Argentina and Valparaiso, Chile, which is the port for its land-locked capital of Santiago. However, there are a number of other options that include ports such as Rio de Janeiro, Fortaleza and San Salvador in Brazil, the Falkland Islands off the southeast tip of Argentina, and Callao, Peru (for Lima) and Guayaquil, Ecuador along the northwest coast of South America.

But whatever itinerary you choose, you’re bound to experience a wide diversity of scenery, wildlife, architecture and history given the vastness of the continent and the differences in geography and cultures along the way.

For example, just south of Valparaiso you’ll find the snow-capped volcanoes and emerald forests of Chile’s gorgeous Lake District. Nestled between the ocean and the majestic Andes Mountains just north of Patagonia, the Lake District sits on two tectonic plates with more than 1,000 volcanoes. The geographical result is so awesome that Jules Verne referred to the region as “the land of fire and ice.”

The Lake District was settled by German immigrants who built Puerto Montt and several picturesque villages along the coast of Lake Llanquihue near the snow-capped volcanoes of Cabulco and Osorno.

Further south along the Chilean coast, there’s the majestic fjords of Patagonia and the historic Strait of Magellan which leads to the wind-swept city of Punta Arenas. On the pampas outside the city, there’s plenty of wildlife including giant condors, grey foxes, falcons, and an ostrich-like bird called a “Nandu.”  There are also two colonies of Magellanic penguins in the area, including one in nearby Otway Sound.

From Punta Arenas, most ships sail south along the Beagle Channel towards the remote Argentine city of Ushuaia on the doorstep of Tierra del Fuego. The 150-mile channel is named after the HMS Beagle, which carried naturalist Charles Darwin through these waters on her second voyage of discovery in 1832. The nearby Tierra del Fuego National Park is filled with soaring peaks, pristine rivers, and beautiful hiking paths that wind through emerald forests and along the rocky inlets of the Beagle Channel.

After a day visiting Ushuaia, cruise ships head south into Drake Passage to sail around Cape Horn, the rocky outcrop that marks the end of the continent just 400 miles north of Antarctica. By nautical tradition, anyone who rounds the horn is entitled to dine with one foot on the table, sport a tattoo of a full-rigged ship, and wear a gold loop in their left ear! 

While the ports in southern Chile deliver sweeping landscapes and lots of wildlife, the Atlantic side of the continent is filled with sophisticated cities and jet-set resorts.

For example, the popular vacation town of Punta del Este in southern Uruguay is filled with sand dunes, beautiful beaches and expensive-looking condominiums.  It’s also home to the sea-side resort of Casapueblo, which clings to the edge of a cliff and provides dramatic views of spectacular sunsets over the Atlantic Ocean.

Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro sits on the edge of a beautiful bay surrounded by gorgeous beaches and soaring hill tops. And Argentina’s Buenos Aires features European-style grand plazas, broad boulevards and grand buildings, which is why the city is often called “the Paris of South America.”

From grand cities to spectacular scenery, there’s plenty to see in South America. And there’s no better way to see it than from the deck of a luxury liner as it sails along the gorgeous coast of this magnificent continent.

After sailing from Chile around South America for two weeks, we reached our final destination in Buenos Aires, Argentina where we disembarked the Radiance of the Seas and headed to the trendy Design Hotel in the Centro district. We had decided to meet up with some friends (Brian and Judy) in Buenos Aires and stay for three days in order to have enough time to see most of the city’s attractions and attend a tango show.

Located on the southern banks of the Rio de la Plata, the Ciudad de Nuestra Señora Santa María del Buen Ayre was founded in 1536 by Spanish explorer Pedro de Mendoza, and eventually expanded through waves of immigration from the Mediterranean-based countries of Europe. As a result, Buenos Aires was built with European-style grand plazas, broad boulevards and beautiful buildings, which is why the city is often called “the Paris of South America.”

While Buenos Aires is a huge city filled with 13 million residents called “portenos” (people of the port), the main tourist areas are concentrated near the waterfront in seven compact barrios – the Centro, Monserrat, La Boca, San Telmo, Recoleta, Palermo and Puerto Madero. We chose to start our tour in the nearby historic Plaza de Mayo in Monserrat, a pretty park created in 1580 that houses the Piramide de Mayo and is surrounded by several grand buildings including the 19^th-century Casa Rosada (Pink House), the 18^th-century Metropolitan Cathedral and the colonial-era Cabildo (town hall).

The site of the Casa Rosada was originally a fortress, and later evolved into the Presidential Palace for Argentine leaders including Juan Peron. In 1951, Eva Peron appeared on the palace’s left balcony to tell adoring crowds in the Plaza de Mayo below that she was withdrawing her candidacy for vice-president (she was ill and died of cancer the next year). Madonna used the same balcony in the movie “Evita” when she sang the film’s theme song “Don’t Cry for me Argentina.” Our tour guide Sebastian told us that while the inside of the main Palace is usually closed to the public, it was now open for a special exhibit (a small museum in the back of the palace is open from 2 to 6 on Mondays to Fridays). This meant we got a rare glimpse of its beautiful courtyard and interiors, which include a stained glass skylight, busts of each President and an opulent wood paneled and red velvet elevator.  

Our next stop was the Caminito pedestrian walkway in the Bohemian neighbourhood of La Boca, which is surrounded by colourful houses, pretty cafes, and street vendors selling their handmade crafts. The street is lined with sculptures, murals, engravings and tango dancers who perform and pose for pictures with tourists for a few pesos (as our friend Brian and I were walking by one of the tango dancers, she grabbed us for a couple of impromptu tangos on the street corner!).

The working class people of this neighbourhood are passionate about their local soccer team, the Boca Juniors, and a number of store fronts are proudly painted in the team’s blue and gold colours. The team’s stadium is just a few blocks away, and during game days La Boca turns into a giant block party with fans tooting car horns, waving flags and dancing in the streets. However, while La Boca is a fun place to be during the day, the neighbourhood is still a bit rough around the edges and is not a safe place to roam after dark.

After a day of touring, we decided it was time to watch one of Buenos Aires’ famous tango shows, so we booked a table at the ritzy Faena Hotel in Puerto Madero for its evening show called “Rojo Tango.” The sensual and steamy tango is a uniquely “porteno” dance that many believe was invented in the brothels of the city’s poorer barrios like La Boca to keep customers happy while they awaited their turn with a “lady of the night”. Today the dance is synonymous with Buenos Aires, and the city is filled with tango schools and dance halls like the Academia del Tango and Confiteria La Ideal which keep the tango legacy alive.

Our show in the intimate Cabaret room of the Faena Hotel was a spectacular blend of traditional tango dancing with “nuevo tango” from the repertoire of the late Argentine bandoneon (small hand-held accordion) player Astor Piazzolla, who incorporated elements of jazz and classical music into his compositions. The show was preceded by a marvelous dinner of Argentine beef and copious amounts of delicious red wine from the nearby Mendoza region.     

The next morning we took a taxi to the barrio of San Telmo, which is the city’s oldest neighbourhood dating back to the arrival of Pedro de Mendoza. The barrio originally housed the city’s wealthiest residents, but when yellow fever struck in 1870 the elite moved further north and their elegant homes were converted to tenements called “conventillos” to house poor immigrants arriving from Europe.  

Today, San Telmo is filled with colonial-style buildings, tango salons, street performers and on weekends, one of the best open-air antique markets in the country. We began our stroll through San Telmo at the Plaza Dorrego, which is the oldest square in the city and home to dozens of vendors selling antiques, curios and handmade crafts. From the Plaza, we walked north along Defensa Street stopping to watch various street performers including a puppeteer and a full orchestra of young people called Ciudad Baigon playing tango music. By now we were hungry, so we slipped into a small “parrilla” (open-air wood-fired grill restaurant) on Defensa for some grilled meats and beer.

After lunch, we decided to visit the exclusive barrio of Recoleta with its tree-lined avenues, fashionable boutiques and trendy restaurants. The centerpiece of Recoleta is the elegant Alvear Avenue, which houses a number of 19^th-century mansions, exclusive designer stores, and the beautiful French-chateau style Alvear Palace Hotel. The neighbourhood is also home to the Recoleta Cemetery, where many of Argentina’s heroes and celebrities are buried, including Eva Peron.

The Recoleta Cemetery covers four city blocks and has more than 6,000 mausoleums, some big enough to pass for a small church. Of course, the most popular site in the cemetery is the tomb of “Evita” who was buried here after her death in 1952. While her body went missing for 16 years after her husband Juan Peron was deposed in a military coup in 1955, it was eventually repatriated to Buenos Aires and returned to the cemetery behind a marble fronted vault containing a number of plaques. Interestingly, her husband’s tomb is not next to Eva’s, but is instead located at the more formal Chacarita Cemetery with other national heroes including the great tango icon, Carlos Gardel.

After a wonderful dinner that evening at one of the city’s best parrillas called Cabana las Lilas in Puerto Madero, we returned to our hotel early so we could get an early start the next day. Of course, at night “early” in Buenos Aries means before midnight, as most “portenos” don’t go out for dinner until at least 9:00 p.m., and usually stay up until the wee hours of morning sipping cocktails or coffee.

Since it was our last day in Buenos Aries, we decided to spend it seeing some of the monuments and buildings we had missed, including the beautiful Teatro Colon (which was still closed for renovations), the Vittorio Meano-designed Parliament Building, and the landmark Obelisco built in 1936 to commemorate the city’s fourth centennial. The 67.5 metre high obelisk stands in the middle of the amazing Avenue 9 de Julio, which spans 110 metres and is the widest boulevard in the world, boasting some 16 lanes of traffic.

It was now time for a final meal in Buenos Aires before we left for the airport and our 12-hour flight back to Toronto. Coincidentally, it was my birthday, which meant we had a convenient excuse for a blow-out lunch in Puerto Madero with plenty of free-flowing wine.  After close to a month in South America seeing some of the most spectacular scenery in the world, it seemed like a fitting way to conclude our marvelous journey of discovery, and a wonderful way to celebrate my 55^th birthday. 

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