Buenos Aires

We're staying in the Palermo district, a very popular area for dining, fashion, drinking, and shopping.  The pool is on the 17th floor of our apartment building, and the city's skyline actually encircles the building.  Buenos Aires is a huge, cosmopolitan city with any convenience the world has, and is to South America what New York City is to us, what Paris is to Europe and what Tokyo is to Asia.  Argentinians eat very little for breakfast, and their day gets started late.  They lunch around 2 PM, have a coffee and mid-day snack about 6 PM, then dinner is usually served at 9:30 PM.  They are very passionate people, crazy about football, barbecuing beef, dancing the tango and drinking wine.  There's also a certain energy here.  People are having fun, they're really living and romance fills the air.

Tomorrow we're going out for Part 2 of our city tour with Joy from Buenos Aires!  We're starting the day at Café Tortoni, a 158-year-old coffee house of historical and cultural significance in Argentina and throughout world.  Later in the day, we visit the city's most famous cemetery to pay our respects to Eva Perón.

e-mail on 2/22/16

Today in Buenos Aires we toured two or three Catholic Cathedrals, walked around an enormous cemetery (eva peron, Argentinian presidents, poets, generals, aristocrats, etc are buried there), and sat under a tree planted by monks over 200 years ago.

2/22/16

Have had two over 10 mile days and probably have been averaging 6 miles a day, when you take into account the much needed breaks after intensive walks. The built-in recovery days have been vital.

2/24/16

Leaving for Santiago, Chile tomorrow. Two more days and then back to cold Asheville! Have walked more than 10 miles in a day three times! all on asphalt. back, hips and calves now hurt. luckily we built in "rest days."