This trip was very special for me. First of all, I made the decision that I was going on Thursday, and the flight was already on Saturday morning (is it just South America or is it generally possible to get relatively cheap tickets just two days before your flight? I mean, I paid about the same price as my friends who booked their flights 2 months in advance!). Second, I was going alone and it was the first time that I did it. I traveled alone before, of course, but always to destinations where there was someone or something waiting for me. This time was different. Even though I knew there would be people in the city whom I wanted to meet again (the reason for the last minute decision to go) I had to plan all by myself (so, of course, I've made a plan called "no plan" and figured most of the things out when I was there). There are people who love traveling alone, and some who would never do it. I guess they both have their pluses and minuses. For me, as I am probably going to Peru and Bolivia on my own too, it was a very good preparation and pretty much an eyes-opening experience. Usually, when traveling in a group, everyone organizes a small part and tries to make this one part a best possible experience for all the participants. Traveling solo, you choose what you want to do and make it the best possible experience just for yourself. Also, you meet really many people. Over the course of these 4 days in Buenos Aires, I didn't have dinner twice with the same person, as there was always someone new to join me for meal or a glass of wine. You eat what you want, you go wherever you want, you go to bed whenever you want. You generally do whatever you want, whatever you feel like doing and there's no one to tell you you're wrong or say "you COULD thoretically do this, but [...]". I really loved it.
A bit about the city
Buenos Aires is huge. While Wikipedia shows the data from 2010, according to which there is a population of 3.000.000 inside of the city and 13.000.000 in the whole metropolitan area, on spot I heard a version with 8 and 18 millions. Hard to say which one is right, but well, 5 millions here and there, the city is huge anyway. This doesn't complicate the sightseeing much though, as you mostly stay in a kind of a central area (or at least I did). You could get from one end of this area (Palermo) to the other end (La Boca) by taxi for probably about 10 euros (taxis are super cheap! I think they're even a bit cheaper than in Santiago). The Argentinians are really helpful when they see you might be lost (seriously, whenever I was standing at a corner trying to figure out which street I was just crossing (usually holding a map), there was always someone to ask where I was going and how they could help me.
Transport
I was lucky. I was flying to the small airport, which used to be used for national flights only, called Aeroparque. An amazing place it is, as it is situated just by the river (which is so big, I was sure it was the ocean already). So you just walk out of the airport, cross the street, and there you are at the river site! You can take 2 city buses to the center from there, and a bus from Aerolineas Argentinas called ArBus. The normal buses cost 6 pesos (you need coins or a city transport card- SUBE) and the ArBus- 30 pesos. At the airport, there is a small Tourist Information point (it's quite well hidden, took me 20 mins to find it...). The woman at the counter, hearing my Spanish, just answered in German (apparently, my accent- why on earth would I have a German accent in Spanish I don't know- is very strong. On my first day in Argentina, I spoke Spanish to three people and they all asked if I was German after the first sentence), gave me a lot of helpful information and exchanged my money for coins so I could take a public bus. Also there, for the first time, I understood what everyone ment when saying that Chileans and Argentinians are not exactly fond of each other. The lady at the TI just said "You'll love it here, you'll see. We're not like Chileans. We are nice. We will help you".
The metro, the oldest one in South America and in the southern hemisphere, is apparently very interesting and very crowded, but I can't tell cause I didn't take it. A taxi costs 16,7 Pesos for the start and that 1,67 for every 200 m (more to the value of money below). There is a bus, 29, going through all of the interesting areas, starting in La Boca and going to Plaza Italia and I think even farther, but I'm not sure. I took this bus once, from La Boca to San Telmo, which are very close areas. The problem was, after a small walk in San Telmo, I wanted to take the bus to go to my hostel but... It wasn't there anymore. At the bus stop where I got out, people said the bus was not stopping there (indeed, it wasn't on the list). Everyone was showing me a different directions to where it might be coming from. At some point, it got dark and I decided I was not going to spend the night alone in San Telmo trying to find the bloody bus stop, so I just grabbed a taxi and left that place. At least, I still have a bus ticket for my memory box!
The first stop of the bus 29 in La Boca:
BTW, the other airport, called Ezeiza is pretty far from the city (again, I got different information, but from 40 to 60 km, depending where in the city you are. I know nothing more about it, besides from the fact that it apparently has a great duty free zone :)
Money
The first piece of advice that I got was to take euros or dollars and change them on the black market. There are two rates for exchanging money. The official one and a "blue" rate. As I couldn't imagine asking anyone "excuse me, where do I find the black market here?" I did a bit of a research and found out that most of the exchange points were to find on Florida, the street where my hostel was. And indeed, it is very easy. TONS of people stand there screaming "cambio, cambio, euros, dollares, real!". You just ask one of them for the value for your currency, and when you agree on the price, they take you to some other place (flower shop, newspaper stand etc.) and exchange your money. Apparently, the blue rate can sometimes even reach the value of twice the official one, though when I was there, the difference was about 40%, which means the official rate for Euro was 9,85 Pesos, and the "blue" one- from 13,20 to 13,80 Pesos. Many sellers take dollars and euros too, usually with a good exchange rate. If you pay by card, you get the official rate.
Streets
It is really interesting, how the city is built. Standing in a middle of a street and looking down at it, you can't see its end. They are all very "straight" and all parallel/perpendicular to one another. The other thing is, many streets are just huge! Like the Avenida 9 de Julio, which is (or was? German Wikipedia says it was till 1960, while the English version says it still is) the widest street in the world. It has 14 lanes, at certain points even more. I tried to take a proper photo of it, but I guess it is just too big for my poor photography skills...
Anyway, the Obelisco, known symbol of Buenos Aires is on this street too. There are many of them, these huge streets, but none of them as big as 9 de Julio... Another thing is the street people. I've seen homeless before, of course, everywhere. But here, for the first time I saw homeless children. It was really heart breaking to see an about 1 y.o. girl sitting on the pavement, waiting for someone laying next to her to wake up and take care of her. And all of this right next to exclusive office buildings and five stars hotels. Santiago is full of huge social differences too. But I've never seen it as striking as in BA before...
Food
If you love meat, you'll be in heaven. If you don't, you have a problem. On my first day, I spend about half an hour at a market trying to find a meatless snack. When finally a woman said she had vegetarian empanadas, I bought two. Of course, there was meat inside. I spent the rest of time eating Italian food. Another day, I was in a restaurant and ordered fish with puree. The people whom I was with got steaks. They looked really well, the steaks, you know. But my fish... I'm sure it was from the day before and just put to the oven to heat it up a bit. It was terribly dry and simply just bad. It was also the most expencive dish I had in BA. So the next thing: the food is generally very cheap. I had some delicious meals, where the whole menu was 120 pesos (less than 10 euros). Take a look at the card before you sit somewhere, you might end up paying way too much for a way too old dish...
Wine
Malbec. Tried once in Cracow and it has been my favourite ever since. Buenos Aires is heaven if you love Malbec as much as I do.
I guess it's enough to read for now :) I won't give tips for the places you must visit, cause you will find those all over the internet and in all possible travel guides. These are some of the places I visited:
