Puerto Madero

At the beginning of my post on this morning’s Tigre Tour, I said that I thought that post was going to be short, but it turned out to be not particularly so. This time, I think this one will be brief and I’m very confident I’m going to be right about that because I did only one thing worthy of note this afternoon: take a walk over to the Puerto Madero neighbourhood of Buenos Aires. Then again, I was confident that I’d be right about this morning’s post. So, we’ll see how it goes.

The thing is, I didn’t get back to my hotel after this morning’s tour until about 2:30 in the afternoon. I went up to my room, used the washroom, regrouped, and tried to do a web check-in for a flight I’m taking tomorrow to start a bit of a circle tour around northern Argentina.

That web check-in or, rather, lack thereof, took longer than it should have and ended up being fruitless.

The airline sent me an email with a link to the check-in page. The page was entirely in Spanish. I used the translate function of my browser to translate it into English. Easy peasy.

But that was just an informational page. That page gave me a link to another page. On that second page, my browser, absolutely, positively refused to translate it into English. The option was there, but it was greyed out. I tried clicking anyway, but, as expected, clicking the greyed-out option did nothing.

I then cut and pasted the text into Google Translate to find out what it was telling me.

But that too was just an informational page. I had to click another button to get to the form where I had to provide my personal information for the web check-in. I again needed Google Translate to help me figure out what they wanted me to enter.

I figured that out, clicked the submit button and got back a page that, with the help of Google Translate, told me that all of my information was valid, but they couldn’t complete the web check-in and I’ll have to check in at the counter at the airport. That’s fine because I’ve got a checked back so I’d have to go to the counter to check in anyway. I just hope they don’t tell me, sorry, but we gave your seat away to someone else. We’ll see.

The point is, after all of that, I didn’t have much time this afternoon.

However, that does remind me of a programming note I should probably make here. Because of my morning flight, I’ll publish at most one post tomorrow. And despite my leaving Buenos Aires, I won’t provide a Buenos Aires summary section here because I’ll be spending two more nights in Buenos Aires immediately before I head back home. I’ll publish the summary then.

Programming notes out of the way, let’s continue.

Puerto Madero

Puerto Medero is the new section of Buenos Aires where most of the modern skyscrapers are. Or, at least, it’s not so much new as rebuilt.

Separating Puerto Madero from the centre of the city is a body of water that I don’t quite understand. I don’t know if it’s a river that had its banks straightened out and fortified with concrete to make it suitable for port purposes or if it’s a channel that was scooped out of formerly dry land to create a port. I tried looking at Google Maps, but it still wasn’t clear to me what it was.

Regardless of which it is, I’m reasonably certain that it’s not a port now. Heavy cranes that still lumber on the banks provide evidence that it was once one. But counter-evidence pretty much proves that it’s not now.

First, there weren’t any cargo ships when I visited. the only ship there was a tall ship that looked to be permanently moored for tourist purposes. That’s neither here nor there. Maybe it was just a slow shipping day.

However, the buildings on either side of the channel, which likely once served port purposes, are now occupied mostly by restaurants on the ground level. And the gaps at both ends of the channel appeared to be much too narrow to accommodate anything large enough to be worthy of carrying cargo commercially.

So, I think this is now a gentrified former port area.

Walking across the bridge over the channel and into the Puerto Madero neighbourhood proper brought me to a clump of modern highrises. Past that there are a couple of very attractive lagoons. Beyond the lagoons is a large ecological reserve.

I walked to the entrance of the reserve, but I didn’t go in. It was getting late and, if I remember correctly, the sign there depicting the various circle walks through the reserve said the shortest one took more than an hour. I hope to return to the reserve when I’m back in Buenos Aires at the end of my trip. However, a sign at the entrance said that they close the park on rainy and windy days. So, maybe yes. Maybe no.

Serendipitously, on my way back to my hotel, I happened upon a street with a wide pedestrian promenade with two rows of large trees that provided a good tree canopy. And there were lots of benches along the way. Not particularly busy one-way streets ran on either side of the promenade. It ran for only a few blocks, but it was a most enjoyable few blocks.

That’s it for today. Wish me luck for my flight check-in tomorrow. Although, by the time you read this I might have already had or not had good luck.