Bienvenidos a Buenos Aires!

Flight #41 – TAM 8012
Rio De Janiero (GIG) – Buenos Aires (EZE)
Tuesday, Mar 19, 2013
Depart: 9:50AM / Arrive: 1:05PM
Duration: 3hr 15min
Aircraft: Boeing 767
Seat: 29A and 29C (Economy)
Earned: 1,240 miles
Cost: $400 / person
Lifetime Miles: 88,908 miles

After a brief stop in Rio De Janiero Airport (GIG) (that ended up only being 20 minutes because our inbound flight was delayed for 2 hours for de-icing), we made it on TAM 8012 to our final destination - Buenos Aires, Argentina yesterday afternoon.

The 3+ hour flight was pretty short relative to some I've been taking recently, but it was long enough for me to take a nap on my mother before throwing a small fit as we got off the plane.

Once we finally disembarked, I was anxious to get in my stroller, but they told us that the stroller we gate checked in JFK would meet us at the baggage claim after going through Immigration. Apparently I've been packing on some pounds because my father was complaining about his arms burning from holding me up while waiting in the Foreigners line until we were finally called up.

Immigration was pretty simple since my mother and I had my Israeli passport. My father and his US passport had the extra step of requiring proof of paying the Argentina entry reciprocity fee ($160 USD paid in advance). But since he was prepared, he just flashed the print out, and after a few keystrokes, he was cleared.

After getting our checked luggage (and my stroller) from baggage claim, we cleared customs and upon exiting, immediately came across 6 different taxi/rental car stands offering their services. It's a bit overwhelming and the similar signs made it seem like they were all the same company, but you had to look at the logo on the right side. Since my father never trusts random taxi drivers on the street (and likes using credit cards instead of cash), he opted to get one of these pre-paid taxis (called "remises") from one of the vendor stands.

He arbitrarily picked one vendor, but after reading up on it, they're all comparable prices (about $200-220 Argentine Pesos or about $40-45 USD) and levels of service. Many people liked using the "official Ezeiza taxi" but that stand was outside the 2nd set of doors and my father had already booked with another car service for $211 Argentine pesos ($41 USD). No sweat.

From the airport, the taxi took about 50 minutes with some light city traffic to our hotel in the Palermo neighborhood of the city. Unlike our adventures in Thailand, the taxi drivers in Argentina only speak Spanish. But I guess it's not as if NYC taxi drivers speak languages other than English, such as Arabic or Hindi... uh, wait a minute.

For those of you unfamiliar with Buenos Aires, it's a beautiful city that really reminds you of Europe for being a South American metropolis. From my naive perspective, it seems like Argentinians share a lot culturally in common with Italians, including their love of good red wine and never using the top 3 buttons on their shirts.

From what I've heard, Buenos Aires (aka BA) is a diverse city filled with a lot of culture, food, dancing and of course nightlife. However, since being 17 months old doesn't quite get you into the popular bars and clubs, I'll have to stick with the daytime activities like visiting El Caminito (seen here) and shopping around Recoleta.

For our first 5 nights in South America, my father decided to check out a non-chain hotel first, primarily because the major chains didn't have great hotels in the city (especially at attractive prices), but also because BA is well known for having amazing boutique hotels everywhere at very reasonable rates.

Based on TripAdvisor reviews, he picked Own Palermo Hotel (ranked #16) - a stylish small boutique 3.5 star hotel - for $142.50 USD per night including breakfast and wifi (2 out of the 4 best perks for having elite status at a chain). I guess it was kind of a non-Starwood version of W Buenos Aires but with only 16 rooms.

But since he didn't want to give up the chance to earn points, he booked the reservation using Pointshound.com which will award my father 3,040 United MileagePlus Miles for his 5 night reservation (just over 4 miles per $ spent). This will be the 3rd time my parents have used Pointshound (1st in Bangkok and 2nd in Koh Phangan). Both times, a few weeks after checkout, the miles posted to their United accounts as expected (albeit a little late). So far, so good, Pointshound.