With only one day to see Buenos Aires, a city of some 13 million residents described as the “Paris of South America”, we opted to take an open air bus tour with on/off privileges. The 3 hour, 25 stop circuit provided comprehensive coverage of the main attractions of the city. We completed the first lap listening to canned descriptions of the various sites through headphones. We used the second lap to jump on and off where we wanted to spend our time on the ground. The La Boca neighborhood was our first stop and destination for lunch. We enjoyed delicious roasted chicken although Kyle observed that we failed to order in the incremental fashion of the locals who can turn any meal into a three hour affair.

La Boca has a strong European flavor, with many of its early settlers being from the Italian city of Genoa. Known among sports fans for La Bombonera, the home of Boca Juniors, one of the world’s best-known football clubs. It is a popular destination with its colorful houses and pedestrian street, the Caminito, where tango artists perform and tango-related memorabilia is sold.

Our next destination is the open-air market at the Plaza Intendente Alvear where each of us peruse the artifacts produced by local artists. The challenge was selecting items that were small and light enough to add to our packs for the return flight home.

Our final destination was the San Telmo neighborhood where we settled in for an Argentinian style dinner. Kyle was determined that we order in the fashion of the locals and we stretched our dinner experience over two and a half hours. Shortly after dessert we were treated to a live tango show and music bringing our South American adventure to the perfect end. I was enjoying the dancing so much that I did not think to video the performance until it was almost over. For all the ballroom dancing experts in my family I am not sure if this clip is of a tango or another style.