last day in Buenos Aires

On our last day in Buenos Aires we bought a ticket for a tourist bus that went all over town and you could get off and get back on again when the next bus came. We got off at the Boca area, which we'd seen only briefly before as part of  city tour. All the buildings are brightly painted and it is a lively tourist area. It was a nice sunny day and plenty of souvenirs were for sale along the walkways or in courtyards full of shops.

In another street, the restaurants had tables out in the pedestrian area, and each restaurant had performers doing either tango or flamenco dancing.

Also near this area is the huge soccer stadium and the importance of the game in Argentina is very apparent. Storefronts are painted in the yellow and blue colours of the team.

After Boca we caught the next tourist bus and continued around the city without getting off. We saw very nice areas with parks, and a field where polo was being played on horseback. The bus took about 3 hours to go around it's circuit.

In the evening we walked along a busy shopping street called Santa Fe, where we had dinner at a popular, funky restaurant.

Something I noticed here is that there are still a lot of bookstores, especially used book stores, and they seem popular. I like this, and it makes me feel a bit nostalgic. I saw one bookstore with shelves all the way to the ceiling.

After dinner and walking around a bit we made our way back to the hotel, to pack and get ready for the very long flight to Vancouver the next day.

Penguins!

Today we went on a boat tour up the Beagle channel. We left Ushuaia early in the morning, and it started out sunny, but as they say is typical in this area, the weather changed quickly. It started raining a bit and got quite windy. Nevertheless we were able to get on deck and take pictures.
We first stopped at some rocks where sea lions were sleeping. There were also comorants. These comorants had white bellies which is different from the all black ones I`m used to seeing in Vancouver.

After a couple of hours we reached an island about 60 km to the east of Ushuaia, which has a penguin colony. One of the only colonies around here, I think, and I was surprised there was one this far north. I thought they´d only be in the Antarctic. The colony is not very large, and they seem to mostly hang out on the beach, although some were higher up on the island.

 The penguins were not disturbed by the boat and it pulled right up to shore so we were able to get very close.

Afterward the boat stopped at a little place called Harbourton, which is the first ranch on Tierra del Fuego, and some people got off there. The rest of us stayed on the boat for a very windy, wavy, and bumpy ride back to Ushuaia. Felt a little green by the time we got back.