Exploring Uruguay

Expat & Travel Resource Guide

buenos aires

Day Trip to Buenos Aires

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It was time for us to renew our visitors’ permits again, so we decided to take a day trip to Buenos Aires last weekend. We wanted to make sure we got that taken care of before the baby’s arrival.

We were told by a few expats that as of January 1st, 2010 there is an entry fee for all U.S. citizens entering Argentina. After doing a little digging before our trip, we discovered that the Reciprocity Fee of U$S 131, for now, only applies if you arrive at the Buenos Aires Ezeiza Airport (EZE).

However, you only have to pay the Airport Reciprocity Fee once every 10 years and it covers multiple entries. More information about the Reciprocity Fee can be found here.

Even though we found some cheap flights to Buenos Aires, we decided it would be best to take the ferry to avoid the Airport Reciprocity Fee. Last time we went to Buenos Aires, we took the Buquebus ferry direct from Montevideo to Buenos Aires. This time, we decided to take the bus to Colonia and the ferry from Colonia to Buenos Aires.

It actually worked out quite well for us. We arrived at the bus station around 7am and Zoë slept the entire bus ride out to Colonia and was refreshed when we got to the terminal there. She had a blast talking to everyone from her seat on Daddy’s back.

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When we arrived in Buenos Aires, the forecast was for sun, but it was raining quite to our surprise! We didn’t come prepared for that. We were headed to a friend’s apartment who only lives four blocks from the Buquebus station, so we thought we’d try walking. Big mistake. The rain was coming down much harder than we anticipated.

So, we decided to grab a taxi. The only problem was that all we had on us were Uruguayan Pesos – we still hadn’t stopped at a Cambio to get Argentine Pesos.

We asked the taxi driver if he’d take Uruguayan Pesos and he agreed, so we hopped in the cab and off we went. He definitely took us for a bit of a ride. Then, when we got to our destination, the total fare was about 18 Argentine Pesos.

Brian handed him 100 Uruguayan Pesos and was planning to give him an additional 20 UY Pesos for a tip if he was honest. By the way, 18 Argentine Pesos equals about 92 UY Pesos… The guy looked at us like we were nuts and asked for 70 more UY Pesos. He really must have thought we were morons. He said that we had to pay for him to return to the place where he picked us up at.

So, Brian told me to get out of the taxi with Zoë and he gave the guy another 20 UY Pesos and said that’s all we have. And, we left.

It’s amazing how some people think it’s okay to take advantage of people that way. We had been warned about taxi drivers in Buenos Aires so we weren’t completely surprised though.

After arriving at our friend Lyle’s apartment, we decided to head out to find a Cambio and then some lunch. We walked over to Florida Street (a big pedestrian street that is a tourist trap) first to find a Cambio.

There were some guys standing out in the middle of the street soliciting a cambio. We grabbed one of the guys and he took us to what looked more like a travel agency, but whatever. We went inside and to the counter. Brian handed the woman 1700 UY Pesos. She did some calculations and gave him 170 Argentine Pesos.

Luckily we are more informed about exchange rates than the average tourist would be, so Brian tried to give the 170 ARS back and the lady acted like she didn’t know what we were saying (they were speaking English when we first came in). After a brief exchange the lady reluctantly and obviously irritated gave our money back to us… She thought she’d just made a little extra cash off of some ignorant gringos. Wrong!

We found another Cambio about a block away and guess what… We got well over 100 ARS for the same 1700 UY Pesos. Moral of the story? Be informed and aware when you’re traveling as a tourist anywhere.

At least we got the bad encounters out of the way early in the day. The rest of the day was very nice. The rain cleared up and we had a nice lunch and good conversation.

Our ferry was headed back to Uruguay at 8 pm, so we got to the Buquebus station at around 7 pm so we’d have time to check in and go through customs. We boarded the ferry and were pleasantly surprised at how nice this one was. There were sections with couches and even a duty free store on board!

Luckily we were some of the first people to board since pregnant women get priority boarding and we were able to get one of the couches. It was great for Zoë because there were some other kids sitting in the same section. She had a blast playing with them for the duration of the ferry ride.

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When we arrived in Colonia, we got on the bus and headed back to Montevideo. The bus ride definitely felt much longer on the way back. I think next time we might consider taking the bus to Colonia on the way out, but taking the direct ferry to return, especially so late at night.



Buenos Aires, Argentina – It’s like New York… but Bigger

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We knew when we moved to Montevideo that we’d eventually have to take a trip to Buenos Aires to get our passports stamped. Not to mention, we just wanted to check it out.

As we cruised across the Rio De La Plata from Montevideo on the Buquebus (ferry liner) we really had no idea of what to expect of Buenos Aires. We had heard it was “dangerous” and to be “very careful.”

On the other hand, we also heard that Buenos Aires had wonderful shopping, had every type of restaurant you could think of and that it was a wonderful city.

As with traveling anywhere in the world, if you let yourself become a victim, you will be one. We had no problems in Buenos Aires.

Our first stop to plan our trip to Buenos Aires was Buquebus Turismo by Punta Carretas Shopping (not the one inside, but the one on the other side of the street from the front gates).

We were able to book our tickets for the Buquebus, reserve a hotel and get a transfer from the Buquebus Station in Buenos Aires to and from our hotel in one package (the location inside Punta Carretas Shopping only sells ferry tickets).

We chose the ferry that went directly from Montevideo to Buenos Aires in three hours opposed to taking a two-hour bus trip to Colonia and a one-hour ferry ride to Buenos Aires. The total for the three of us: U$S 320.

On the morning of our departure, we took a cab from our apartment to Ciudad Vieja (Old City) where the Buquebus terminal is located. Going through customs was extremely easy.

There was an Argentinean official and an Uruguayan official sitting next to each other at a counter. We handed our passports over with our Buquebus tickets… BAM BAM BAM BAM… Our passports were stamped by both countries’ customs officials, we walked through the “Duty Free” area and we got on to board the Buquebus ferry.

The Buquebus ride over to Buenos Aires was nice. There were plenty of little ones for Zoë to play with. She seems to make friends everywhere we go. There was a galley, where you could buy food and drinks… A little overpriced for what it was, but I’ve had a lot worse… They sold alcohol too.

For the kids who were a little bit older, there was a PS2 set up so they could play video games. On the way to Buenos Aires, there were a half a dozen 10-14 year old kids playing Futbol… On the way back, there was one lone kid who had the whole system to himself…

When we arrived at the Buquebus port in Buenos Aires, we had to pass our stuff through an x-ray machine, which went so fast there is no way possible they could have seen anything inside of it.

We then headed to the left to the Buquebus counter, handed our voucher for the transfer to our hotel to the attendant who had us escorted to a bus and away we went with front door service to our hotel.

At the Buquebus Turismo office, we had 30+ hotels to choose from. We ended up randomly picking “The Liberty Hotel.”  LOL…  That night, we felt like Kramer in that episode of Seinfield where the bright red light keeps flashing outside of his window… That was the same position of the ‘Hotel’ sign to our room.

It was pretty funny looking back on it, but getting to sleep was a different story. The noise outside didn’t help (we were on a busy street). The next time we go, we’ll be choosing a different hotel.

Once we checked into our hotel… We decided to go get food. What type?  Thai… We found a place through Google and went. My iPod Touch came in super handy, there were free connections to the Internet everywhere we walked.

Empire Thai was fantastic. The owner Kevin is originally from New Jersey, but has owned his restaurant for about eight years. We had breaded and fried prawns to start, which were phenomenal.

Then Chrystal and I both had Chicken Panang Curry. We both like spicy food and ordered ours spicy at a 7 on a scale of 1-10… Next time, we’ll be ordering a 6. We ordered Zoë the chicken Pad Thai, which was really good too.

If you are in Buenos Aires and you want extremely good Thai food in a cool place, check out Empire Thai. By the way, if you are a vodka drinker, Empire Thai has one of the largest selections of Vodka I’ve ever seen in a bar… and I’ve been to more bars than most. Our food was in the U$S8-10 a plate range.

We spent about 24 hours in Buenos Aires. We walked all over the city. There is a lot of beautiful architecture, although it’s a little hard to appreciate with the hoards of people on the streets. There are tons upon tons of places to shop and restaurants to eat at. One thing we found was that children’s toys were less expensive in Buenos Aires than in Montevideo. The city doesn’t sleep… It’s a very busy city, and a very big city. It’s like New York, but bigger.