Buenos Aires – Sunday afternoon in the park with Linda: Week 13 / Day 87 / April 7
Buenos Aires, Argentina: We had initially thought to go check out some other areas (San Telmo Market or Plaza de Mayo), but decided to do the parks today instead. Given it is Sunday, we thought it would be more interesting to see them when they are teeming with people.
We started with Jardin Botánico Carlos Thays located right down the street from our apartment. While the garden was right down the street, it was gated and it took us a while to locate the entrance. Along the way, we passed a long line of pet owners getting their pets vaccinated at a free event.
The grounds of the garden are where the Thays family once lived in Buenos Aires, with the family’s mansion now the central building in the gardens.
The gardens are sectioned off into different regions of the world, with a wide variety of plants and flowers growing.
Throughout South America, I have continued to be amazed by the variety of cacti we have seen and the number of flowers / fruits growing upon them.
Located in a small section of the gardens was a butterfly garden with numerous flowers.
There was no physical barrier to keep the butterflies in this area, so, they must really like these plants.
Leaving the butterfly garden, we headed into the different geographic regions.
I think my favorite one was Europe, as, according to what they had shown, there are no interesting plants in Europe.
Leaving the gardens we came across what I can only describe as a photogenic pigeon. I usually regard them as rats with wings, but this one actually looked nice. You may well disagree.
After the gardens, we crossed the street to the Eco Park. This park used to house the zoo, but the the zoo was closed in 2016 and the animals returned to the wild. Some of the animals that were appropriate to do so remain in the park.
I could not find out what kind of birds these were, but I do know they are loud as the video below will attest.
In addition to these birds, we also saw some peacocks, and, the only person in the entire world who has ever been interested in a Canadian Goose.
There were also quite a few Patagonian Mara wandering around the park.
Leaving the Eco Park, we crossed another street to yet more parks. Basically, this entire section of the city is a many mile long network of connected parks. This newest park had a rally going on for solidarity with Venenzuala – unclear to me whether they meant the government or the people. Additionally, there were huge numbers of people out on the lawn enjoying the day and playing games.
At the end of this section of park was another large park with formal rose gardens.
We took a short break here to relax for a while and enjoy the scenery. Making our way out of this portion of park, we crossed a small bridge over a nearby pond and headed across to the next park.
Here again there were many people out picnicking and many soccer balls being kicked around.
In one of the parks, as I looked across it, I counted ten soccer balls in play just in that one direction. Continuing our walk, we came across a drum team that was practicing:
Further along was a race that had just finished up, with a number of activities still going on including bubble soccer and, oddly enough, makeup demonstrations:
In fact, there were a number of tents with long lines doing makeovers and providing skin care products.
We continued past this area and came upon yet another park with a large pond in the middle of it.
Exhausted from all of our walking, we stopped at a restaurant for dinner. Food in Buenos Aires is both good and cheap – always a winning combination. The restaurant we were at was near the stadium for the River Plate soccer club and we saw the fans passing by after their match was over. Fans of Boca Juniors will be happy to know that River lost on the day.
After dinner we took an Uber back to the apartment and wrapped up our day.
