Spring in Buenos Aires means is polo season (October to December). You don't have to break the budget to watch a game, though tickets can be sometimes hard to get. Polo is exciting to watch. Just think of hockey on horseback, 4 players in each team thundering around the field, mallets swinging, ends changing with each goal scored and lots more. You need to keep focus though if you want to follow a game properly, so go steady on the drinks. The players ride out the whole game, changing ponies after each chukka (A game of polo is divided into 6 chukkas of 7 minutes duration), hence the need for a string of ponies. The best riders manage to change ponies without touching the ground. Spectators take to the field at halftime to stomp down the chunks of turf kicked up during play. It is a great experience with lots of tradition. On the other hand, you may need a huge income to play polo. Maintaining a string of ponies certainly doesn't come cheap, but even years of dire economic troubles hasn't stopped Argentina being the polo capital of the world. In Buenos Aires there are many shops devoted to selling polo gear as well as clothing and assorted merchandise, just the thing for anyone heading off for a chukka. Beware though, rain means matches are rescheduled, so getting to a match can be a problem if you are on a tight schedule. The Buenos Aires Herald and Mundo Polo will have all the current information you need.
If you are planning to visit Buenos Aires in the near future there is a great new website that has online videos for many different travel destinations around the world, called Geobeats. They have an excellent video section on Buenos Aires, with many videos which include the most famous barrios of Buenos Aires and more, including spots on hotels, restaurants and museums. All the videos of Buenos Aires are very professionally done and pretty informative, so I recommend checking it out. I think online video really is a great tool for travellers, that is why I am going to be including some of the Geobeats videos on future articles. Maybe I will even venture into making some videos of Buenos Aires myself.
La Guía Óleo is the best tool available to find restaurants in Buenos Aires. The guide's database (almost 3000 establishments) allows users to make searches by a variety parameters such as name, type of cuisine, neighborhood, price, most popular, best rated, and more. Not only will it provide the address and usually a series of photos of the restaurant, it will also provide a very useful location map. Particularly helpful are the ratings of the food, service, decor and price that are calculated by user votes. So check it out and become a regular user. La Guía Óleo is indispensable.
If you like to shop, love discounts and want to discover new designers, there is a fun and different way to discover Buenos Aires. BA Boutique Tours takes you on a shopping safari. It is a 3 hour tour through the beautiful barrio de Recoleta that takes you into some of the barrio's best hidden boutiques. This walking tours run on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturdays starting at 10 am. Begins with a morning tea, then a visit to various glamorous stores (some of which you won't find anywhere else in the city), and ends with a delicious lunch. The cost is $25USD per person. So go ahead, shop with style while getting your moneys worth. Book your Fashion Safari with Kirsty 15 3565 1713 or Carolina 15 3320 2070 or send them an email to baboutiquetours@gmail.com
If you are planning to travel to Argentina with your pet here is some valuable information. Unfortunately, the online sites for the various consulates have conflicting information. So, after digging around I finally found the version from the Argentina Government website. Here is the information exacly as it is stated. Note that nothing is mentioned about apostilling the information. Also, remember that on the paperwork you need to make sure that you put your address and telephone number in Argentina...
The requirements to be fulfilled to get dogs and cats into Argentina are the following:
1. Complete information on the owner:
· first and last name
· country of origin or departure
· countries in transit (if any)
· address
2. Information about the animal:
· breed - sex
· birth date - size
· weight-fur colour
· particular signs
3. Vaccination certificate against rabies for animals over 3 months old.
For animals under 3 months old or that are coming from a country free from rabies and/or where anti-rabies vaccination is prohibited, this situation has to be stated on the certificate issued by the official sanitary authority.
4. Zoosanitary certificate issued by the official sanitary authority of the country of origin that should state:
· that the animal prior to leaving the country had no signs of any infectious-contagious or parasite disease, characteristic of the species.· if the animal is coming from countries that declare before the International Office of Epizooties (O.I.E.) the presence of african equine pest or Valle del Riff fever, shall certificate that in the area of origin, or where the animal is coming from, and in an area within fifty (50) kilometers of such, there have been no reports of those diseases in the last 12 months or that during that period the animal has not been taken to the affected regions.
5. Quarantine: the animals that fulfill the mentioned requirements will not undergo an import quarantine; if there is a suspicion of infectious-contagious, zoonotic or high risk diseases the SENASA (Servicio Nacional de Sanidad Animal) (National Office of Animal Sanitation) will decide on the means to assure the animal's isolation and the corresponding sanitary measures.
About the admittance of other species of domestic animals, each particular case has to be dealt with at SENASA, telephone (54-11) 4345-4112/4110.
To enjoy a coffee, a soda or to eat a sandwich at the Ezeiza International Airport in Buenos Aires is a privilege for just a few. There are just several restaurants and about four or five cafés in the entire airport. The lack of offer appears to have a gastronomic same common denominator: exorbitant prices!!! If you can afford it, good... if not, just abstain and starve. That seams to be the message. And it is not even first class restaurants and cafés we are talking about, it just your average place with average service. So, I increasingly see families with the trunk of the car lifted making a picnic with a thermos and mate, two-litter soft drinks, cookies and sandwiches right in the parking lot of the airport while awaiting the arrival of a loved one. To give you an idea, a small coffee in Ezeiza costs $ 9 (u$d 3), and I don´t even want to mention the rest of the price list. That is why the arrival of world famous chain of fast-food McDonald's to the airport not only promises to be an alternative for travellers and for their accompanying families and friends, but also for airport employees (specially the late since, with shifts covering 24 hours of operations, by an arbitrary decision they went to consume with discounts on all premises to be confined to just two very punctual, which are far from the workplace). So, Aeropuertos Argentina 2000 and Golden Arches reported that before the end of the year the Ezeiza International Airport will have a new McDonald's restaurant and McCafé. The restaurant will be located in Terminal B, will have an area of over 250 square meters, will employ 100 new employees and will proudly inaugurate its Golden Arches Local 181 in Argentina. I personally don´t like McDonald´s, but the question is: will this opening help lower the exorbitant prices at the airport and improve the quality of service? We are certainly hoping it does.