Day 220: Pedro’s Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires, Argentina

I had heard from other travellers that Buenos Aires got good free walking tours like the ones in European cities. I told Pedro that my plan for the day was to join the tours. Pedro went “Oh, you went to the website? I built it. And my friend started the BA free walking tour project.” My my, what a coincidence! This is why it’s so cool to have a local friend :]

Pedro also worked on a few major projects in Buenos Aires. For example, this Maraton del Agua event. He designed every single graphic for the campaign: logo, website, t-shirt, banners etc. When I was cruising around the city on a bus later on and saw a massive banner of it, I couldn’t help but felt really proud. After all, I saw him designing bits and pieces for the project in his apartment/work studio during the day.

There are two different free tours offered, a morning and an afternoon tour. Each brings tourists to different parts of the city. The afternoon tour that I joined walked along the aristocratic area called Recoleta. We meandered through the streets looking at the fancy architectures. Our guide was energetic and funny. In the end of it, everybody seemed to get fairly good insights on the history and culture of Buenos Aires-ian or as the locals call themselves, Porteno (people of the port). The Portenos are proud and friendly people. So prideful that the rest of South American and even the rest of Argentinians think they’re snobs. So friendly that prior arriving to Buenos Aires, I was already offered by three locals to stay at their homes.

In the evening, Pedro brought me to his girlfriend, Paula’s house. Although Paula and I were communicating like duck and chicken because of her lack of English and my lack of Spanish, we had a lot of fun. She’s a very upbeat and easy going person to be around with. We chatted until early in the morning so Paula offered me to stay at her place in her daughter’s room. That night, I slept in a room full of Justin Bieber’s posters I’m still regretting that I didn’t take photos of it.