Verdeta Journey

While in Buenos Aires, without knowledge of Spanish language, this mobile app can come handy. I found it when I was browsing app store and searching apps built around Buenos Aires. What made me feel like this taxi cab application can be a good option, is the fact, that it is sponsored by the Argentinian government. They have few more apps available for iPhone as well as for Android. So I felt much safer using this and not knowing Spanish. The smartphone app is easy to download and you need to fill in few details about yourself after first launch of the app. Then you are ready to get your first taxi. This app also helps you to see the estimated prices before ordering a cab. The interface is very simple even without knowing Spanish and you can order Buenos Aires taxi in few simple steps.  The prices you see are in pesos and you can access/reject the driver if you don't like him for whatever reason. Paying is in cash to the driver in pesos at the end of your journey. The taxi ...

29/12/2017 Flight from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia (Aerolíneas Argentina) We are getting up early and packing our rucksacks. I’m always a bit stressed before another journey so do I am also now. Everything is done quickly as we prepared majority in the evening and heading down from the 9th floor to the reception to catch a taxi.  The reception and the streets are still quiet. It is not that early. My watch leaning to 7am and I’m opening BA Taxi app on my smartphone. All works fine, good internet connection, location service located us precisely and I can enter the destination: Aeropuerto Jorge Newbury. I got the price back straight away and it says as I expected - 120 pesos. So I can hit the order button and wait for a driver. Buscando... buscando for about 2 minutes now. So I’m going to cancel and order again. Buscando... waiting a bit longer, about 4 minutes and nothing. All the taxi drivers busy? Too early? And as we are deciding if to ask the hotel reception to call us a t...

We took the bus 27/12/2017 at 19:15 from Puerto Iguazu. The bus company is Via Bariloche and we bought the tickets online in November. Type of the service we chose was Cama and we booked seats 1 and 2 (first row, top floor). The bus tickets we printed out from the email we received from Busplus.   Before we boarded, our rucksacks got labels with numbers and we got the same number stickers to keep. Also they checked our tickets and passports. The passport number on the ticket should match with your passport. Mine didn’t (as I got a new passport since I bought the tickets), but I just said I have a new passport.  The seats were big and comfortable and you could make almost a flat bed from them (160 degrees). There is also a USB charging port for each seat and headphones jack to listen what is on the TV screen and also a speaker which some people leave on quite loud. Also a pillow and a blanket were provided. The toilet was on the lower deck and whenever the toilet was...

Sube card and use in subway and bus. - 25 pesos to buy at the till at an entrance to the underground. - ‎they charge it as you buy it. So we paid 100 pesos and got 75 pesos top-up. - ‎there are yellow self service top-up kiosks and they are in Spanish only. But not difficult to understand and do the top-up using pesos bank notes. - ‎the card is blue colour, credit card size, with magnetic stripe and with text SUBE. - ‎one ride in metro (subway, underground) costs approx 7.50 pesos. - ‎we also had to recharge (top-up) our Sube card in Retiro Omnibus terminal and there was only a blue machine taking bank notes and we didn't get how to use it. After watching few people with the same problem as us, we finally saw someone who knew how to use it. There is a small wide hole where you put your sube card in and leave it there. It is not tight, it is kind of freely inserted in, feels like broken. But that's correct. Then the machine recognises your card. All sube card readers are sl...

- I don't know where to find self service launderette to wash my clothes in Buenos Aires - ‎google maps showed us Lavado Autoservicio and we found in Google search some forum where people asked about a service of this kind and based on the area description we though that will be the one (the guy from the forum didn't remember the exact address) where we can wash by ourselves. But this was a normal lavanderia at the end, serviced. No ironing, which we didn't want anyway. But. With our Spanish, it was rather complicated to understand and describe what we want. The normal service is 80 pesos for cold wash (lavado) + tumble dry. We have many things we don't want to tumble dry, so we had to separate our laundry to two batches. Just wash without dry costs 50 pesos. - ‎we picked our clothes up in the evening of the same day without any problems.

I’m not feeling well since morning. Maybe too much walking on the direct sun yesterday. Sleeping in the bed until the afternoon. Denisa did buy some food in a meantime and went to MALBA.   Then in the afternoon, we packed our rucksacks and got them ready for tomorrow’s flight to Puerto Iguazu.  In the evening we took a tube to Teatro Colon. We bought tickets for The Nutcracker ballet in October and it vas only 400 pesos per person. With the online printed reservation, I have to wait inside of the theatre to get the real tickets to the show. Everything is going well, got the tickets and there is written what door (street name and number) to use to get in to the theatre.   Our seats are on the last floor, and the view down on to the scene is not good. But the theatre Colon is amazing inside. It would be better to pay more for the tickets and buy them earlier and be on the third floor to get better views. The ballet was excellent and enjoyable. Great acoustic....

We found some lavandería on google maps, based on some posts in forums. It seemed like one where you can wash your clothes by yourself. As we have things we cannot dry using tumble drier on high temperature, we prefer to do it ourselves. It was 25 minutes walk and it wasn’t self service at the end. We split the laundry to things they can dry (80 pesos wash+dry) and things they cannot (50 pesos wash only). Pickup in the evening at 7pm.   Then we went to rose garden El Rosedal De Palermo, spent some time there. On the way up there we stopped for an amazing ice cream in Helados Jauja on Lafinur..  Towards the evening we picked up our laundry and then we went to a nice book shop in the centre (Al Ateneo Grand Splendid). On the way back to our place, we stopped at Wyatt cafe bar on Av. Cerviño (2 beers and small chicken sticks for 200 pesos) and then Club de la Milanese (2 beers + papas Criminales: 345 pesos). 

10:40am, trying to get a taxi using BA Taxi app and no luck. It took me 15 minutes until I found one. Streets very busy, full of cars, traffic jams... We got to San Telmo 15 minutes later. Paid 200 pesos for taxi and went to our tango lesson. Gerry and Lucia were excellent, we really enjoyed the lesson with them and they spoke perfectly English. The lesson cost 700 pesos and it was good fun.   Then we walked to see some live tango performance to Plaza Dorrego, around 1pm and then had lunch in Pasaje Solar. Looked like French food type restaurant, but we were hungry, so stayed in. Decent lunch, paid 440 pesos for both of us, including two small beers, coffee and desert.  The next plan was to get to Caminito and google maps showed me where to take a bus number 33 apparently going there. First local public bus we were taking. Didn’t know how we find out where to get off and by mistake we crossed the bridge to La Boca and rather got off the first stop after the bridge. ...

We had to withdraw money from an HSBC ATM nearby. Maximum is 3000 pesos and you pay extra 176 pesos fee to Argentinian bank. (plus whatever your bank charges extra on top of if) Then tube from Bulnes to Retiro station. There are not enough signs where to find Omnibus terminal. Before you get out from the underground station, there in one arrow pointing to Omnibus terminal, but outside, there is nothing. It took us while to figure out that you have to walk quite far, passing one or two train stations, before you get to bus terminal building. Just stay on the same side of the road as you get of the tube station and walk. The omnibus terminal is big and the tickets are sold on the second (top) floor. We read (in some blog) that La Plata till is number 5 (there is about 200 of tills). We waited until someone showed up and tey told us, that we have to use the SUBE card to get to La Plata. They don't sell tickets anymore. So simply charge your Sube card with enough money and find ...

It's raining today. We are heading to MALBA gallery, which is only 15 minutes walk from our accomodation. Unfortunately MALBA is closed on Tuesdays. Well, the rain is not so pleasant, so we don't want to go anywhere far and decided to visit Jardin Japones (Japanese Garden). The entrance is free for locals today, but for foreigners it's 95 pesos. We spent about an hour in the gardens, it was empty of people, nice and quiet. Had a coffee next to the ponds and went to find something to eat for lunch.   Not wanting to spend a fortune for lunch, we were discovering what is on one of the streets nearby and found La Juvenil deli shop on Jerónimo Salguero street. Bought one Tortilla and some Dulce con Leche desert.  In the afternoon, walking to Plaza Italia to a Claro shop to get mi SIM activated. Got lucky with the customer service representative, he could do a bit of English and activated my SIM and sold us second one for 10 pesos only. Then we walked to Honduras street,...

Breakfast at Cafe Martinez, the same street as our Airbnb flat. Sunny day, so we took a long walk to Floralis Genérica with a massive mechanical tulip flower (free entrance), visited Facultad de Derecho university (free), and then old Recoleta cemetery (free). The Recoleta cemetery is an interesting place, where you can see huge variety of tombs. Each one is different, many of them also have a basement floor. There is Evita Perón’s tomb.  Lunch at Romario pizzeria (chain), right behind the Recoleta cemetery. We had few different posadas and two small draught beers. I noticed that sometimes the draught beer is called chop. We could pay by card there, so I had to get some cash from an atm of Banko de la Nación Argentino located on a parallel street behind us.  Then we walked to Las Heras underground station. On the way there, I stopped in Kiosco to get an Argentinian SIM card for 45 pesos. Inside of the tube station, we were wondering how to get a ticket or something to...

The company we flew with was Level operated by Iberia. Boeing or Airbus something-something and had 2-4-2 seats layout. So me and Denisa could sit together without any issues. We sat in row 17 on the side. They served breakfast and very late lunch. The movies choice was rather good and the meals were okay. No complaints. And USB charging is quite normal these days. They gave us a customs form (I took a picture of). Similar to one you get when you fly to the USA. We filled that very simply and then handed to a police man at immigration booth after landing. The queues weren't bad. The flight was 13 hours long and we landed at 5pm Buenos Aires local time. It is 4 hours difference to Barcelona during winter time. At the Buenos Aires Argentina EZE international airport, we were looking for an ATM cash machine. Found HSBC on the left after exiting the baggage area, but neither of two HSBC ATM in that area worked. We didn't see any other cash machine and went to Banko el Argent...