Our Spanish teacher, Nacho, came to our hotel this morning to have breakfast with us and to say goodbye before we took the Buquebus to Buenos Aires.

The Buquebus is something we read about in our class, in the novel La Uruguaya, a very fast ferry between Uruguay and Argentina. Even though it takes about 3 hours to go from Montevideo to Buenos Aires, the Buquebus, specifically our ship, HSC Francisco, is considered one of the fastest ferries in the world, traveling at a speed of 107 kilometers/hour or 58 knots. It can accommodate 150 cars and 1,024 passengers and is powered by liquified natural gas. It is considered the fastest passenger ship in service.

And the whole reason for going to Buenos Aires? Not only to experience the Buquebus, but also to meet our other Spanish teacher, Barbi Avíles, who lives in Bahia Blanca some 7 hours away by car. She was willing to come to Buenos Aires to meet us, and she brought her mother as well. What is absolutely astounding is that although we see Barbi and Nacho regularly host our class, and they collaborate to come up with our daily lessons and games, Barbi and Nacho have never met in person! I just find this amazing!

Our first stop was at the Recoleta cemetery, which was very close to our hotel. This was not only for Marsha, whose family owns several mortuaries, but also to see the graves of famous people. The Recoleta cemetery contains the graves of Eva Perón, presidents of Argentina, Nobel Prize winners, the founder of the Argentine Navy, and military commanders like Julio Argentino Roca. 

As you can see by the slideshow above, the mausoleums in this cemetery are extremely elaborate, with many of them having more graves stored downstairs. Here’s how one company described it:

It is an eerily beautiful place, with shadowed walkways and towering marble mausoleums rich in Art Deco, Art Nouveau, baroque and neo-gothic architectural styles, Masonic symbols and powerful religious iconography. Over 90 of its tombs are listed as national historical monuments.

We walked about a mile to the El Ateneo Grand Splendid bookstore, considered the 2nd most beautiful bookstore in the world in 2008 by The Guardian and in 2019, it was named the “world’s most beautiful bookstore” by the National Geographic.

We ended the evening (for us) with dinner at the cafe next door to the bookstore. For the Argentinians, though, it was much too early to eat — they are used to eating dinner about 9:00 pm or later, and we sat down in the cafe about 6:30 pm. Barbi and her mom only had a snack, while the rest of us ate real food. Marsha and I shared a salmon and vegetable platter, and Janice had a large salad, while Elliot had a hamburger and fries. While we had dinner, we also had a non-stop Spanish lesson! Tonight it was the difference between acá, ahí and allá. (If you don’t know Spanish, don’t worry about it!)