Doing the Tourist Thing – With A Sube Card!!

After yesterday’s lazy day in, listening to previous interviews and generally resting our feet from trotting along the city, today we did a bit of the tourist thing and explored La Boca. Earlier in the day we tried to get on a tour of Teatro Colón but all the tours were full by the time we got there. Still, the sun came out and the humidity dissipated just in time for our leisurely walk through the colourful neighbourhood, with its street market, street tango dancers and many café-restaurants. To top it up I visited the Museo de Bellas Artes de La Boca and fell in love with Juan Carlos Miraglia, an awesome bocaense painter & designer.

 

Por Juan Carlos Mraglia

Tomorrow we leave the hotel and start couch surfing. The exciting second half of our trip is upon us! I am looking forward to the possibility of interviewing some of the awesome students we’ve met in the past couple of days and getting to know a few more porteños. But the thing to note is that we’ve really started to feel comfortable in this pretty busy city!

Our sube card!!

Our greatest win of the day was finding a Subte Card! Let me explain how much this means to us… The only way to pay for public buses is by using coins. However, as the lowest bill is 2 Pesos, it is rare that one will get coins, unless specifically asking for change, which makes it excessively inconvenient to get on the bus. Alternatively, it is possible to get a plastic card (a bit like an Oyter card), buy credit on pretty much every corner and swipe in as one gets on a bus. However, whenever we asked a porteño where to get one of these cards, the answer was a roll of the eyes followed by “che, eso será difícil”. Well then, we asked at post offices and many shops where it is possible to charge the card until we were let into a well kept secret in Buenos Aires: you can get them from the newspaper kiosks on the street!