Visiting Barrio Norte

Last Friday’s activity with Elebaires took us to the beautiful Barrio Norte.

Our tour guide Augustin is very nice, and explained things very simple so everyone could understand.  He could even explain in English when necessary. We went walking along the “Avenida de Mayo” towards “El Congreso”. It’s a massive building with beautiful architecture, which lies on the end of the street. He told us that if you stand in the middle of the street, you are able to see both “el Congreso” and “La Casa Rosada” (the pink house.)

Then we took Av. Callao and followed it until we came to the “Palacio de Aguas Corrientes” (The Palace of Running Water). It’s a tremendous building which used to serve the whole city with water.

Afterwards, we went into an amazing library. It was obvious that this place had been a theater. It was very well restored and a beautiful sight. Now it is filled with books, and we were able to walk around enjoying this wonderful room looking up at the balconies.  There was a perfect little breeze, a nice change from the heat outside. When you continued into the library, there was a coffee shop as well, kind of hidden in the end.

Augustin then took us to see a nice little park. On the way we saw the national library with French architecture. We kept on walking until we came to the little park, with a tremendous tree, where the natives can rent bicycles for free, which is I thought was a very nice offer. Too bad we are not natives, but he told us that there are several places in San Telmo and Palermo as well.

On our way back, Augustin asked us if we had tried “Dulce de Leche”, and we hadn’t,  so he took us to a chocolate chain, which is supposed to be the best one here in BA, called “Havanna”. I must say it was delicious! It was called “Alfajor”, and you could get it with white chocolate, fruits, and all kind of different sorts. If you haven’t tried it, you really should! It only costs 7 pesos.

At the end of the trip, Augustin showed us the bus we could get a ride with back to the school, but we preferred to walk back in the nice weather.

I definitely felt like it was a different kind of tour, because we went with a “local” (he lives in the neighborhood).  He has a lot of knowledge about the area. For example he was pointing out his high school, told us what kind of people where hanging out in different areas and so on, so the tour felt more personal than others I’ve been to.

All in all it was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, it was kind of hot, but we found our way in the shadow along Barrio Nortes sidewalks.