After 19 hours on the plane from Dubai to Buenos Aires and the short 2 hour stop in Dubai just gave enough time to take a quick shower and change of clothes, I was looking forward to getting out of the cramped seats and lying down on a bed.

The view from the plane window revealed the size of the city.

Staying in central Buenos Aires for 1 night might not have been wise given that I landed at the airport at around 10pm and by the time I reached the hotel it was 11pm (additional delays due to attempts to draw cash from the airport ATMs).

There is only 1 money changer at Ezeiza International Airport (EZE), a state-run bank with a very long queue and some very archaic rules (no browsing the phone while queuing) with a guard berating us with warnings in Spanish. The only plus-side being that they give one of the better rates in the city.

Once I checked into the hotel I had to rush to re-pack for my next flight to Iguazú the following morning . The taxi was scheduled to pick me up at 5am which didn’t leave a great deal of time for sleep (which turned out to a be scarce commodity for most of this trip).

It was at this point I regretted getting such a central hotel (it was a lot cheaper than the hotels closer to the airport), as this added a 45 min drive and given that I delayed my actual exploration of the city to the end of my trip, the prime location seemed rather wasted at this point.

The hotel was housed in a building that seemed to date from the 1920s with an antique lift that had scarcely changed much since its installation.

Unfortunately I didn’t take a photo of it but it looks very similar to the contraption below.


This photo of La Perla is courtesy of TripAdvisor

I had been confused by the similar hotel names which occupied different floors of the building.On one floor was their dormitory branch catering to backpackers and a few floors above was the branch I had a reservation.

This mix-up had me going up and down a few times. On top of that I was lugging my baggage along so I had to use the excruciatingly slow lift to move between floors.

Given that my taxi pickup was before 30 mins before the regular working day rate. I had to pay ARS 650 for my taxi to Ezeiza airport (EZE) (compared to the 550 I paid the night before). The taxi drivers know very rudimentary english so it was a mostly quiet drive to the airport.

Domestic flights require checkin an hour from takeoff so getting to the flight was relatively hassle free with automated-kiosks printing out boarding passes and baggage drops for a speedy checkin. Ezeiza (EZE) is probably the most modern & efficient airport I’ve been through in South America.

I boarded the Aerolíneas Argentinas flight in the early morning and prepared myself for a very sweaty 2 days in the jungles of Iguazú.