Saturday, February 24, 2018

Our Buenos Aires Vacation 2018: Day 3 - Visiting The Buenos Aires Botanical Garden

We've found that Buenos Aires has a way of refreshing us physically and emotionally every time, and even though we had a few hours left, we decided to make the best of our experience. So our first stop was to Magic Donuts.
This photo was taken after we got home. Unfortunately, the journey was brutal on the box, but the donuts were still delicious, despite their final appearance.
We left Magic Donuts with a sweet taste in our mouths, and a box of a dozen glazed donuts to take home with us. Then we headed to the nearest subway station towards our next destination.
Some of the subway stations have very beautiful works of art

Our intention was to visit the zoo, but we've already been to the Cordoba Zoo twice, and we weren't expecting anything different, hence why we opted for the botanical garden.
The admission was free, which was really surprising for such a lovely place! If you seriously needed to get away from the chaos of a crowded city, this would be the place to do it. 
Don't worry about getting lost. There's a map at the entrance, and signs all over the garden that will let you know where you are. The sections in the garden are divided by the countries each plant species is indigenous too.
When you walk into the garden, it feels like you're going into a... secret garden since you just practically left the hectic city life behind you.
It's a beautiful pond. Unfortunately, there are no fishes in it. Zach wanted to jump in, but I advised against it since he would have probably broken his legs.
Some areas look like the jungle-like forest you'd expect to see in Jurassic Park or Jurassic World. Zach was sad that he didn't see any dinosaurs!
As you can tell we weren't the only people in the botanical gardens, and they certainly do seem to value the beauty of nature here, just like us!
Zach was excited to see the butterfly garden, but it was a little disappointing since it was literally a butterfly garden unlike the ones in the States where they have them in their own protective dome.
He saw two butterflies: A striped yellow one and a bright pink one, but if you want to know the names of them then look them up on Google.
We saw children throwing coins and food, which we can only assume were seeds and bread. For some reason we found  this odd because there were no ducks or fish in the fountain.
We decided to have a little fun and pretend like we were extra in Jumanji and the upcoming Jurassic World sequel. Who did a better job?
Some of the plants were so unique and beautiful that they seemed like they were out of this world, particularly these plants, which look like the genetic love child of corn and churros.
Zach taking a big whiff of nature


Me overdosing on Vitamin D and not in a good way!
We also saw some really weird statues that were somewhat interesting and thought provoking, as in... "What am I looking at?" 
 Click to enlarge the photos so you can see what we saw!
There was a castle in the center of the garden, which we can only assume belonged to Mother Nature aka the groundskeeper. Actually, it was some sort of library for children to learn more about the plants.
Mulder and Scully need to come down here cause we see crop circles!

Some areas reminded us a bit of the tree people seen in Lord of the Rings!


Blair Witch Project, anyone?
Zach was looking for his donuts because after an hour and half of walking around the garden, he misplaced them and was worried! 
There was also this statue in the middle that had a combination of indigenous people, Greeks, monks, and possibly a nun.
The Green House (Side Entrance)
Click to enlarge to see who did the best impression of Regina, the evil queen from Once Upon A Time. 
Some of the trees decided to branch out on their own... literally! Look at these two weird examples and tell us what you think.
If you don't have enough pricks in your life, then you can always go visit the cacti section in the botanical garden. 
Apparently, this tower is used to tell time, like a sundial, which now that we think about it is probably what it was. Some local told Zach that when the moonlight is strong, you can pinpoint on the ground the location of the stars. Zach thought it was bogus, but then again, he never saw it at night.
Being a huge Star Trek fan, I was reminded of the Preserver technology seen in the original series Star Trek episode 58: "The Paradise Syndrome."
 
 I felt like I walked on Mars because of all the red dirt that had covered my blue shoes
After resting another hour on a park bench, we decided that we were hungry, and since this was our last day in Buenos Aires, we chose to pig out on Wendy's and KFC. So we went to the Alto Palermo Mall again, our second home.
Can you spot the photo-bomber?
After we got stuffed, but in a good way, we took the subway back to our hotel. Then we got our luggage, said goodbye to the hotel staff, who had been very cordial, and made our way back to the subway to the Retiro bus terminal.
Now you'd think that we'd be stuffed after eating KFC and Wendy's, but luckily we were able to empty our stomachs at the hotel before we left and were eager to eat again.
This bruschetta was by far the best I've had.
Unfortunately, there were two things that were uh-uh! One was the fetus... oh, sorry, the chicken roll that looked slimy and unappetizing. The other was this ball of crap on the middle left hand side of the tray that was apparently a messed up omelette. Even the person that served it to us didn't know what it was and wished us good luck. Zach only liked the peaches and the bread sticks. But we ended up dumping most of it in the garbage and we weren't the only ones.
 Goodbye Buenos Aires... for now!
Our faces once we realized that this bus was taking us back to our host province and that meant no more donuts, KFC, Wendy's or T.G.I.F. for us. Luckily, we had a dozen donuts with us on the trip. 

Thank you for following us on our trip to Buenos Aires. Hopefully you yourselves will find your way there and enjoy some of the many things it has to offer.