Click link to read article:
KLM Flying Dutchman Magazine – BAlocal Tours

Lonely Planet Buenos Aires City Guide 2011

Private Tours
BA Local (4870-5506; www.balocal.com) Expats specializing in shopping, art and off-the-beaten-path (or just regular city) tours.

What?  There’s a Chinatown in Buenos Aires?  Yes, believe it or not! And its growing bigger every day with more restaurants, asian supermarkets and trinket shops, its become a very busy neighborhood.  The main entrance starts right at the Belgrano train station at Juramento and Arribeños in the neighborhood known as Belgrano.  The supermarkets are great if you’re looking for imported ingredients or asian veggies not found in the local vegetable stand.  The freshest fish is also found in Chinatown as well.  I have to say most of the restaurants are very disappointing but I’ve found an excellent Chinese restaurant on Monteñeses between Juramento and Mendoza called Hong Kong Style.  Its probably the only decent dim sum in the city and you have to try the deep fried grouper (mero) with a sweet spicy sauce… excelente!  In Asia Oriental, the biggest supermarket, you can grab a bowl of hot noodle soup while you wait for you fish to be cleaned.  Enjoy Chinatown!

A vacation in Buenos Aires is not complete without shopping and with the favorable exchange rate visitors find amazing deals on Argentine made goods such as: top designers, art and crafts, semi-precious stones, silver, leather (especially calf skin, lamb skin, goat skin and furs), art, designs for the home, etc.  Here is a little guide if you plan to go shopping on your own:

Art and Craft Fairs

• Plaza Francia Fair – located in front of Recoleta cemetery you’ll find handcrafted goods from knitted shaws to mate cups
• San Telmo Antique Fair – located in the heart of San Telmo you’ll find antiques, crafts, knick-knaks (chandeliers, silver, murano vases)

Shopping Centers and boutiques are the mecca of high-end designers in Buenos Aires

• Paseo Alcorta – located right next to MALBA (museum latin american art of Buenos Aires) in the neighborhood of Palermo Chico
• Alta Palermo – located in the center of Palermo packed with local Argentine brands
• Palermo Soho – boutique shopping in a new hip chic neighborhood

If you can’t manage shopping on your own or you just don’t have much time, BAlocal will customize a shopping tour for you.  Our tours can be shopping for gifts, Argentine fashion, cultural goods and interior design, you tell us about yourself and what you’re looking for and we take you there.  Check here to contact BAlocal: BAlocal contact page

Today my son and I decided to do some market research by checking out the new bus tour of Buenos Aires.  And he was very excited to take some pictures.  Honestly, I cringe at the thought of taking a bus tour with a bunch of strangers without having control of the tour.  I think bus tours only work when your group is very larger and I always recommend private tours for smaller groups.

 Based on my experience today and any other day I’ve taken bus tours anywhere else in the world:

1. No control of tour time. After purchasing my ticket online to be ahead of the game, I headed to the 3pm bus tour, having a very positive attitude about this new bus tour.  When I arrived I was informed the only spots left for the bus tour was at 5:30pm.  How could that be?  I bought my ticket at 12pm online.  I accepted the tour for 5:30pm but I had to wait 2 ½ hours for the last bus. 
2. Device malfunction.  Very high tech, every seat had its own set of headphones in 10 different languages.  I tried plugging the headphones to the outlet labeled English but the plug would not go all the way in.  Then I finally got it in the outlet labeled Spanish… no problem I speak Spanish.  Of course, only the right headphone worked.  So I asked the gentleman next to me to if he could hand me the spare set… only to find out that only the right headphone worked on this one as well.  And it was so loud I had to place the headphone halfway off my ear so I wouldn’t lose my hearing.
3. No one to point out.  Being a city tour guide, I’m very familiar with the sights of the city but I noticed my son was just looking at random things than what was on tour… could it be he’s just too young to show interest.  No, absolutely not!  I looked around and no one was looking at what they should be looking at.  So then I started to point things out as the audio mentioned them so my son could understand what was being said.  I noticed others paying attention to me.
4. Recording not matching location.  Another reason why many didn’t know what the automated system was talking about because the recording spoke about a sight after we’d past it.  Some were lucky to turn back around.
5. Completely missed some sights listed on map/handout.  Granted it was Sunday and many fairs close off the streets but I couldn’t help get angry that we missed almost the entire neighborhood of San Telmo.  I decided to take this tour on a Sunday to prevent going during traffic (weekdays are hell for a big bus tour – hard to maneuver the city). 
6. No time to stop and walk around each neighborhood.  I always like to do a little bit of walking around neighborhoods to see how locals live their lives but the bus didn’t let you browse and then come back.  Yet if I would have made the earlier bus, I would have been able to get the next bus in half an hour but no, I was on the last bus.  Why was I on the last bus?  Because there wasn’t any availability, though I arrived 5 buses before and bought my ticket online being well prepared.  But hey, that’s a bus tour!
7. Obnoxious people.  The lady behind us had the nerve of having a 20-minute phone conversation during our tour.  Smoking!  Can you believe a lady right next to us was smoking and every time the wind blew my way I got a mouth full of ashes? For god sakes, my kid was breathing in ashes and smoke. And her mother behind us started smoking too!  Oh and she was the same lady talking on the phone during the tour. 
8. Lost in Translation.  In the middle of the tour, my son fell asleep… I guess it was too boring, well frankly, it was.  I took his headset so that I could listen to the tour in English.  His headset only had one headphone working too.  I have to admit the English wasn’t bad but sometimes things were translated wrong.

All I have to say is you get what you pay for!

Why BAlocal Private Guided Tours are sooooo worth it!

1. There is no waiting around.  We meet you at your hotel or where ever you’d like us to meet you at a time specified by you.
2. We are human guides!  You can ask a question at any time and we’ll have an answer.  If you can’t hear, we’ll repeat it for you. 
3. As we pass or stop by a sight, we speak to it while pointing it out.
4. If a street is cut off, we’ll get out of the vehicle and walk to the sight or find the best way to get there in the vehicle.
5. We tell anecdotes of the places you see giving more life and feeling to how the city and the people function.
6. It’s your tour!  If you want to stay in one place more than another because it strikes your fancy, by all means that’s what we’re going to do.
7. You won’t have to listen to any obnoxious people you don’t know.
8. Most of our tour guides are native English speakers and if they are not, their English is excellent!
9. And the number one thing that makes BAlocal so great…. our tours are FUN!

For the beginning of the week long events, the group started an opening cocktail dinner at Sette Bacco, Buenos Aires’ exclusive Italian restaurant located in the heart of Recoleta.  The food was delicious and the group had an amazing time getting to know each other for their upcoming events.  As described by Katy Yokom, Spalding’s coordinator, “dinner was spectacular!  A smashing success!”Chance Miller, man-about-town, and Elizabeth Gleeson, artist & art connoisseur, hit up local sightseeing spots with two stops at major museums from the fine arts to contemporary work from local Argentine artists.   They finished up the tour at an artist house chatting about art while nibbling on cheese and sipping Argentina’s finest wine.

The BUZZ is Buenos Aires is breeding a good stock of avant garde artists and everyone wants a piece!  Elizabeth Gleeson, BAlocal’s new art gallery tour guide and one of BAs newest artists, takes visitors to top and off-the-beaten-path galleries exposing you to the world of contemporary art.   Well connected in Buenos Aires’ thriving art scene, Liz helps you find your very own precious artwork on her private gallery tour, whether it’s underground graffiti or traditional landscapes. She is also the ‘artistic eye’ voice on Urbana 89.5′s BAlive show every Thursday at 9pm.

The most picturesque part of Argentina is in the north, Salta and Jujuy… both places should not be missed!  

On a whim, we decided to take a road trip to northern red rocky Andes to give Argentina’s visitors the best travel advice.

City of Salta, Salta – First, make it to the city of Salta your first stop.  Take a walk through the food market located on Florida and San Martin to try local fried empanandas and tamales served with a spicy salsa and SALTA beer.  You’ll also find all sorts of spices, crafted goods and textiles to bring back home.  Take a walk a little further down San Martin and you’ll find Patio de Empanadas, where you’ll find many different vendors dishing out Salta’s best bites. Stay at the Design Suites modern design comfortable beds, rooftop jacuzzi and pool and a absolutely delicious breakfast.  Tip: ask for a room the in tower.  The hotel also occupies a turn of the century home… beautiful rooms and great balcony but faces a very noisy street. Rent a car and drive up to Purmamarca, Jujuy on Ruta 9.  The beginning is a very narrow drive up a mountain up on tropical forest, exciting and scary and the same time.  The drive will take you about 4-5 hours.

Purmamarca, Jujuy - Purmamarca is a beautiful town facing the 7-colored mountain.  There are few places to stay in town but we found a place just up the street from the town called La Comarca We chose this place for its cottages, heated swimming pool, great restaurant and spectacular view.  Make sure you dine at Los Morteros, the llama is so tender and you must try grilled goat cheese with sun-dried tomatoes.  Spend a day visiting the little towns north of Purmamarca.  In Humahuaca, we found very inexpensive textiles, knitted sweaters and gloves and dry cardones (cactus), which are the large cactus that you see everywhere in Jujuy and Salta.  What really made Humahuaca different was seeing the faces of the locals… you don’t see many native faces in Argentina except for this area… beautiful!  Go to Tilcara for its outdoor market in the beautiful square.  We were told to go to Iruya but we didn’t make it… not enough time.  Next, go west of Purmamarca for an afternoon and visit the Salinas Grandes, its a evaporated sea with the remnants of salt.  Tip: No matter how cold it is, you must wear sunblock and sunglasses.  The reflection of the sun on the salt burns.

 Cafayate, Salta - We headed back south through the capital of Salta and went down to Cafayate.  On the drive, the mountains are all red rock formations caused by the amount of iron in the ground.  We stopped the in the ‘Devil’s throat’, where we climbed through the throat of the mountain, surrounded by entire gigantic rock.  Stay at the Cafayate Wine Resort , a wine resort looking over the grape vineyards, right smack dab in the vineyards trails.  (BTW – BAlocal can book this hotel for you) We spent a day trekking to the different wineries in search of the best Torrontes, btw, only grown in the Salta region.  The hotel offered many excursions and we chose to go to the Quilmes Ruins.  We visited an archelogical site of where the Quilmes Indians lived up until they were forced out in the late 1600s moving by foot 1,500km to a reservation located south of Buenos Aires, today known as Quilmes. We wanted to go to Colome close to Cachi, Salta and the city of Tucuman but we ran out of time.   Oh well, I guess we have to go back.