Base Camp: Buenos Aires

Staging a long family trip like this is a bit like a military operation, or scaling the summits of Himalayan peaks. You need to ensure your supply lines are open and well stocked. Base camp and every installation above needs to have adequate supplies and support to launch the final assault, or to fall back on in bad weather. Choosing Buenos Aires as base camp made for a good hub to explore Uruguay, Patagonia, the Andes and Chile, and has effectively meant that we have embarked on multiple sorties with just backpacks, swapping swimtrunks for parkas depending on the destination, and coming back to Recoleta apartments in between to organize, regroup and catch up with acquaintances before setting off again. Thankfully, I'm married to a logistics siege engine. 

There's a charm to negotiating the neighbourhood in a foreign city, even or especially the mundane stuff: dropping off your laundry, shopping for fruit & veg, going to the post office, finding a favourite cafe. The morning pastries here surpass anything in Milan or Paris. We were lucky with accidental restaurant finds like El Paraiso and La Maison, as well as recommendations like Sante (which doubles as Jazz classroom), Cafe MALBA (Latin Amerian Art classroom), and Milion, where it was nice to catch up again with Maru and the German-Argentinian couple Daniela and Santiago we met in Jose. Ice cream stops at Persico and Freddo were obligatory. If you haven't already, you must try Alfajores before you die. This Argentinian Oreo comes individually wrapped by chocolatier Havanna like Christmas stocking fillers.

The more familiar we became with BA and our neighbourhood, the fonder we've become of this somewhat aloof, businesslike capital city. At no point did we feel menaced, but we could never quite get used to the high security detail everywhere - buzzers to enter restaurants, lockers for the shopping on entering a store. These safety precautions echoed first hand experience of thefts experienced by friends, but so far, travelling unadorned but for our family whistles, we've had a smooth ride. In fact, to the contrary, taxi drivers have showered us with freshly-picked figs or enthused about the latest album by Superheavy. Confused by the languages in play (shamefully only the most rudimentary Spanish), people have seemed curious to ask where we're from. Smooth sailing.  

Notably, there's a distinct advantage to travelling with children, at least in these Latin quarters where kids are a lucky charm. We got ourselves in a tight spot on several occasions - dwindling reserves of cash ("you don't accept Sterling?", cross-border immigration papers ending up accidentally in the trash (the speechless Uruguaian immigration officer looked as though a close family member had died), a missed international flight from Rio. Iris and Jasmine help us win the indulgence of officialdom and speed us on our way.