Buenos Aires Tango Tour

Your guide and driver meet you at the Buenos Aires International Airport (EZE) and take you to the Abasto Hotel, in the Abasto neighborhood. Abasto is Carlos Gardel's barrio, and the hotel plays to it: tango is the theme, and it runs its own classes. Buenos Aires sits on the banks of the Río de la Plata, and it is known as the Tango Capital of the World. The next few days will show you why. Tonight, nothing is scheduled. The evening is yours.

After breakfast in the hotel, enjoy a 3 hour Buenos Aires city tour, hitting many of the highlights. Your guide will take you to the 9 de Julio Avenue, the widest street in the world, and visit the Obelisk, which stands in the center. Also visit the Colon Theater, the Embassy of France, the financial district, the Plaza de Mayo, the Plaza San Martín, and the colorful neighborhoods of La Boca, San Telmo and Montserrat, Recoleta, and Palermo. Finally, visit Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires' port and waterfront, which is now graces with luxurious skyscrapers, a yacht club, a variety of first-class restaurants, and the cantilever Woman`s Bridge. Spend the rest of the day at your leisure.

After the city tour, you leave the pavement behind and head north to the Tigre Delta, on the Paraná River. Tigre is where the elite porteños, the residents of Buenos Aires, built their summer residences. A boat ride along the river gives you the cool breezes and the scenery that drew them out of town. Back on land, you visit the elegant residences of the northern suburbs, including San Isidro, and the Quinta de Olivos, the Presidential Residence.

Another day out of the city, this time to an estancia, a ranch, to see how the gauchos of Argentina live and work. Estancia Ombú de Areco hosts a traditional asado for you, with plenty of yerba mate. Asado is slow cooking, meat grilled for hours away from the flame, and as much a social event as a meal. Even if you are not a big meat eater, it is worth trying. There are folk dances, horseback riding, carriage rides and sheepshearing demonstrations, and pastelitos, traditional Argentine sweet pies, to finish. You transfer back to the hotel in the late afternoon.

The day is yours. Nothing is scheduled until evening, so walk the Abasto, revisit a neighborhood from the city tour, or do nothing at all. The hotel runs its own tango classes, if you would like a lesson before tonight. In the evening you go to La Ventana, a tango house in San Telmo founded in 1980, for the dinner show. A live tango orchestra plays while professional couples dance, and dinner is three courses with Argentine wine. It is your last night in Buenos Aires. A transfer takes you back to the hotel afterward.

After breakfast at the hotel, your driver takes you to the Buenos Aires International Airport (EZE) for your flight home, or on to the next destination in South America. Because this is a tour extension, the next stop may well be the start of one of our full package tours. By now the streets around the hotel should feel familiar.