Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is not in the Andes mountains. It's not on the Pacific coast, and not on my planned tour. But looking at a map of Argentina, so many roads and railways radiate from this city, so I had to go. Long distance passenger buses brought me and my bicycle there and back.
It has been several months since my last large South American city, and spending the summer in Patagonia meant very little urbanity. But as I arrived I got excited about what I was seeing - housing towers and tree-lined streets. I settled into a walkable neighborhood, and spent about two weeks feeling like a resident.
Here are a few photos of the feel of the place, including a day trip to a place where people live on canals.
Cycling in Buenos Aires is quite intuitive. Find the ciclovías - they are usually bi-directional and built too skinny for that to work! They also overlap other travel lanes. But all of the traffic here is a rolling negotiation. So, you make space for oncoming cyclists, delivery trucks, garbage bins, and turning cars. Unfortunately, the drivers have a bad habit of never stopping, so a pedestrian or bicyclist has to balance assertiveness (they certainly see you) with patience (okay, just drive on by me).
Most of these ciclovías are quick-built (meaning they haven't changed the curb location). This is great, it has created a city-wide network! But it also has left in place a drainage idea that seems designed to grab bike tires. These trenches are sometimes exactly where a bike needs to turn! And they don't even drain water very well.
