At 11:55 we took a one our flight to Houston out of Baton Rouge. Not a soul in BTR. That was nice. Then we had a 5 hour wait in IAH. Most of that was spent in Live Fire Burger. I hope something was really wrong, because it took an hour to get a burger with fries. Really good and filling though. The waitress helped choose herself a 15% tip. It was $58 after tax and tip for 2 burgers with fries with free water. Mom saw a ham sandwich for sale in one of the small shops for $20. Insane.
Everything went well getting on the plane. Boarding took an hour with the 250+ people. I got stuck in a middle seat with mom on the aisle and a skinny silent lady on the window. Second Dinner was a great chicken risotto. Breakfast was a less than great hot turkey and spicy cheese waffle sandwich that was too sweet. I got some sleep, but it’s hard in the middle and it was a bumpy ride for 10 hours.
Landing we had to wait in a queue just to taxi. Good thing mom gets wheelchair assist. There were hundreds of people ahead of us in customs. They were just so slow.
We got an Uber to the hotel. People in the airport push the local taxis hard and made a mean face when I said Uber, but we met our driver at the Uber queue right outside the door… by the Outback Steakhouse. The ride was about 40 minutes, but just $31. The sights to see weren’t so great. Really ugly dirty looking town along the highway, but pretty pink blossomed trees.
The Holiday Inn Express in Puerto Madero neighborhood is great. A greeter out front helped take our bags in, Cynthia at reception spoke great English and answered so many questions and made small talk about the cruise. Best of all, the room right off the elevator looks great, clean, modern, and even has US plugs – all for 190 per night after tax.
After we rested for a bit we went out for a bit around 1:30. We walked up Cordoba and got tickets for hop on/off bus for tomorrow. Then we walked down Florida – a pedestrian street full of meh shops. We saw the obelisk in the distance and turned on a big street toward the water. We ended up at Cabaña Las Lilas that we had heard good things about but they had no open spots til 6 – it was 4pm, so made a reservation for 6 and headed to hotel to change since we were sweat soaked. At 5:20 we got an Uber for a whopping $1.67 USD to drive us the 1km to the restaurant.
The place was pretty nice and upscale inside. Mom mistook chimichuree for bread topping. It was pretty good stuff and they brought more for steak. It was Ruth Chris prices so we split a steak and roast veggies, a tiny sausage app, and empanadas. Everything was pretty good but nothing special worth the price. We walked home afterwards at sunset.