How to See Gran Buenos Aires in 2 Hours

Gaston is Yemi's good Argentinian friend from when they both studied abroad. From the moment he picked us up from the airport and they both talked passionately with their hands, it wasn't hard to tell why they were good friends. The car would swerve as Gaston turned around to Jan excitedly reminiscing about how much fun he they had traveling through Europe seven years ago.

Gaston has an affliction: he has an incessant need for speed!  "When I'm not speeding, I'm a bad driver because I'm so distracted. However, when I speed I have laser focus!" he once said with a straight face. Yemi already knew of his disease from when Gaston lost his mind while driving them along Germany's Autobahn years ago.

He excitedly showed us all his enablers toys around his garage before we had a homemade pizza dinner prepared by his lovely girlfriend, Martina, and her mom. "There's the Porsche Carrera, the All Terrain Sports ATV and my baby, the Ducati Monster 696 motor bike. Working on them in my garage is therapeutic to me!" he exclaimed. It wasn't a surprise that he offered taking Yemi on a Sunday morning ride around Gran Buenos Aires on his "baby."

Gaston and his baby

They rode fast through the city past Los Bosques de Palermo which is a beautiful park in the daytime that transforms into Buenos Aires' red light district at night. They then connected to General Paz highway and that's where Gaston's symptoms started to act up. By the time they hit 150 km/h, Yemi's attempt at being macho and not wrapping his hands tight around Gaston's waist had depreciated.

They made a stop for breakfast at San Isidro Partido, which is part of Greater Buenos Aires. Here they reunited with another friend from school, Flavio, and his brother in law - all of them part of this biker's club. After breakfast they were off again to the highway for another spin around and back to the great city of Buenos Aires. Yemi really loved every bit of it.

Flavio and his baby

There is nothing more special that knowing locals when you visit a new country and certain experiences, such as this, are only discovered through insiders. Gaston and Martina were exceptional hosts throughout our stay in Buenos Aires. They showed us great hospitality and we are really grateful for this. They are also expecting a new baby girl and the more Gaston spoke about how excited he was about her arrival, the more we could tell that is affliction was getting cured, albeit very slowly.

Gaston and Martina on one of our many nights out