Buenos Aires

The first thing we did in Buenos Aires on Sunday morning was move hostels. We booked into Florida Suites HI which is on Av. Florida, the main predestian street in the center of town and is really cool, more like a hotel. We then got a taxi to the Boca Barrio which is where Boca Juniors football stadium is. We really wanted to get football tickets but it was a huge match and there were none available. Instead we went over to the touristy street of Boca, Caminito St. and watched the tango dancers, got hassled by all the restaurant owners and looked at the market and colourful buildings. Boca is the poorest neighbourhood I think, where there was/is a large Italian community. They used to work the port there and use the excess paint from the ships to paint their houses, hence the colourful buildings. It´s now really touristy but very pleasant anyway.

Market stall of Maté cups: Maté is a tea which is very popular in Argentina and Uruguay. It´s quite common to see people walking around carrying a maté cup and a thermal flask, or sitting in the plazas drinking maté.

Colourful Caminito St:

Tango posing (not so elegant in crocs):

We then headed back to the center and took some pictures of Av. 9 de Julio which was once the widest street in the world at 120m ish across and has the statue ´Obelisco` on it:Obelisco:

We spent the afternoon walking through the streets of San Telmo and looking at the huge handicrafts market they hold on Sundays. It was really interesting but knackering because we walked for 2.5hrs on cobbles. There is a huge antiques fair in Plaza Dorrengo (2nd oldest plaza in BsAs and center of San Telmo barrio) and lots of street artists to watch:

On Monday, we did a free tour of the central city. The tour guide was really cool, spoke excellent english and was very informative. We also met some cool people from the tour, particularly a NZer girl called Marie who we ended up seeing quite a bit of afterwards. The tour started in Plaza Congreso:

went down Av. de Mayo and into the main plaza, Plaza de Mayo:

where we could see the pink house, made famous by Evita on the balcony:

we then saw the house on top of the buildings on 9 de Julio: and finished at the Obelisco. The whole thing took 3hours and was well worth it.

Afterwards we met Richard, who we´d been with in Pantanal and Ilha do Mel in Brazil, for a mexican lunch and headed with him to the Recoleta cemetory. It´s more like a town of graves, it is really weird. We saw Evitas grave and wandered round in the evening sun before getting ice creams and the tube back home. After a quick turn around we went out with Richard and another English bloke called Derren to Bomba de la Tiempo. It is group of drummers who play from 8-10pm in a big open air warehouse area. It´s really good and the atmosphere is relaxed and fun. We met some friends of Richards, two English guys, an Argentinian girl and 2 Colombians and bumped into Marie again. After dancing around we went out to dinner with a big group and headed home about midnight.

Recoleta cemetory:

The next morning we met Marie outside the Recoleta Cemetory and had another look round. We went to the Basilica Nuestra Señora del Pilar and then explored Recoleta barrio a little.

BsAs Univeristy Law School:

Escultura de la Rosa, flower sculture which closes at night! We all went to the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes which was a free national art museum and then had to stop for coffee and medialunas at the Buenos Aires Design shopping mall.

That evening we cooked steak which was so cheap and possibly the best steak I´ve ever eaten. About 11pm we went over to Lima House Hostel to meet the English guys we had met through Richard the night before. We drunk wine there and then went out to a club about 1.30am. It was a D´n´B club and we weren´t liking the music and we couldn´t find Richard so we all left and went to another club we´d heard of. Alexa and I got a cab with a very drunk Norwegian guy...it was highly amusing and then we got into the club for free with VIP somehow. It was a much more fun night so we drunk a lot of speed and vodka (the name for red bull here) and partied until 5.30am.

Alexa washing our clothes in the bath!

On Wednesday we rented bikes, nice ones with baskets and big padded seats, and cycled to Puerto Madero and then around Parque Ecologica. It was very pleasent. We had ice cream at our favorite ice cream shop and then cooked stir fry with left over steak for dinner.

Florida Av:
We met Marie in the evening in Palermo district to go and watch some live tango. First there was a group called Violetango who did a mixture of modern and traditional tango music. They were brilliant. Following them was the main guy, who was apparently quite famous, and who´s name I can´t remember. We didn´t think much of him, he sung well but had some a slimy, creepy manor about him that we were glad to stop watching!

Violatango:
Creepy, slimey guy:

On Thursday we moved hostels again. We wanted somewhere a bit more friendly and with more character so we moved to Art Factory in San Telmo. We were also starting to feel the pace of life hit us a bit so we had a slower day. We headed over to Once neighbourhood to see if there was any good shopping but it was rubbish so we came back and went to Plaza de Mayo and checked out the catedral, which was beautiful. Afterwards, we watched the Madres de Plaza Mayo. It´s a group which protests/parades around the plaza every Thursday and has done for 37yrs. Originally, they were mourning the loss of their sons and daughters in the period where the government was making people disappear if they in anyway opposed them. Now, according to our tour guide on Mon, they are more of a political group and a tourist thing and instead there is another group called Abuelas de Plaza Mayo (grandmothers) who are working to reunite orphans with their grandparents. It wasn´t a very interesting thing to watch anyway because there were so many tourists it felt false but I would like to find out more about the history.

Afterwards we went out for coffee in Havanas which apparently do the best alfadores (Argentinian biscuits). Coffee is a really important affair here, it´s very posh:

We then went shopping which was highly exciting because I got some TH Jeans and they were a bargain!!! In the evening we ate ravioli and drunk wine and watched trashy tv.

On Friday we had a lazy start then headed over to Palermo Viejo. There was a market on there where I bought 2 new tops, my clothes are disgusting. We had lunch in Cartazar Plaza and then wandered back though the botanical gardens. That evening we cooked vegetable soup and ate on the terrace. We were joined by a French girl, Sophia, and a New Yorker, Joanis. After dinner and drinks we all headed out to a rock bar (!) which was interesting...

Joanis and Bone arm wrestling:
On Sat, we went back to Recoleta to see the artisian market there. I though it was very expensive and wasn´t in a shopping mood so we went to a Res photography exhibition in Centro Cultural Recoleta and then got an ice cream and sat in the park. There was a rock bad playing with a load of strangely dressed teenagers jumping around in front, it was very amusing to watch.

We walked down Av. Libertador to Plaza San Martin to see a display of UNICEF bears. There is one for about 130 countries and they are painted by artists from their country. They are really cool. This is Ireland:And Great Britian:
In the evening we played cards and drunk wine with a lovely group of people. Marie came round, there was 2 american girls (Sarah and something), Niel from Oz, Siobhan from Ire, and Sophia. We went out for dinner with Niel at 3.30am and found a pizza restaurtant to eat at! Sunday was chilled out. We went to Cafe Tortoni, oldest cafe in BsAs, with Niel and Siobhan, our dorm buddies. Then we all shopped our way through San Telmo market until Plaza Dorrengo where we stopped to watch the locals practicing Tango.

Cafe Tortoni:

My favorite stall:
In the evening we had many rounds of cards to play with a Canadian couple, Mary and David and the usual dorm lot. I went out for pizza and beer with them all afterwards.

Monday was our last day in BsAs. We took it easy and just walked the streets of San Telmo. It was nice to see it so quiet unlike Sundays. I had steak for lunch and then we blogged all afternoon. We´re getting a bus tonight to Cordoba.

Narrowest house in BsAs:

I have REALLY enjoyed BsAs. It´s a gorgeous city with so much happening and so much to see. We´ve been so lucky to be here in a heat wave as well which has made it all the more pleasent. I will definitely be back.