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Argentina > Rosario
- This blog is dedicated to John Dunaway -
Apart from the whispers amongst numerous guys of how beautiful the women are here in Rosario and the ratio of them to men being around 5:1, we had not heard much else about this place 4hrs north of Buenos Aires. Knowing it holds the birth place of Che Guevara (& for Nick to confirm those whispers, "for research purposes only"); we chose to make a whistle stop on the way to Mendoza.
The bus terminal is a little out of the main city centre which meant we were able to watch a lot of Rosario pass by whilst we sat on a local bus heading to the town. One of the things that immediately struck us was how friendly the people were; we had hopped on a bus without any change (Shock horror! You cannot pay with a note in Argentina and change is extremely rare to find!) but the bus driver happily told us not to worry before pulling over at a local shop to get out and sort the change for us. We knew we were going to like it here.
In our opinion Rosario is a much smaller version of Buenos Aires, with good food, a feel for fashion and nightlife to offer that doesn't usually die down until 4am. As Rosario was a last minute decision it meant we booked our hostel last minute also; last minute meaning booking it up once we had arrived there and tracked down an internet cafe. With our lack of hostel research/recommendation we ended up at a youth hostel that was filled with young, testosterone fuelled guys all wanting to impress. It's a small and very cramped hostel and no matter how clean the dorms themselves were, we couldn't help but be distracted by the continuously clogged shared bathrooms (remembering what you just read about those smelly boys). In the short time that we were there during check in, we felt uncomfortable and knew this wasn't our type of place so we dumped our bags and went straight back to the internet cafe to book a saving grace ´Che Pampas´ - the next morning as the sun was rising (running as fast as we could without looking back), we ventured over there. We only planned to stay here for a day so we had to fit in as many tourist spots as possible - Rosario is not as well known on the "tourist map" so there weren't too many boxes to tick. We began at the flag monument; it was here in Rosario that the Argentinean flag was created way back in 1872 and so this building was built in memory. It's a really nice building that you can catch a lift to the top of - from here we were able to see varying views of the city.
Next on the list: one of Che´s many childhood homes. Because his fame has only risen in the past ten years, the home of Guevara was sold to a local family so us gringos are unable to view inside. This lack of fame means that the flat has a bus-stop like sign outside but can be easily missed. Occupants of the other flats in the same building were always leaving and entering which made taking photos feel a little odd! The brass statue of Che located roughly 30 blocks away however, stands in the middle of a park and we were able to snap away as much as we wanted.
Whether it's because the tea out here is mainly (horrible) herbal or because of how good the coffee is, or even a combination of them both! Nick and I have been treating our taste buds to many a cup of the brown stuff. We stumbled across a great little place where we had the best coffee so far - it turns out this place is a favourite amongst the locals and is well known as its the oldest cafe/restaurant/bar in Rosario. The live tango music played by one man and his accordion hidden in the corner, made it taste even better.
With little else on our agenda we spent a lot of time walking around regularly stopping off to enjoy a few drinks and watch the wonderful world go by. It's a hard life.
Lots of love XXX
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