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Ola Amigos!!
So here we are finally on the continent we've been dreaming of, South America and in a beautiful city- Buenos Aires.
Head Explodes!
After a long, long time in transit and pretty much no sleep we landed in BA very disoriented and woozy! Waltzed through customs (Ryan says we could have been munching on apples as we went) and headed to the official taxi booth as it's not always safe to just hail any cab at the airport. After a reasonable trip, we arrived at our apartment to meet our agent Jorgelina and our land lord Osvaldo. Our apartment is gorgeous- a little one room place with a tiny kitchen and bathroom off to the side. There's also a big window and air con, which is great as it's been warm every day since we got here. Naturally after approximately 30 hours awake we had a quick nap before going out to explore. The area we are living in is SO beautiful. Literally 100 metres away is a huge plaza/ park with fountains and a caroseul. The park ends with the huge Palacio de Congreso (see pics) where Government sits. There's also some amazing old apartment buildings and confiterias (restaurants) around. We really were blown away by this first wander around our neighbourhood- seeing so many places we'd read about and anticipated for so long. The next order of business was to get some clothes washed so we found a lavanderia where we can get two bags of clothes washed, dried and folded for about 5 bucks- bargain! by that time after a quick dinner of empanadas and a call home we were definitely ready for bed!!
Florida, take two
On day two, we had decided to explore the further reaches of the city and went for a wander down one of the main streets near us - Av 5 de Mayo. We continued to be amazed by the wonderful old buildings, as well as the plethora of gorgeous cafes and antique book stores we passed along the way. After a good 20 minutes meandering along Av 5 de Mayo, we crossed paths with what is apparently the widest road in the world - Av 9 de Julio (Argentinians seem to have a tendancy to name a lot of their monuments after important dates). The highway is a massive 18 (!) lanes wide, and takes a couple of cycles to cross unless you really hurry. The good news is we made it across in one piece, and continued towards our main objective of the day, Plaza de Mayo. Another beautiful square, much like the one near our apartment, Plaza de Mayo is crowned with the famous Casa Rosada, one time residence of the Peron family - "don't cry for me Argentina", etc. After lazing around Plaza de Mayo, we made our way to Av Florida, the city's most hustling/bustling pedestrian street lined with many assorted shops/kiosks and plenty of hawkers. It was walking down Av Florida that we discovered the most useful phrase to throw out there was "no, lo siento" (basically "no, I'm sorry") and the strip has also taught us to be wary if anyone approaches us speaking English! It didn't take long for us to tire of this area and we decided to grab a quick bite for lunch and make our way back home for a lazy afternoon/evening.
A Day in the Park
Our next day was spent doing more of the same, as we decided to make our way out to Plaza San Martin (via the enormous Obelisco monument, see pictures) for a quiet day, with more exploring and lunch in the park. The park itself was filled with statues, amazing flowers and trees and people enjoying their siestas! One really interesting thing we saw was a shrine to Argentinian soldiers who died in the Falklands -we kind of felt like we were at Buckingham Palace, with two motionless soldiers standing guard in full colonial dress. We were even lucky enough to be there during the "changing of the guard" which we caught on video! On our way home, we decided to tackle the Buenos Aires subway system, and did surprisingly well with our very broken English! That night we cooked a yummy meal for ourselves ( we're quite excited about having our own kitchen and not eating take out all the time!)
Day of the Dead
On our fourth day in BA we decided to hit up the famous Recoleta cemetary. Sight seeing has been a little difficult because it gets quite warm in the middle of the day so you don't want to be walking around a whole lot. So we started out earlier than usual, catching the subway again (the subte here is efficient but it doesn't always take you close enough to the sites you wanna see- we're eager to try the buses though you need a whole little booklet to navigate them which you get from one of the many newspaper stands around the place, which by the way also sell some interesting mens magazines mixed in with Pokemon cartoons!) Anyway we made it to Recoleta, and were confronted by a gaggle of tourists. It's very popular to come and see Evita's grave here however we managed to get off the beaten track and into some of the quieter parts of the cemetary where some crypts were fitted out with statues of angels and elaborate metal work while others seemed to be falling into disrepair. We saw people scrubbing the graves and even one man going to lay flowers (they still inter people here in traditional family crypts) There are also cats that live here and we saw one sunning itself. We then headed out and into a craft market which was a TOTAL tourist trap, crazy over priced and just gringo accents everywhere. We did see the BEST "guy acting like a statue" ever though. Ryan was totally fooled. We found another little hidden gem when we visited a church adjacent to the cemetary and a small museum in the former monks cloisters (again?!) No tourists, also no pics in the album as many people still come here to pray. Next we made our way to kinda do some of the walking tour from the Lonely Planet- we saw the Museo de Belle Artes and some more gardens but the coolest thing was a huge metal statue of a flower (like the size of a building) which closes it petals when the sun goes down- crazy. Eventually we made our way back to the subte and home. Of course amongst this sight seeing we've also been setting up our apartment- putting the ugly fake flowers and tacky 80s art from the walls, buying groceries, putting up pics of you guys :P. It's looking pretty good i must say! We had spied a very cute looking little restaurant a couple of days before so we popped up there for dinner - a tiny courtyard full of tables, lots of portenos (Buenos Aires locals) walking by and lovely food. Of course all of this was at about 11 at night- people here have dinner and go out A LOT later here - restaurants are deserted and waiters are cleaning the tables at 8.00 pm :)
GOOOOOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLL!!!!!!
The next day was by far, our most adventurous/memorable day in BA to date! The previous evening we had seen people putting up barricades and doing sound checks at the square just half a block from our place. We were awoken early by music and more sound checks and opened our windows to discover crowds of people, marching bands and even horses parading down our street. We made our way downstairs to discover a multitude of different political parties (communists, peronistas, supporters of the current government) with different banners, crowding the plaza. We really couldn't figure out WHAT was going on except it had something to do with someone called Christina and it was definitely political! A woman was making a speech from the Congreso building while people cheered and let off fire crackers from the roof tops. We kinda figured out it was big when turning on the TV inside, on every channel we saw the crowds and heard the speeches being made a second after we could hear it being projected outside. It kinda took us pretty much till today to figure out that the 1st of March signifies the opening of Congress and big announcements of the plans for the year. Very interesting to see how politically active and interested so many citizens are.We made our way south to a neighborhood or barrio called San Telmo. This area is famous for its colonial feel, cobblestone street, and a weekly market held every Sunday, filled to the gills with antiques of all sorts. We spent a short amount of time wandering around this area, which definitely inspired us to come back and spend a whole day. Afterwards, we made our way to meet some fellow couchsurfers in the area (the great thing about couchsurfing.com is it can also be used simply for meeting other travellers through the groups and message boards. we LOVE CS!), as we had arranged to get together for a few cervezas before heading to a game of futbol - Boca Juniors (possibly the most famous league team in Latin America) vs. Huracan! We all got together without much ado, and began to make our way into BAs heart of the beautiful game, La Boca's bombonera/stadium. The barrio of La Boca is typically known as one of the rougher parts of the city, very much working class and not a great place to be a lone gringo! However, as we were in a group of at least 10 we felt very safe the whole time and there were no scary moments. There was however, a torrential downpour which pretty much began as soon as we reached La Boca. When we arrived at the stadium we bought our tickets straight away, and sought shelter inside a local parilla (like a massive indoor bbq with beers on the side. ours had a makeshift roof!) for a few drinks. Unsurprisingly, as soon as we made it inside, the rain had stopped! After chatting over choripans (enormous sausage sandwiches) and a few drinks, we made our way to line up for entry. This pretty much involved starting at one point of the stadium, walking through a maze of barricades and side streets, and ending up at an entrance about 50m from where we started! We're fairly confident every time the Argentine cops told us no, next entrance they were secretly saying "send them to the gringo entrance!". We eventually made it inside, about 40 mins before kick-off, with the anticipation in the air electric. We were seated behind the away team's (Huracan's) first half goals, in the general area which was filled with passionate Boca fans. Being 'passionate' here is in a league of its own - fans with massive boca tattoos climbing over slippery chainlink/barbed wire fences to the area behind the goals. Just being there as part of the crowd, being amongst the songs and general atmosphere of craziness was amazing in itself. The first half of the game yielded no score, but plenty more rain, as the heavens opened up once more, and we started to get a good soaking. The accompanying lightning storm added to the tension in the air, and you could sense the crowd becoming somewhat restless. The second half was a different matter - Boca scored their first goal at around the 60th minute and the crowd let go a deafening roar. Another came within the next 10 mins and so thrilled was the crowd, that the ecstatic chanting and singing filled the arena completely overshadowed the away team's first and only goal of the match. At this point, with the game drawing to a close, we had completely let ourselves go, and were chanting along with the Boca crowd, mimicking their songs while having barely an idea of what we were actually singing. The noise in the arena seemed to become louder and louder, while at the same time the rain became so heavy, it started to sting. The shouts and gesticulations from the mass of fans seemed to act like some kind of primitive rain dance, to the point that by the time Boca scored their third and final goal near the end of the match, it had begun hailing! It's certainly something we'll remember for ever, screaming "LA BOCA" with rain streaming down our faces and the distinct feeling that we may get hit by a flying bottle of water from above should Boca win (Huracan supporters lingered on the level above us). With the match over, we verry slowly made our way out of the stadium, drenched and exhausted, with the knowledge that this had been one of the most amazing experiences of our lives. We collectively made our way back to San Telmo, said goodbye to our new friends, and made our way quickly home to towel off and collapse iton bed.
Well, thats about all for our adventures so far! We will leave you though with our general impressions of the city, to try and paint a picture of what it is like to be here:
The language is beautiful - it's wonderful to hear the unfamiliar sounds of Spanish as you walk through the streets. The pavements are often cracked and uneven, there is a constant drip, drip, drip from above from the everpresent air conditioners and yet this all adds to the charm of the city. It is always around 30 degrees every day, even when it rains. The people and the buildings are beautiful - sometimes it is hard to believe we aren't somewhere in Europe and I (Hayley) joke that when they need models for their ad campaigns they could just grab the closest person off the street :). Everything here is cheap (especially coming from the USA), but we are reconfiguring ourselves to a budget made from pesos. Argentinians seem to have such a sense of pride in their country. It's evident in everything from their futbol habits to their chart toppers (all argentinian native albums) and portenos (Buenos Aires locals) especially will let you know that their city is the best in the world... and they may just be right ;)
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