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Day 279 to 287 - Buenos Aires -Saturday 21st to Sunday 29th July 2012
It took us under an hour to fall in love with Buenos Aires; everything the guide book says and what people tell you about the city is true - it's beautiful and full of energy and character! We arrived on our night bus from Mendoza at 11am and made our way to the local bus stop to catch the number twenty two bus to San Telmo. The bus arrived and with quite a queue behind us, we jumped on and in our best Española asked for two tickets to San Telmo and showed a ten peso note to the driver - he laughed at us and signalled for us to put our money away and just get on. Perplexed as to why he wouldn't let us pay, Ad decided to again try to give him some money and also ask if he could tell us when to get off; this set the driver off laughing again followed by him chatting away to us in Spanish - most of which we didn't understand! Eventually he signalled at us to get off and happily waved us off - our first free bus journey is ticked off the list (we later learnt that the bus either take an oyster type card or the exact money in coins!). Once off our lovely bus, we walked a bit before reaching our hotel (yes, hotel!) which was to be our home for the next eight days. Now when we'd booked it we'd decided to treat ourselves a bit with the place as it worked out as only about £5 more than a hostel; it was a great price at £40 a night including breakie and right in the San Telmo neighbourhood. The signs from the outside looked positive and inside was also great - that was until we heard the words "sorry, but we've double booked your room", oh no! But all was not lost as the hotel was transferring us to their sister hotel which we were told was more expensive but we would pay the same. I've got to admit, we were dubious but when we arrived at Patios de San Telmo, we soon realised that we had had a mega result - the place was absolutely gorgeous! We, very happily, settled into our big room with plush bed, TV and deli style breakfast! After making ourselves at home and showering we headed out to explore our neighbourhood and soon arrived in the main square, Dorrego, where we nosed around some of the market stools and then sat down for a glass of vino and watched the world go by to the sound of distant tango music. It was perfect! After we wandered around the little antique markets and shops (lots of watches and sunglasses so Ad was in his element) and then headed down to the centro area. Come evening we were walked out and hungry and so headed towards a parrilla that we'd heard of called "Parrilla 1880". It was a bit further than we expected and more in the La Boca neighbourhood than San Telmo and so took us a while to get there. It was a little before eight o'clock when we arrived, quite a respectful time to go for dinner we thought, but when we looked in the place was completely deserted! We entered in only to be greeted by a lady who told us that they didn't open for five minutes and to come back! Ummmm so at eight o'clock, when it was dark, we found ourselves wandering aimlessly around La Boca neighbourhood - one that we'd heard wasn't that safe to walk around at night! We found a supermarket and I again went in search of moose for my hair (it seems to not exist in Argentina) and we wasted all of ten minutes. At eight fifteen we decided it was safe to return to the restaurant! It was still empty and we were shown to our table in a corner, right at the back of the restaurant - very strange given no one else was there! By this point, I had the giggles and we were both in desperate need of a glass of wine so we ordered a bottle of red and the biggest pieces of meat we could find on the menu. A couple of hours later we were stuffed of red meat, we'd literally just eaten the biggest steak ever, and red wine and were very happy so returned to the lovely comfy bed of our hotel.
Sunday morning……after a ten minute run on the hotel's running machine (which nearly killed me after nine months of no exercise) and a lovely breakie in our hotel's deli, we headed out to the famous San Telmo antiques market. As a kid one of my favourite things to do was to spend hours going through my great nanny Smith's jewellery box and San Telmo's antiques market was like a giant version of that box! We spent hours wandering the streets and taking in the sights until it was time to stop for a couple of café con leche's to warm up our bones. We then found an outdoor BBQ and so thought it would be rude if we didn't have a chorizopan sausage sandwich as well! Warmed up and fed, we headed back out with our best haggling heads with the objective of buying a couple of Argentinean seltzer siphon bottles. We'd had a bottle back in Bariloche and were most impressed with the bottle that seemed to produce fizzy water and now wanted to get our hands on a vintage version. In a nutshell, the seltzer bottle is just cold water injected with carbon dioxide. It's the carbon dioxide that gives the water a fizz and the siphons keep the carbonated water under pressure - this keeps the water cool and stops the carbon dioxide from bubbling out of the solution. Apparently even now, some people in Argentina still get these bottles of fizzy water delivered to their home, much the same as we used to get milk bottles delivered to our homes in the UK. Anyway back to the point, the bottles themselves are beautiful and come in an array of colours and they look so nice we wanted to take one home as a souvenir. After looking around at about a million different bottles and a bit of haggling we finally bought two lovely bottles - one clear with embossing and one metal one. The only problem is they are so heavy so god knows how we'll get them home! But they are so pretty so who cares! Those and a gorgeous tango picture later and we were done. We headed back to our place for a bottle of red and nibbles.
We arranged to meet Matt and Faye at 11am for the free walking tour but yet again we were running late! At 11.10am huffing and red faced, we arrived outside the Palacio Del Congreso and were happy to find out that we hadn't missed anything but the introductions. It was a freezing cold day and all of us were wrapped in jackets and scarfs but even with the occasional stamping of feet and rubbing together of hands, we were struggling to concentrate on the tour. Now we've done quite a few of these free tours (you tip at the end) and although the lady was nice, she wasn't the best we'd had and that plus the cold didn't make for the perfect combination! Anyway, we first heard about the Palacio Del Congreso and the surrounding buildings and grounds before heading off towards the direction of Plaza De Mayo passing along the way the famous Tortini café - the oldest in BA. Now we'd already passed through the Plaza De Mayo a few days earlier and were slightly dubious about being there as it is well known as being the main area for the city's most vehement protests and what do you think they happened to be protesting about whilst we were there - yep, the whole Falklands / Islas Malvinas issue! We couldn't read the signs but worked out it was something along the lines of "get out you British t*** , the islands are ours!" - or something to that affect. Anyway, Matt, Faye, Ad and I decided it was just best to keep our mouths shut and pretend to be German if anyone asked! The tour guide continued to tell us all about the Casa Rosada building and its history of various politicians preaching from its balconies including the famed Eva Perón - even Madonna crooned from here for her movie Evita! We then went onto hear about the dirty war and which lasted from 1976 until 1983; the guide went on to tell us that 30,000 people "disappeared" - basically meaning that they were abducted, detained, tortured and killed. At the end, the guide asked if we had any questions so I piped up with asking how the dirty war ended. Now I'd read in the guide book that, rather ironically, it ended only when the Argentine military attempted unsuccessfully the military operation of liberating the Falkland Islands - I wondered if I would hear the same answer from an Argentinean and alas we did! Although it started with "I can't use the F word as it is not allowed here"! With the tour finished we jumped on the tube and headed over to the posh district of Palermo and straight to a lovely little restaurant. Three hours later, three courses and a bottle of red and lots of laughs with Faye and Matt we finally re-emerged - and all for the equivalent of £10 each, we love these menu del dia's! We finished the evening off with browsing around the (very expensive) shops, finally finishing in an Adidas shop where Matt has spotted a tracksuit he wanted to try on. Word's cannot explain what this tracksuit looked like but to try, it basically was a complete leopard print tracksuit top and bottoms but in slightly different styles so they clashed and to complete the look it had slashes down the back of the top! By the time Matt had come out of the changing room, Faye, Ad and I were in fits of laughter and I was actually crying! The shop assistant looked confused so Matt added "I really want to buy this, but these lot just won't let me - do you sell many of these?!" Once Matt had changed back into his normal clothes we quickly scarpered out of the shop, laughing along the way. Evening came so we headed back to ours - still smiling from the day's events and visions of Matt dressed as a leopard!
Today doesn't even merit its own paragraph and the reason why……..we literally did nothing! Well, that's not completely true, we got up and had breakfast and then headed straight back to bed!! We were both shattered and felt like we had the onset of a cold coming on and so decided, since we had a nice place, just to stay in bed all day! Ad did venture out late afternoon to get a bottle of red wine and some empanadas and then came straight back for more bed time! It was a perfect and well needed day off from sightseeing and being on the go.
After the stress of lying in bed and drinking amazing Argentinian red wine all day yesterday we decided that today should be a day of football - travelling just gets better and better! So we set out bright and early (11am!) and after an excellent breakfast, of course, and walked from our hotel in San Telmo to the neighbouring borough of La Boca, home of the famous Boca Juniors! If you know anything about football you know of Boca Juniors, their fierce fans, Maradona and the colours yellow and blue. Well La Boca is full of all of the above! As you walk there you can feel the change in atmosphere from one borough to the next and the difference in the surroundings and buildings is very obvious. We arrived at the back of the stadium and made our way around the west stand to the front of the stadium, there were people everywhere as they do tours every day. We were so gutted when we found out that the Argentine season had finished as we were both desperate to see a game in South America and if we could of chosen it would have been here - we'll just have to wait until Brazil! Anyway we paid our entry fee and took the tour of the museum and the trophy cabinet which was pretty full! Then we looked at the three statues… Maradona, a statue of a footballer from the 1950's(!?) and Riquelme. Riquelme has only just retired and he already has a statue! The statue of Maradona is the most impressive and stands on its own by the entrance; it's amazing and life size which isn't so amazing as he is only five foot, five inches!! After the museum we looked around the training ground next door and then the changing rooms which were really shabby - we have better ones at my Sunday football club. Then we toured the stands and the pitch, oh and on the whole tour group had to sing Boca songs and chants in Spanish which was really funny as neither of us understood what we were saying! The north and south stands are wooden and standing only which was brilliant and I bet the atmosphere on game day would be amazing, the west and east stands are a bit more modern and have seating but only really basic. The west stand also has a box always reserved for Maradona whether he is there or not - I would say he is like a god here but he is much more!! We had planned to meet up with Faye and Matt at 2pm but the tour didn't end until 1:50pm and we were 25 minutes away. So again, for the third time we were going to be late. Faye had been told about a restaurant called La Popular on the outskirts of La Boca by her hostel. The restaurant was amazing and the food was just as good, we all chose the "Menu del dia", we all got a tasty starter, main and dessert. It was a really nice lunch, and a good laugh. After food we all then walked back to San Telmo where we said goodbye to Faye and Matt for the last time as they were heading to Iguassu and we still had time left in BA before we head to Uruguay. Soph then dragged me to the market to buy some "vintage" shoes that she had seen that she thought I would like. Now first of all the word vintage is a posh word of saying second hand, and "vintage outlet store" really just means big jumble sale. But my beautiful wife, this time, was absolutely right and she had found a really cool pair of brown brogues that I love, so much so that I wore them home!! Once back at the hotel we had yet another glass of wine and chilled - great day x
Today we had decided to visit Lujan Zoon; this is a zoo about an hour and a half out of Buenos Aires and is famous as they have very tame animals that you can get in the cage with and stroke. Now when I say tame animals I'm not talking about dogs or cats, I'm talking about tigers, lions, bears etc! A lady we met when we were in Valparaiso, Chile, had recommended it and I'd done quite a lot of reading on it since as I was quite sceptical about the whole thing. After reading about a million reviews and articles, some bad but a lot good, I decided we just had to go and see it for ourselves. So we started on our mission……first we had to get the tube to Palermo and find a kiosk that sold tickets for bus fifty seven, then we had to wait for the right fifty seven bus (there are about ten of them which all go to different places) and eventually, once we were on the bus we, after about an hour and a half's journey time, had to look out for the stop for the zoo. Anyway we made it through all of the above and arrived to the gates of the zoo; nearly three hundred pesos later (about £45) and we were in. We lasted the total of ten minutes before I was nearly in tears and both of us wanted to go home. It's true that people get in and touch, stroke and have pictures taken with tigers, baby tigers, lions etc but at what cost……well, for a start the cages are tiny and seem to house a lot of animals in a really small space and they all seem to be knocked out - I don't want to speculate and say they were drugged but isn't it unusual for a whole group of tigers be completely dead to the world even when they have a bunch of humans touching and poking them?! I think the final straw came for us when we witnessed two things - firstly a little chimp, in a cage on his own, getting very excited when the 'zoo keeper' entered (so much so that he had a huge erection!) and the reason why……she had a bottle of coca cola to feed him! And secondly a lion happily resting his head meaning that the tourist's picture wasn't that great so the zoo keeper spraying water on the lion face to make him look up - both Ad and I were hoping to god the lion would just bite the man to teach him a lesson! And to make things worse, the place was packed! Anyway we left quickly and waited by the side of the road for our bus back to BA. The first bus just drove on by and didn't stop and we discovered, as we attempted to get on the second bus, that we couldn't pay unless we had the exact money in coins! So back to the horrible zoo we went to try and get change but no one had any, so we ended up paying three times the cost of the normal bus to get a tourist bus back. Once back tour hotel, we decided that as the day had been horrible (and bloody expensive) that we'd go out for a nice dinner to cheer us up so come 8pm (the earliest you can go to eat in BA!) we headed out to a local steak house and cheered ourselves up with red wine and steak - quite ironic given that we'd spent the day complaining about the treatment of animals!
After the disaster of the day before we decided today to just walk around and explore the area of Puerto Madero which is basically the waterside part of BA. We spent a few hours wandering around before stopping for a coffee break and a bit of people watching. The café had the Spanish version of Hello (Hola!) so I flicked through only to find a big article on the Queens jubilee - made us feel a tiny bit homesick especially as today is the opening ceremony of the Olympics. After wandering around the Centro area a bit we realised it was nearly five o'clock which meant it was nearly time for the opening ceremony so we got a taxi back and spent three hours watching the opening ceremony from our hotel room - it was amazing and we felt very proud to be British! Just before eight we jumped in a taxi and headed to Palermo for our evening's entertainment "The Argentine Experience". We arrived to the flat and meet Leo, our host for the night, another couple from Croatia and a mother and daughter from the US and were quickly kitted up in our aprons and chefs hats. The evening is basically an evening that concentrates on all things Argentinean with a bit of cooking and a lot of eating and drinking thrown in! First up, accompanied by a glass of fizz, we were given pastry and fillings to make our own empanadas - Ad's was picture perfect whilst I put too much filling in so it all got a bit greasy! Then whilst the empanadas were cooking we were tasked with making novelty ones - I opted for the Argentinean flag whilst Ad made mini Olympic rings! Unfortunately neither of us won the 'best empanada' title as it went to the lady from Croatia for her flower covered empanada. But on the plus side we got to eat them for our starters, along with some bread, cheese and chorizo, and they were very tasty! Whilst we were waiting for our main course we drank some lovely Malbec and learnt about the rules, that states that all empanadas in Argentina have to be a certain style depending on the filling! We also learnt a bit about Argentinean's hand gestures - my favourite was the one of putting the fingers and thumb together which is supposed to signal the clenching of the bottom meaning that someone is tight! Our main arrived and I can say hand on heart that it was the best steak I have ever eaten - truly delicious! With our mains done we were given a little lesson on the tradition of Mate and taught how to prepare it. Everywhere we've been in Argentina we have seen people drinking it so it's not hard to believe that they are the world's largest producer and consumer of yerba mate - they consume an average of 5kg per person per year, more than four times their average intake of coffee. And the thing is that they take it with them everywhere - you see people walking down the street with their Mate cup and thermos! Apparently it's also popular in parts of Chile, southern Brazil, Paraguay and, in particular, Uruguay, which consumes twice as much per capita as Argentina - Uruguay is next so the lesson should stand us in good stead! With our prepared Mate we sat down to enjoy it with our ingredients for alfoures - biscuits, melted chocolate, dulce, and shredded coconut. We headed home happy with very full stomachs!
I never thought I'd say this but we have well and truly had enough of red meat and red wine! We worked out today that we have drunk every day since arriving in Chile - which was over a month ago! Our livers need a rest! Plus I'm pretty sure we've eaten more red meat than ever before. Obviously we like to fit in with the local culture and traditions but maybe we're taking it too far especially as the average intake of beef in Argentina is around 70kg per person per year and apparently in the past it was even more! Anyway, today we're off the wine and eating veggie - especially as my cold has fully come out now and I feel like death. So after a meat free breakie we headed over to the Recoleta Cemetery (Cementerio de la Recoleta) - what a strange place! It is basically a very posh and elaborate graveyard with huge statues and marble crypts that hold the remains of the city's elite and rich including the famous María Eva Duarte de Perón, known more as simply as Evita. She is everywhere in Argentina and in some ways eclipsed the legacy of her husband, who governed Argentina from 1946 to 1955. Most people in the UK know her from the film starring Madonna which neither Ad or I have ever seen. The grave was covered in flowers and there were lots of people taking pictures, as did we. We looked at her gravestone to see she died at only thirty three from cancer, very sad. With Evita's grave done we decided to get out of the creepy cemetery and walked around the outside craft market and then mall. By this point I felt like death and so we headed back to ours to eat and rest. The evenings plans of going to a tango hall were scrapped and instead I was dosed up with food and pills to try and feel better - really disappointing but I suppose I can't moan as it's the first time I've been in since we left the UK.
We woke up feeling a little bit better and so headed out for our last day in Buenos Aires. We walked down to La Boca and had a walk around and nose at the brightly coloured buildings and tango dancers before heading back towards San Telmo and the market. As we hadn't got a chance to see any proper tango we decided to pop into one of the little cafes on the square to watch one with a coffee but just as we got seated and comfy they stopped so we headed back out again! We went to our little favourite café in San Telmo for two coffees and cake and stopped there for a while just taking in the scenery. Just as we were leaving a lady came in and started singing - she was amazing so we stayed a little longer. Once back at our place, we settled the bill and chilled there for a while before getting the taxi to the port to catch our ferry over to Colonia Del Sacramento in Uruguay; the boat journey only took an hour so we were in Uruguay just as night fell - it was freezing and so we made ourselves comfy in our new room.
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