I have fallen, hook line and sinker, in love with the beautiful city of Buenos Aires! From the moment I arrived I knew it would be a good few days here and it would live up to my high expectations set by others. It was made even better by being joined by my old friend Phoebe from home who flew out to BA to join me on the last 3 weeks on my adventure (how crazy thats its only 3 weeks left :o). I was also very happy that with her she brought English tea bags, digestives, Maryland cookies, peanut butter and a new deodorant... She knows how to make me happy :) we also re-met up with Lucas and Sam (from the salt flats and Chile) in our hostel in BA as they had arrived earlier that morning from Santiago, so we were now a team of 5 taking on the Argentinian capital!
Our first night was very much influenced by Argentina being in the final of the Cops America which was all dreadfully exciting and we watched the match in our hostel with lots of others. In my opinion the game was rather disappointing as it was very evenly matched so there were no goals in the game or in extra time and it ended up going to penalty shoot outs and unfortunately Argentina lost :(
You'll be pleased to know that this didn't shoot us down, we headed to the adjoining hostel for a party Argentinian style, which let's just say involved a lot of drinking and dancing and was A LOT of fun!
The next morning, feeling a little bit worse for wear, we headed to the infamous San Telmo where they have an enormous Sunday market, and as it conveniently happened to be Sunday it felt wrong not to go. The best way to describe it would be an argentinian tinted Camden market, about 10 blocks long with stalls selling anything and everything and an awful lot of cool looking, useless tat - and thats the sort of thing I love so I spent a long time perusing all the little stalls and enjoying the music provided by bands playing on the street. It was such a lovely atmosphere :) having exhausted our shopping potential and with an extremely bored Sam (he hates markets, as he kept reminding us) we wandered back to the hostel, passing the 'cambio' men who are doing the illegal dollar exchange on the street.
That evening we treated ourselves to the bestest meal ever. A few of us had been specifically recommended a restaurant in the Palermo district by various other travellers along the way. This restaurant is known firstly for being a steak place and secondly for having a happy hour from 7-8 every night. This meant that we weren't allowed in the place until 7, we then had to order, eat and pay our bill by 8 in order to get 40% off the meat. Now talking about meat, there is no way for me to describe the incredible steak that we were served; it was completely melt in your mouth and like nothing I have ever nor will ever eat again in my life - it truly made me feel sorry for vegetarians. I didn't even need a steak knife to cut it, just your standard butter knife. Of course, we accompanied the 'to die for' meal with a bottle of Argentinian wine and chips, not that we needed them...we virtually had to be rolled back down the street we were so full and yet our happy contentedness powered us along.
The next morning, to walk off my food baby, 4 of us (Sam was in bed nursing a hangover) went for a walking tour around the Recoleta district of Buenos Aires, which is the fancy, aristocratic area. There were all sorts of grand buildings and we also saw a funky, multicoloured, wavy bridge, the beautiful law school and a really cool, large metal flower which opens in the day and closes at night. We also visited the mesmerising but slightly eery cemetery which is where all the aristocratic people from the city, and country wide, are buried and each grave is ornately decorated with a stone or marble building with various intricacies to individualise it. Included in these tombs is the grave of Evita Peron, a female icon in Argentina and internationally for her work with ythe poor and lower classes.
That evening we were given a true Argentine experience. We paid (a rather large sum) to appreciate the tango culture. Firstly, we had a tango lesson which was hilarious. Our instructor just taught us one simple step and then the tango pose and face and then we got to practice what we'd learnt with a being of the opposite gender. It was so entertaining seeing how hard everyone was concentrating, and I almost preferred watching than doing it myself (not being a natural dancer) especially when the tango face was whipped out. Having sort of learned how to tango we went and had another delicious steak dinner, with a salad starter (still a treat to have salad) and brownie dessert and mucho vino. The dessert was also accompanied by a tango performance by 3 scarcely clad women and 3 suited gentlemen. The show was incredible and j was completely in awe of how quickly they could all move their legs and the heights to which the women's legs reached! I left the show with a spring in my step and a wiggle in my hip and headed to the hostel for another night of partying which ended in a club that was a lot of fun. The 30 minute walk back at 5am was not so good but we made up for it when we made it back by having a midnight feast of peanut butter and banana sandwiches sat in a little circle on the floor in the middle of our dormitory - I felt very sorry for our fellow roommates!
Made ourselves get up the next morning to visit La Boca which is where the immigrant community in BA used to live and is incredibly colourful. All the buildings are painted in blocks of multicolour giving the whole area a very cheery, up beat feel. We saw a particular house where 30 families used to live, each family in a tiny little 2.5m by 2.5m room which have now been turned into souvenir stalls. We rushed (I mean literally ran) back for a cooking lesson in how to make empanadas - for those of you this is like a Cornish pasty with a Spanish touch - and also had a lite competition to make the most creative empanada. I am very unimaginative so made a wine bottle and glass as it SAS simple but some of the artistically talented made a turtle, with a spinach leaf shell, a hedgehog and the winner was a 'despicable me' minion made out of empanada, eating an empanada. It was well worth the free T-shirt as a prize! I also got to try 'mate' (pronounced matt-eh) which is an extremely popular drink here...everyone walls around with their specific maté cup, specialised filter straw and flask of hot water. The flavour is provided by a herb called 'sherba' and I was really keen to try it, sadly I found it revolting and don't intend to drink it again but I'm glad I got to try. And I still bought myself a cool cup as a souvenir!
Next morning was an earlier start to get ourselves to the port to catch a boat over to Uruguay...just for another stamp on the passport, although I am very sad to be leaving BA. It is a place I will definitely be back to in the future, and I know there is so much I haven't seen!
Mucho amor xxx
Our first night was very much influenced by Argentina being in the final of the Cops America which was all dreadfully exciting and we watched the match in our hostel with lots of others. In my opinion the game was rather disappointing as it was very evenly matched so there were no goals in the game or in extra time and it ended up going to penalty shoot outs and unfortunately Argentina lost :(
You'll be pleased to know that this didn't shoot us down, we headed to the adjoining hostel for a party Argentinian style, which let's just say involved a lot of drinking and dancing and was A LOT of fun!
The next morning, feeling a little bit worse for wear, we headed to the infamous San Telmo where they have an enormous Sunday market, and as it conveniently happened to be Sunday it felt wrong not to go. The best way to describe it would be an argentinian tinted Camden market, about 10 blocks long with stalls selling anything and everything and an awful lot of cool looking, useless tat - and thats the sort of thing I love so I spent a long time perusing all the little stalls and enjoying the music provided by bands playing on the street. It was such a lovely atmosphere :) having exhausted our shopping potential and with an extremely bored Sam (he hates markets, as he kept reminding us) we wandered back to the hostel, passing the 'cambio' men who are doing the illegal dollar exchange on the street.
That evening we treated ourselves to the bestest meal ever. A few of us had been specifically recommended a restaurant in the Palermo district by various other travellers along the way. This restaurant is known firstly for being a steak place and secondly for having a happy hour from 7-8 every night. This meant that we weren't allowed in the place until 7, we then had to order, eat and pay our bill by 8 in order to get 40% off the meat. Now talking about meat, there is no way for me to describe the incredible steak that we were served; it was completely melt in your mouth and like nothing I have ever nor will ever eat again in my life - it truly made me feel sorry for vegetarians. I didn't even need a steak knife to cut it, just your standard butter knife. Of course, we accompanied the 'to die for' meal with a bottle of Argentinian wine and chips, not that we needed them...we virtually had to be rolled back down the street we were so full and yet our happy contentedness powered us along.
The next morning, to walk off my food baby, 4 of us (Sam was in bed nursing a hangover) went for a walking tour around the Recoleta district of Buenos Aires, which is the fancy, aristocratic area. There were all sorts of grand buildings and we also saw a funky, multicoloured, wavy bridge, the beautiful law school and a really cool, large metal flower which opens in the day and closes at night. We also visited the mesmerising but slightly eery cemetery which is where all the aristocratic people from the city, and country wide, are buried and each grave is ornately decorated with a stone or marble building with various intricacies to individualise it. Included in these tombs is the grave of Evita Peron, a female icon in Argentina and internationally for her work with ythe poor and lower classes.
That evening we were given a true Argentine experience. We paid (a rather large sum) to appreciate the tango culture. Firstly, we had a tango lesson which was hilarious. Our instructor just taught us one simple step and then the tango pose and face and then we got to practice what we'd learnt with a being of the opposite gender. It was so entertaining seeing how hard everyone was concentrating, and I almost preferred watching than doing it myself (not being a natural dancer) especially when the tango face was whipped out. Having sort of learned how to tango we went and had another delicious steak dinner, with a salad starter (still a treat to have salad) and brownie dessert and mucho vino. The dessert was also accompanied by a tango performance by 3 scarcely clad women and 3 suited gentlemen. The show was incredible and j was completely in awe of how quickly they could all move their legs and the heights to which the women's legs reached! I left the show with a spring in my step and a wiggle in my hip and headed to the hostel for another night of partying which ended in a club that was a lot of fun. The 30 minute walk back at 5am was not so good but we made up for it when we made it back by having a midnight feast of peanut butter and banana sandwiches sat in a little circle on the floor in the middle of our dormitory - I felt very sorry for our fellow roommates!
Made ourselves get up the next morning to visit La Boca which is where the immigrant community in BA used to live and is incredibly colourful. All the buildings are painted in blocks of multicolour giving the whole area a very cheery, up beat feel. We saw a particular house where 30 families used to live, each family in a tiny little 2.5m by 2.5m room which have now been turned into souvenir stalls. We rushed (I mean literally ran) back for a cooking lesson in how to make empanadas - for those of you this is like a Cornish pasty with a Spanish touch - and also had a lite competition to make the most creative empanada. I am very unimaginative so made a wine bottle and glass as it SAS simple but some of the artistically talented made a turtle, with a spinach leaf shell, a hedgehog and the winner was a 'despicable me' minion made out of empanada, eating an empanada. It was well worth the free T-shirt as a prize! I also got to try 'mate' (pronounced matt-eh) which is an extremely popular drink here...everyone walls around with their specific maté cup, specialised filter straw and flask of hot water. The flavour is provided by a herb called 'sherba' and I was really keen to try it, sadly I found it revolting and don't intend to drink it again but I'm glad I got to try. And I still bought myself a cool cup as a souvenir!
Next morning was an earlier start to get ourselves to the port to catch a boat over to Uruguay...just for another stamp on the passport, although I am very sad to be leaving BA. It is a place I will definitely be back to in the future, and I know there is so much I haven't seen!
Mucho amor xxx
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