Pickpocketed but don´t cry for me Argentina!

  Buenos Aires, Capital Federal District, Argentina
Friday, September 19, 2008

So we left Puerto Iguazu relaxed and amazed after the beautiful sight of the falls. We were excited about the prospect of having our own place in Buenos Aires for 10 nights, at a bargain price too!. It was going to be great to settle somewhere for a while and unpack. I wasa little nervous and my usual pessimistic self, worrying that something was going to fall through or that we wouldnīt be able to draw all the money we needed!

Famous Evita Blacony

As it turned out all went smoothly enough. Our bus arrived a little late but after a difficult telephone conversation and an expensive taxi we arrived at our place situated between the swanky neighbourhoods of Palermo Alto and Recoletta, just 3 blocks from the tube! We had got lucky again. Although the appartment wasnīt all the nicely decorated, it was clean and comfortable, and above all it had more than one room! George immediately unpacked everything form her bag as I slumped on the sofa. It already felt like home!

dom on sofa

bedroom

Weirdly I canīt think of a great deal to write in this blog. That is not to say I didnīt like Buenos Aires, in fact I absolutely loved it. It is probably my favourite city. Itīs just that we did lots of routine unintresting things. As you will probably guess by now those things included lots of food and wine! But in this case we had our own kitchen and dining table to enjoy! We watched cable, went to the cinema, shopped in supermarkets and grocers and did washing. It was a completely different experience to everything else so far, but it did give us the oppurtunity to experience the city as one of it residents, minus work and the ability to understand much of what was being said!

door

Japenese Garden

Buenos Aires is divided into quite distinct districts each with its own charecteristics, archetecture and feel. We basically spent the next ten days exploring as much of them as possible. We also met up with fellow ex-pat residents for the week; Toby and Louise.

Cafe San Telmo

They were staying in the slightly younger and more happening area of San Telmo. We met them there on Sunday and spent hours wondering around the streets of flea markets and antinque shops that the area is famous for. There were street performers all over and we had a beer outside a coffee and watched the world go by whilst listening to and occasionally watching some Tango! It was a really nice area with a great feel to it. I think I would probably choose to live in this area if I moved to BA.

Dom perusing

We vistited the Boca are, home of Boca Juniors (unfortunately didnīt get to watch a game due to money, illness and timing!). This is the poorer of the central BA areas. A few burnt out cars and a slightly dodgy feel aside, it was nice enough. We visited Caminata, in Boca, famous for its brightly paited houses.

La Boca

Whilst it was a little touristy it was still really beatiful adn again there werw street artists and tango dancers around. We also visited Palmero Viejo.

Palermo

This is the trendiest of all the areas. Full of posh restaurants and boutique shops. We felt a little underdressed for this area. Everyone looked so shiek and trendy and we wer traiping around in our slightly dirty and worn clothes! Never mind.

Our own neighbourhood was full of posh appartment blocks, with delis or restaurants on most street corners. We foudn one particular restaurant that was a great find. Obviously a locals favourite it was full almost every night, and one night we even decided to queue on the street we liked it so much! It was nice to visit the same palce afew times. We began to feel like a locals.

All in all the 10 days we spent were great and as I saind before, it is truly one of the best cities I have visited. They seem to have managed to cmobine the good aspects of the nice European capitals, thrown in a bit of New York and given it a latin edge! It was pretty perfect! Only downside to the stay was the fact that I got pickpocketed on the underground and lost my camera! A bit of a bugger as I had been keeping my favourtie photos on their, luckily I had downloaded almost all of them onto the webiste but I still lost some. I chose to look at the positive and decided that the reason I lost it was that I had relaxed too much! Who would have thought that possible from me?

We did do lots of other things too, but I donīt want to bore you with an "and then we went.....and then we did......" blog, plus it was a few weeks ago now so I have forgotten some of the things! Oh well, on to Puerto Madryn!