Be careful what you wish for
Trip Start
Sep 04, 2008
1
24
33
Trip End
Jan 11, 2009
Buenos Aires,
Capital Federal District,
Argentina
Friday, November 28, 2008
I arrived on Friday, straight into the weekend. Gareth was already back in town and so met him and some of Spanish School pals for dinner. It was a late night steak of course. Saturday I moved hostels from BA Stop to the Estoril on Av de Mayo in the city of town. The Estoril came highly recommended and it was suggested I request the Dome room on the top of the roof. It has a domed roof (hence the name) decorated with stars and a chandelier, really nice by most hostel standards. The terraces are great for hanging out and meeting people too, really lovely hostel on two floors of an old tennenment building.
Buenos Aires is huge with many different districts to explore. I took a walk down Av de Mayo towards the new docklands area, Puerto Madero. It looks much like the London docklands, very new and expensive. Back at the hostel I met Norwegian girl, Ingunn and went out for another late night steak. On the way back we stopped off for some late night helados at one of the ice cream parlours they have here. The ice cream is divine, rich chocolates and sorbets. This town is determined to make me spread! We had a tip off about a Tango place from a guy at the hostel and went to check that out, the Centro Cultural Torquato Tasso. There wasnīt any dancing but live music instead. The place was full of locals, not many gringos at all. It felt like we had a proper Buenos Aires night out (even though we were in bed before 3am).
On Sunday I met Jo, fresh off the plane from London. We both wanted to see the Antiques market at San Telmo so headed down there. It was a great market, proper antiques, not the flea markets you get back home. In the middle of the market there was a free Tango show - Tango is just everywhere here! We then took the bus (v proud to manage a city bus) to La Boca, one of the poorer barrios (areas) of BA. La Boca is the old port (and home to the football team) built by Italian immigrants from Genoa. There are three roads recommended for tourists, the colourful Caminito, the rest you are advised to steer clear of. The pedestrianised streets are lined with corrugated-metal buildings painted, originally, with the left over paint from the ships. Pictures are now up on www.flickr.com/photos/bongo76 if you want to see. We got back to the hostel around 6pm, totally knackered from the heat. Jo was keen to cram in as much as she could before she left for Mendoza so we both signed up for the Tango class-show-dinner that the hostel offered. Continuing to prove Itīs A Small World After All, Graham & Chris, two guys I met in Mar del Plata, were at the same class! Foolishly I wore my flip flops so my first stab at Tango wasnīt brilliant (thatīs my excuse anyway.) The dinner was great (fish this time, a night off from steak) and the show was wonderful!
Monday I walked to the Recoleta barrio, mainly to see the Cementerio de la Recoleta that houses the grave of Eva Peron. Recoleta is one of the more swanky parts of town, I think you could only get a place in the cemetary if you were a politician or loaded! Much like New Orleans, the graves are built up rather than down into the ground, most of them are very ornate. The crowds were of course around Evitaīs site. I donīt know that much about her, a fgure of great importance to the people of Argentina - some locals spontaneously started singing some national anthem whilst I was there. After a spot of lunch, nearly falling asleep at my table in the heat, I followed the lpīs walking tour of Recoleta. As it was a Monday the museo was shut, but just behind it was a park with this amazing metal sculpture of a flower, the Floralis Generica. It is huge and apparently at night the petals close up like a real flower. I got back to the hostel and collapsed in my lovely air-conditioned room.
Tuesday I decided to take a day trip to Colonia Del Sacramento, a town across the water in Uruguay (another passport stamp gained.) The boat only takes an hour, I got there around 1pm. The night before I met Jelena, an Australian who also wanted to go over to Colonia, so we arranged to meet for lunch. Jelena took the cheaper, longer boat and had met a couple of guys from our hostel, Michael and Chris, and an American chap, Brian. We had a long lunch at a cafe on the coast. Brian has lived in BA for two years illegally as a teacher and student. Now he is soon to marry his Argentine girlfriend and has had to īfess up to the authorities. His punishment, for earning tax free money and attending BA university free of charge for two years? - 50 pesos, about 10 quid! Anyway, as heīs practically a local, Brian recommended we had the Chivito sandwich http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chivito - chivito means goat, I assume it was goat we ate - it was certainly goatīs cheese, yuck! It was ok, not much of a national dish Iīd have to say. We then slowly ambled around Colonia, looked at some old streets, went up the lighthouse for some views of the town. The heat was too much really, we ended up outside a bar drinking Clerico http://www.drinksmixer.com/drink11400.html also known as Sangria Blanco.
Wednesday I wanted to see Palermo, the more artsy, yuppie area of BA. I couldnīt hack walking anymore so took the Subte underground; itīs less than one pesos (20p) for a single fare. Palermo is actually too big to do in one day so I settled for the Jardin Zoologico and some of the surrounding gardens. The zoo wasnīt as horrific as I expected a South American animal house to be. The animals didnīt have too much shade and looked a bit sorry for themselves in the heat, especially the lone polar bear, poor thing.
After some lunch I thought I should brush up on my knowledge of Eva Peron and visited the Evita museo. I think it presented the history of Evita in much the same way Gracelands presents Elvísī life - the bad bits were left out. She seemed to be an amazing lady; first an actress who then married the president Peron. As First Lady she started many initiatives to educate children, house the elderly and single mothers without work, she even built a Students City which looked great on the tapes - I wonder if it is still standing? Eva was extremely popular with the masses and was about to become the Vice President when the military took exception. Eva bowed down from becoming the VP, and not long after was diagnosed with cancer and died, aged only 33. Iīm not sure how or why there were a group of people that hated her, that bit was glossed over in the museo, but apparently when she died people cheered Viva Cancer! I think, making such radical socialist reforms as just the Presidents wife, she probably made some mistakes and rubbed some up the wrong way... Evaīs body was taken to Italy and buried under a false name for many decades. In the 1970s it was given back to the military dicatatorship in Argentina, but not returned to the family until the 1990s I think. Then she was buried in Recoleta. The translation of the tape was not good, but there is a speech from her sister when the body was returned, detailing all the damage that had been done - Eva had been knocked about before being buried, sheīd lost her nose and had stab marks all over her face. Very sad, I will get a biography when I get back to the UK to find out more. After that I visited the Jardin Japonese. Very beautiful, with some huge mad coy carp in the ponds - they were massive and, maybe because of the heat, kept leaping out of the water!
Thursday was more daytripping, this time to Tigre, a favourite weekend destination of porteņos, people of Buenos Aires. The train was quick and cheap, only 2.50 pesos (about a quid) but it wasnīt what I thought it would be. I took a trip around the waterways and then wandered to the Fruit Market, but really that was just a market of the same tourist tat you see everywhere. The was however an exhibition on that was really interesting, Casa FOA http://www.casafoa.com/ it was a bit like the Ideal Home Exhibition. Some of the rooms were fantastic, one was a bedroom surrounded by walls of waterfalls - I need the loo the whole night! It was STILL very hot, I left around 4pm with my sights set on a shower and a flop back in my lovely air-conditioned room...
But no! After battling with the Subte - the underground in rush hour in a heat wave - I got back to the hostel to find it in a power cut: no lift to the sixth floor, no air con, no water pumps for the showers or toilets, no lights, no fridge. Damn. The plus side was that with no TV or internet to distract, everyone from both the first floor and the sixth floor was on the top terrace drinking the beer before it got warm in the fridge. Only our block had a black out, the rumour being that Buenos Aires uses too much electricity and so cuts of a block here and there to save. The power came back at 9.30pm. But then the rain came. This crazy weather couldnīt last and was finally broken last night with torrentail rain and a lightening storm. This morning Iīm not feeling so smug about my lovely roof top room - it leaks. All of our stuff is now off the floor and on the beds. I wasnīt planning to do much today but I was kinda hoping I could do it in the sunshine. So thatīs why I thought I would update this now. I think the rain has stopped but ítīs still grey and muggy. I may try to catch the latest Bond movie, or maybe I should revise my Spanish notes before I start School again next week.
Comments
Evita
Rich people (the oligarchy) hated Evita because what she dared to do: to empower the poor, and even women! In their book, that was sacrilegious. You will find the same social division in Argentina today (compare La Boca with Recoleta, there you have).