Buenos Aires Hotels
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More City fun
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Three days left to finish exploring Bs As, sounds a long time....but it just flies by!!
Friday Had a leisurely morning....nice for a change....then headed off to find the port and waterfront. Got the tube to the nearest place.....tube network is not that great in Bs As, its very simple and never goes where you want! Walked the rest of the way. The port was very nice....very much like a port in england....modernised with bars and restaurants and fancy apartments......apparantly it was designed by the english...so thats probably why!!! Was very pleasant to walk along, decided on some food....loads of places which were all quite busy. Headed to one with a great view....choose what we wanted and then were told we couldnt have it! Seems to be the argentinian way! Whatever you want on the menu they dont have!! In this case they were only serving snacks...so we opted for our new favourite - empanadas and tostadas.....tostadas being the main argentinian diet....boring grilled cheese and ham sandwhiches with the crusts cut off!!!
After food....we walked a little further....finding the tacky bit....with TGI friday, and hooters...and a funky bridge which was closed! Then we decided to go look at the casa rosada from the back....to see how pink it actually was!! I like pink i do! Took us ages to get near it...damn main roads and scaffolding! Was very pink!!! Walked past a scarily big military place...with surprisingly basic security....then we strolled back, to find beer!
Got ready for the theatre and then drank 4 bottle of bock....dark red beer....before going off to the theatre!! Had to get in the right mood!!! The theatre turned out to be amazing....the fact that it was in spanish didnt seem to matter at all...despite which our spanish is so amazing now we could actually understand a few words!!! The singing was brilliant....it was more like operetta....but they all had wondeful voices and the expression was excellent! The crowd went wild at the end....they sure do love their music out here! After the show we were gonna go find food, but didnt feel that hungry, so went to the bar for a beer....where we decided that actually we were hungry, so headed to macdonalds for snacks!
On saturday we had decided to check out Palermo, the district we had originally planned to stay in. Mainly cos we fancied going to the zoo. Turned out to be a good choice. The zoo wasnt far from the subway so wasnt long before we´d figured out the ticketing and got in. Amy had the map so was my tour guide for the day. We first took a look at the reptile house where there were some humungous snakes followed by a peek at the fishes. I was very pleased to see the zoo had bears and was even more pleased to see they had polar bears......We were greeted by the polar bear who did a huge hello dump for us..... and then it was on to the grizzly and andean bears! To follow were elephants and loadsa birds and a few monkeys..... and then we discovered we were very fortunate to be there whilst they had white tiger cubs...... they were so tiny, looked just like pussy cats and were just as playful! The buildings in the zoo were all incredible grand if not in a little disrepair. We then went on to see llamas, tapirs, a cute baby giraffe and cows and loadsa other stuff.
We left to head in to the centre of the district which was quite dead, to us it was missing the buzz of the theatre district..... the central plaza tho had a little life with people selling stuff on the pavements and a few open fronted cafes.... we had beer and a few snacks in one of these before returning to the hostel.
The evening was spent back in the restaurant we ate the first night where me and ames shared a huge plate of lamb and a big steaming bowl of veggies... oh and of course the usual bottle of vino!!!
Our last day we decided to try see more of the city before we had to get our bus. We headed to San Telmo, which is a strange little place....it was Sunday so there was a very odd little antiques market on....with stalls full of the kind of stuff your grannie has stashed in her cupboards....wasnt our thing...but the american tourists were loving it...."oooh look its old!". We wandered around....checking out the people tangoing in the street...mainly old guys with very young looking women...except for the old woman...who looked like a prostitute and was dancing by waving her hands around and a naked troll!! We decided we had enough of looking at tat, so we headed to a funky looing bar i had spotted earlier. It was a brew pub...with loads of different microbrews and 32 different varieties of empanadas. So both enjoyed some porter style beer and we shared 4 different empanadas....subtly different, but very good. Bar was kinda US style which was cool for a change...complete with lifesize homer outside!
Next stop was La Boca....the very dodgy part of town. It is written everywhere that its dangerous and you shouldnt wander round alone...or off the tourist trail...but us being us....we set off walking! It didnt seem to bad...not the nicest area...but ok...bit smelly to be honest! Wasnt getting it.....we reached the waterfront...which was minging too....had a cool old bridge tho....and kept walking till we started to spot the tourists. We had found it....the very colourful street in all the photos. It was kinda cool...higgledy piggeldy buildings....all painted very bright colours....and people tangoing everywhere. Was pretty cool....but very touristy....to the point that we werent actually sure if it was real....or put on for us. Still it was cool to see and a change from boring buildings....kinda took us back to central america again!! Looked at some of the tacky souvenirs...then decided it was time to head back to get our bus.
Hailed a taxi....got in and then the driver had a slight problem in that his car wouldnt start! He tried several times and then gave up...and kicked us out again! We had to laugh...he was quite happily driving along, till we hailed him down and he pulled over!! Managed to grab another cab that worked and got to the bus station....where Neil decided that he wanted to buy a suitcase!! We had been looking everywhere for a small one, that was small enough to take as hand baggage. We had seen loads but he said they were all too big....so when we saw a very cheap small one....it had to be bought. Personally i think its pretty useless...and you will get about 1 tshirt and a pair of undies in it....which if im honest will actually suit neil down to the ground!! We eventually got on the bus loaded to high heaven!
The bus journey was pretty dull....same old boring landscape...but the food was good. We had a three course gourmet meal.....prob best bus food yet. Eventually landscape changed and became green again. Was great to see trees and grass again...forgotten how nice it all is...been in bleak places for so long!!
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