Buenos Aires
Trip Start
Nov 01, 2004
1
85
133
Trip End
Nov 01, 2005
Buenos Aires,
Argentina
Thursday, June 9, 2005
Up at 3.30, 4am taxi, 5 check in, 7 flight and with BA.....wonderful English accents. We landed about 9.30am and caught a taxi to the Cultural Hostel Sandanzas which is in the San Telmo area - famous for Tango. We waited for the room to clear by having some breakfast and talking to the other guests - it is so nice to be able to talk to other fellow travelers again - most of Brazil didn't seem to have the hostel culture. We went to lunch with a nice English couple called Ian & Sharon, who are having a 6 month trip before emigrating to Australia - which they haven't been to yet....even though they have been accepted already! Lunch cost 19 pesos (the wine was 18 pesos!) which is about 4 quid and was a superb eat-as-much-as-you-can buffet. It was the poshest nicest restaurant that we have been in for ages and they actually had chefs waiting to cook you pasta, fish or oven-baked pizza - not your regular buffet
01 The Pink Palace
! We had a very leisurely superb lunch and even had some lovely cheese - which is one thing you miss in hot countries. After lunch we walked into the city centre and caught a weekly demonstration by mothers of people who went missing in the late 70s/early 80s when the government was non-democratic and basically eliminated people who opposed their views. It was very moving and had Gillian almost in tears. We then went and ordered Gillian some new glasses and tried to get money from a bank - more difficult than usual because Cirrus seemed to have problems. It's a very modern city centre with some old buildings scattered through it (we mostly did the shopping streets - the touristy stuff tomorrow!) and could have been anywhere in Europe - apart from the cheap prices. After failing to find a cinema we headed back to the hostel and chilled.Day 223 Friday 10/06/05 Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires has a very Parisian feel to it - and that was before we read it is called the Paris Of South America!! The streets and layout have been modeled somewhat on Paris ...just without the really interesting bits like the Tower, Arc & great parks that Paris has. What messes the city up is the diagonal streets which create an uncertainty in your head while navigating - how people manage to drive round here is amazing
02 Mothers Of The Disappeared
. We started the day off with a bus tour to get our bearings. We first drove through Recoleta and stopped to see the Madonna...sorry...Evita Peron statue which has a feel of Julie Andrews in The Sound Of Music. Recoleta is the more upmarket area of BA with the designer label shops and nice expensive cafes. We then headed back into the city centre and stopped in the main square - Gillian headed off to gets tickets to Casa Rosada (only 30 per tour once a day) while Stewart went into the Cathedral to see the tomb of the great revolutionary leader General San Martin (fairly busy with a mass but there was a steady stream of locals & tourists to see the tomb). The bus then headed out to La Boca - we passed the famous stadium and stopped in the heart of La Boca at The Caminito, a pedestrian walkway that was once a rail terminus and takes its name from a popular tango song. This area was home to Italian immigrants who built ickle tin houses which they often painted very colourfully. It´s now an overly fake touristy area but still worth visiting to try and get a flavour for the area. The street now is done up for tourists and is very very colourful but it attracts the hawkers, tat shops and tango dancers (for photo opportunities if you pay a few pesos). The lady in red with her 3 dogs dressed in red was a bit much though - only 2 pesos for a picture with her. On the bus tour we met a nice Scottish couple now working and living in the Falklands - he works for Interserve (Stewart´s old company). We got dropped off back in town and headed to the Teatro Colon (opera house) to find that we had missed a tour - so we headed for lunch at a restaurant on the widest street in the world (16 lanes wide - but they have grass sections splitting them up into groups of four!!) and close to the famous Obelisk
03 Mothers Of The Disappeared
. For 11 Pesos (about 3 euro) Gillian had a wonderful steak with mustard sauce while Stewart had a lovely pasta for about 8 pesos! We then headed back to the Casa Rosada for our tour. Casa Rosada is the Pink Palace - a government building painted pink (either due to the merging of two political parties whose colours were red and white or due to the use of bulls` blood in the paint, depending on which story you believe) which has been the scene of most of Argentina´s political history. Both Evita and Madonna have made speeches from its` famous balcony and the gorgeous White Room (with lots of mirrors and lots of gold) is where the Presidents are sworn in and where most of the press conferences are held. Apart from the White Room it has a very solid, not too ostentatious, decor. The internal courtyard is lovely. We headed back to the Hostel and had some free time before heading out to Café Tortoni for a tango show. BA is allegedly the home of tango and there are many many tango shows to choose from - ranging from free to over 300 pesos. We took the recommendation of our Hostel and headed for a local show - it cost us 20 pesos and apart from us we saw only three other foreigners. Most shows are for tourists only but this one was more for the locals. It was a very small venue and the waiters did well to serve the meals, drinks or snacks. A fabulous band played for about 2 hours and for the majority of the time they were accompanied by a brilliant singer who sang beautifully. Two dancers came on occasionally (more often would have been nice) and showed us what tango dancing was about - from the slow sultry tango to the legs everywhere very athletic tango. We left very impressed. Day 224 Saturday 11/06/05 Buenos Aires
We started the day off by walking up to the Teatro Colon through the San Telmo district
04 BA Architecture
. The San Telmo district is full of antique shops and has a very very Parisian feel to it. We sat outside on a bench waiting for our tour of the Teatro Colon and we think we were almost scammed - we got sprayed with something from behind and all of sudden somebody was there offering to help clean our jackets. We headed in to the Teatro Colon to clean up instead of accepting their assistance, which we think may have been a cover for pickpocketing or robbery. The Teatro Colon tour lasted about an hour and you got to see everything - from the fabulous main auditorium to the huge carpentry shop housed below the Teatro Colon. They have an army of people here making clothes, sets, shoes, wigs, etc. After the tour we walked up through Recoleta and had a nice lunch in one of the expensive cafes which overlook the famous church/cemetery. We went into the cemetery to see the tomb where Evita lies. Unlike the more rambling Pere Lachaise in Paris this cemetery is laid out like a mini city - everything is clean and well maintained (apart from the scrawny cats) and all the ground around the huge marble tombs is paved. It feels very odd, not quite like a city but not quite like a graveyard either. We went into the church next door which has an art exhibition in its old cloisters. We then walked down one of the main streets to get to the San Martin Park. They have a couple of Marines guarding the Falklands Islands War Memorial (they don´t call it that!!!) and the irony is that it faces the English Tower in the park next door. We then headed back to the hostel down the Main Shopping area again. On the recommendation of another hostel guest we had dinner in Monolo´s - a traditional Argentine restaurant that the locals frequent more than the tourists. If you time it wrong you´ll be standing for an hour or more waiting for a table. The walls are covered in sporting memorabilia (including lots of football tops), the staff are very friendly, the other diners are very friendly and the menu is huge. We had two meals, two desserts, a bottle of nice wine and some mineral water...and it cost 32 pesos - less then 10 euro (about 6 quid). We headed back to the hostel and chatted with the other guests and listened to the free concert that was taking place in the hostel (every Saturday). 
