Conceptions and Misconceptions in Buenos Aires
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Colonia del Sacramento,
Uruguay
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
I write this blog having left Buenos Aires (for now) for Uruguay. The lack of a recent entry is due to a language misunderstanding on another computer that led to a whole entry being completely lost about 5 days ago but anyway Buenos Aires was an interesting place to visit. With a population exceeding 12 million the city was huge and even when I landed here the city occupied every corner of the skyline. Still having Tupiniquim Syndrome fresh in the blood I staggered my stay at different hostels. In retrospect I probably should have stuck with one hostel but I did meet an amusing mixture of people as a consequence.
The most amusing such was after having a nice conversation with a couple from London they asked me where I was from. When I said near Cambridge they started talking about this town they had visited about half an hour away near Ipswich as well. There was cobblestone paths and a big Abbey with lots of ducks and a river running through it! To top it off they then introduced me to another couple at the same hostel who from Ipswich!
Anyway Buenos Aires certainly fulfilled a lot of the expectations created by my guidebook. It definitely is Latin America's European city, The steak was a delight to eat and the cheapness and the quality of the wine coupled with being dragged to restaurants by wine connoisuers has led me to becoming a bit of a wino!
THe most frustrating aspect of BA is the nightlife which I didnt get to experience as it doesnt start until 2am and possessing an English approach to drinking/partying I was generally too tired and full to go out! This was also because nobody out here eats until very late, my average dinner time was 1130pm and the same goes for the locals. In fact on our last night we were sat in a restaurant till 130am and across the room there were a family having their dinner as well! As my Irish friend Steve said (with a number of typically Irish expletives thrown in) "no wonder their economy hit the pan, they dont do anything till 10 and then they have a 3 hour lunch break!"
The biggest misconception of BA for me was how beautiful the people were supposed to be, this seemed to be more a title exclusively for the pompous elite of the city and my visit to a Boca Juniors football match completely expelled this myth.
To describe the Argentinian football experience I would use the words ´electrifying`and ´ugly`and neither of them refer to the football itself. Having eventually made it to the ground after negotiating the endless barriers and obstacles designed to isolate a potential riot we found the game to have sold out. This of course is no problem in Latin America and we soon found some touts. Then the most scary experience of my trip so far occurred and Mum, Aunts if your reading I wont do it again promise!
As there were 10 of us (fortunately half of whom were Spanish speaking and could make sense of the whole situation) several touts were needed and after being led away from the police my caution radar switched on, it then went into overdrive when we were locked the wrong side of a perimeter fence of a complex that we could not see. I proceeded to stand at the back of the group to get a good vantage point of the situation only to see one of the touts reach into his pants which caused me to briefly panic until it became clear he was just having a scratch and was not about to brandish some sort of weapon! As we continued walking it became apparent that the touts had some arrangement with staff working for the Boca stadium complex and were actually in it walking along the artificial training pitch past the swimming pool and then we were bundled through the turnstile (shortly after I gave the rest of my hotdog to the first drunk Argentinian I had met) and up the steps.
It became clear that the stand we were in was the terraced stand for the Boca faithful, the thousands of which that create the electrifying atmosphere that make these games such a big tourist attraction (the majority of tourists however occupy the seated stands either side) unfortunately these supporters sacrifice watching the actual game to conjure up the sounds of South America. A 4 piece drum band drummed away the rythms that accompanied the deceivingly pre-prepared concert of songs performed by the thousands of supporters arround us, jumping up and down, urged on by the rabid supporters standing fullystretch on the hand rails with their backs to the pitch ensuring noone else can see the game either! The demographic of the stand was predominantly one of middle aged men sometimes overweight, and -even more amusingly- many sporting tattoos (often with Maradona the original Boca legend engraved upon themselves) some sporting a worrying amount of knife wounds and a number of them still seemed stuck in the 90s judging by the Roberto Baggioesque pony-tailed mullets. It is important not to forget that many of them were bringing their children along some at a very worrying young age from a Western point of view. After one of our party nearly had her camera stolen by a toothless creature we made our way to the back of the stand where we might have been able to at least see a bit of the football, but even that proved difficult so we left fairly early posing for a photo with a jolly riot policeman standing produly in front of his water-cannon-armoured tank!
I hope the comma in the 20,00 pesos fee attached to this internet cafe is meant to be a decimal!
