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Buenos Aires - the Paris of South America.
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Flying out at 01.25 am and arriving 4 hours later meant that not much sleep was had that night. Arrived safely and really like flying with LAN - so luxurious and modern. Got to the hostel at half 8 which was too early to check in but they gave us brekkie and got us a room asap.
Mixed feelings about the hostel, it's like a run down grand house - decaying grandeur. Some parts are lovely with narrow marble staircases and chandeliers but the bedroom and kitchen are really shabby compared to rooms we had in Peru. The staff are fantastic though - all young hippy types and very helpful. Buenos Aires is a huge city but we must have walked all around it by now. San Telmo, the area we are staying in, originally didnt feel too safe when we walked around it and seemed nothing like the beauiful place it is made out to be in the travel books. It was once the area to live in and is full of grand old houses but the rich folk left when the area was hit by disease and the houses are now really run down and in some cases are literally falling apart. The streets are filled with rubbish in the evening to be taken away at night. There are some (even wtih families in rubbish carts) who rummage through the waste to find something to sell. While it seems like Lima is undergoing constant improvements and is on the way up, Buenos Aires seems to be going the opposite way and shanty towns are appearing when they never existed before.
But despite all this we consistently find gems around random street corners and so far have found a very modern and absolutely delicious place for dinner, an excellent bakery and a dedicated ice-cream shop wtih a very happy owner and over 30 types of ice-cream and sorbet (think we tried them all in the 5 days there). Let us say the rummours are true - the icecream in Argentina is fantastic. The people are also incredibly helpful and even in the city centre they will stop and ask us if we need help when we're looking at the map or on the subway. So from being disappointed and a little shocked at the state of this palce initially we are really starting to like it more and more.
The centre is nicer and better kept than San Telmo and very very busy. We saw all the sights and there are quite a few nice parks and amazing buildings. We stopped for lunch in the famous and very impressive cafe Tortoni - the oldest cafe in Buenos Aires. They even have a room just for tango shows. There's an ecological reserve close to the bus station and we walked through it on our way to buy tickets. It was sadly lacking any sign of ecology, the duck pond was dry and the only creatures we spotted were mosquitoes. We moved swiftly on to the station and managed to buy tickets to Iguazu speaking only in Spanish! We walked on to Recoletta and had our first parilla (barbeque) and it was fantastic. Even Sara the semi-veg is really enjoying her chicken here - she had half a chicken and T had a big steak. (The food in this country is amazing and unbelieveably cheep. We had another parilla the next night and huge dinner and drinks came to 6.50 squid.) We then visited the famous cemetary and saw Evita's tomb. The whole place is like a mini town with little streets and squares and some of the tombs are impressive. There are even two Irish people buried there.
The fanciest part of town is Palermo. We took the subte there and hit the zoo. T had fun feeding the capybara and Sara doted over the half deer, half rabbit .... creatures. The zoo was beautiful with huge fountains and fancy old buildings. The small animals just run around freely but it didn't look much fun for the bigger ones. Imagine being a polar bear in BA. From there we visited a Japanese garden which was really pretty but overcrowded with tourists which detracted from the tranquility and meditation potential. The best part of that was a gorgeous sushi lunch - are we talking about food too much? Anyway, tomorrow we're off to Colon hee hee Hope it's not shit!
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