Fabulous Buenos Aires

  Buenos Aires, Capital Federal District, Argentina
Tuesday, October 28, 2008

I LOVE BUENOS AIRES!! I knew it the first day we were here but more on my new-found love later. I have to tell you another story first: my great laundry adventure. On our second last day in Bariloche, I decided to send some of my clothes to the hotel's laundry service. I looked up the procedure and the prices and got a bit of a shock: EUR 1.50 for a pair of socks!!! I don't think so! Told myself to forget that idea and maybe just wash the essentials myself. When I was in KL, my sister bought me several packs of washing powder (which were still unused) so I decided to do the wash in the bathroom sink. I walked into the bathroom and had a wonderful brainwave. It just so happened that our room had a jacuzzi in the bathroom and when I saw it, I thought, hey, that would make a fantastic washing machine. So I filled up the tub, threw in the washing powder, added bath foam (for extra strength) and...another brainwave, hair conditioner as a replacement for fabric softener (I figured, its purpose is to condition and soften hair so why couldn't it do the same for cotton?). I soon had my clothes in there (since the tub was so big, I threw in any bit of clothing that was remotely dirty) and the water-jets were shooting away, spinning the clothes around and around. Perfect. I felt terribly pleased with myself. I left the bathroom and let the water-jets and suds do their work. Ten minutes later, I walked into the bathroom and was confronted with a bubbly wonderland!! There was a mountain of bubbles that almost reached the ceiling and a carpet of bubbles that had spilled over the tub's edge!! The suds were just everywhere! Oh dear, I thought. I made a path for myself through the bubbles, found the switch for the jacuzzi and turned it off. I then waited a bit for the mountain of bubbles to subside before draining the water. There was still a lot of suds left but after several washes, the tub was rid of them and my clothes looked incredibly clean!! The tub didn't though: its white surface had turned a brownish-grey! So after hanging up my clothes to dry, I got down and scrubbed the tub with soap! Anyway, for those travellers out there who are reading this: doing your laundry in a jacuzzi is a great idea but go easy on the soap and be prepared to clean the tub afterwards - leaving that to housekeeping would be really mean!


Back to Buenos Aires (BA). Gosh I love this city. BA is one of those unique, terribly fascinating cities that one stumbles upon, falls in love with and keeps coming back to. BA has a buzz that's one-of-a-kind: I'm not sure how I would describe it; maybe that's because the buzz has so many facets: it's, among others, sensual, raunchy, hip, incredibly artistic and folksy. It stems from the people (how they look, dress, talk, walk and gesture), the traffic, the eclectic architecture (that ranges from cute brightly coloured colonial houses to stately buildings and steel-and-glass skyscrapers), the gorgeous murals on the walls

Fab wall painting

, the quaint cobble-stone streets, the beautiful trees everywhere, the open-air markets, the tango dancers in the streets, the cosy squares, the broad boulevards,...it's in everything. The traffic is maddening yet the city has countless spots that are an oasis of tranquility and there's always something interesting to see, hear or be a part of. Really, this city is literally a jumble of everything and parts of it do remind me of other great cities of the world like New York, Paris, Madrid and Barcelona.


We arrived here on Sunday and checked into our hotel: a wonderfully hip place called Mine Boutique Hotel in Palermo Soho, a very vibrant neighbourhood. We dumped our bags in our room and ventured out into the streets. Palermo is fantastic: leafy, cobble-stone streets filled with loads of shops boasting the latest stuff from young Argentine designers; large squares with loungy terraces packed to the brim; art markets with a myriad of trinkets, jewellery, individually-designed clothing, glassware, ceramics and antiques; and trendy restaurants with fabulous interiors and folksy cafes and bars. We had a beer and a (HUGE) olive/cheese platter

Frits and the huge platter

at a terrace, watched the world go by and we were totally captivated. That evening, we went to a fantastic restaurant called Mott (on El Salvador street) and had a splendid dinner. If you're in BA, I can certainly recommend this place! On Monday morning, we took a cab downtown (the distances here are pretty large - there are after all about 15 million people living in this city!!) and explored that area. One thing about the taxis here: if you're looking for an adrenaline rush, forget roller-coasters, just take a cab in BA! People here (especially cabbies and bus drivers) are incredibly impatient, zip across lanes like they were in some Formula One video game and use their horns profusely. I don't know how they do it but the cabbies (somehow miraculously it would seem) do get you to your destination in one piece! We went for a long walk around the downtown area, passing by the pedestrianised shopping areas of Florida street and checking out the gorgeous Galeria Pacifico shopping mall, the impressive Avenida Cordoba and the equally impressive Avenida 9 de Julio (with its 16 lanes, it's touted as the widest boulevard in the world!), the famous obelisk

Widest boulevard in the world

and the Plaza de Mayo with the Casa Rosada (where Evita Peron delivered her famous speeches).

Me @ the Casa Rosada

From the Plaza de Mayo, we walked down the Defensa street to the San Telmo neighbourhood, probably one of the most characteristic neighbourhoods in BA. San Telmo is absolutely gorgeous: old run-down buildings mingle with renovated super-trendy eateries and boutiques while quaint squares form the decor for street performers and tango dancers. We spent the rest of the afternoon at Plaza Dorrego , a beautiful square, just soaking up the wonderful energy in this neighbourhood.

Tango @ San Telmo

That night, we had dinner at Cluny (recommended by Lonely Planet), also on El Salvador street close to our hotel. The food wasn't as good as in Mott and the service was rather crappy but the ambiance was great. I ordered a beef sirloin and it was rather uninspired - I've heard so many times that the beef in this country is awesome; well, I've tried the steaks in various places and they've all been pretty mediocre: either a huge portion (we're talking at least 600g of meat on your plate!) and mediocre or 'nouvelle cuisine' small and mediocre! The Gauchos steakhouse chain in Amsterdam serves better meat (ou, that hurt!) and doesn't kill the meat by preparing it extra well-done (good luck in trying to get a perfectly grilled 'medium' steak). Oh well, maybe we haven't been going to the right places..... During dinner, we started chatting with an American couple next to us and the conversation moved to the upcoming US elections in no time. I must say, in the past few months, I've met many Americans along the way and all of them have said that they will (or have) vote(d) for Obama. I guess that means one of two things: either Obama will win with a landslide (ok, I haven't met THAT many Americans but from what I gather, the mood seems to be swinging his way); or Republicans don't travel! Come to think of it, the Americans I've met all come from either the West or the East coast, they're all very ashamed of the Bush administration (and feel a certain amount of guilt for the current credit crisis) and they're all hoping that Obama will win and manage to turn things around (maybe not the economy, but rather US relations with the rest of the world). There is some hope after all!


This morning, we hopped into a cab to get to Recoleta, another famous BA neighbourhood. As we got into the cab, another cab zoomed by and stopped, blocking the cab we were in and refused to move. Both cab drivers began a heated quarrel about something; there was a furious exchange of words and gestures and in the end, our cabbie told us to step out and hop into the other cab, which we did. Seems the second cabbie saw us first but the first cabbie cut him off to get to us, hence the argument. When we got in, the (second) cabbie apologised profusely. We weren't rid of the first cabbie though because he got ahead of us and blocked our passage by swerving left and right until our cabbie made a 'getaway' manoeuvre to steer us clear. I've never experienced anything like this before. Quite bizarre. I can only relate to experiences involving cabbies who are fussy about who they pick up and where they have to go. Anyway, we got to Recoleta safely. Whereas San Telmo is quaint and colourful, Recoleta is grand, stately and oozes an air of prestige. Our first stop was the Recoleta cemetery where many famous Argentines (yes, including Evita Peron) are buried. The cemetery is just awesome.

Recoleta cemetery

It's a huge maze of grand mausoleums and chapels that are decorated with impressive statues and busts in stone and bronze. Compared to some of the other mausoleums, I thought Evita's tomb was like a simple hut! We then visited the gorgeous white Pilar church next door and continued on to Buenos Aires Design, a mall that showcases the best of Argentine design. I must say, the art and design scene here is very much alive and kicking! Absolutely love the stuff they have here. It's imaginative and downright funky. From here, we moved on down the broad Avenida del Libertador where we passed the Floralis Generica monument (a giant flower made of aluminium that opens in the morning and closes at night...like a real flower!).

The aluminium flower

We then continued down this avenue past the many grand mansions and stately buildings (lots of embassies here) to the Malba Museum (of contemporary art) where we stopped for lunch (at the very cool Restaurant del Arte). After lunch, we walked into the museum but we were told that it was closed. The day before, we wanted to visit the famous Colon Opera Theatre and that was closed (for renovations) too! What's up with that?! Anyway, we continued our walk back to Palermo, passing the different neighbourhoods with their tree-lined streets and beautiful houses and slowly made our way back to the hotel. In the evening, we headed to Palermo Hollywood, another section of the sprawling Palermo neighbourhood, where we had dinner at Tatana, an authentic Italian restaurant (on Gorriti street) - we've given up on Argentinian steakhouses. Wow, the food was pretty awesome. The salmon sorrentini (home-made pasta stuffed with fresh salmon with a creamy lime dressing) was superb, and so was the Argentinian Pinot Grigio.


It was a short stay in this great city but I'm totally awed. I'll be back in BA in mid-November and I'm looking forward to it already! We'll be flying back to the west tomorrow morning; this time to Mendoza where we'll be staying for four nights. A lot of Argentina's wines come from here so guess what we'll be doing?!


Lots of hugs from BA,
Keith