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Published: March 20th 2008
Sculpture
Recoleta CemeteryMy memories of a visit to Buenos Aires at the end of 2002, when the peso was at its weakest, consist predominantly of steak and red wine being consumed in vast quantities at very low cost. I also remember a tangible European feel, notable architecture such as the Obelisco, an orchestral performance at the Teatro Colon, an evening seeing Senor Tango (a younger version of my Dad) wring every last milligram of emotion from his favourite songs while deft-footed tangoistas played chicken with each other's ankles, a visit to a trendy bar called Milion (a surviving picture of which shows me flabby and red with alcohol), and a trip to the town of San Antonio de Areco where the absence of gauchos contradicted what (we thought) tourist information had said about a gaucho festival.
In amongst the steak breaks had also been included a visit to Uruguay lasting all of several hours, a night at the Puerto Madero complex where we made the acquaintance of several English-speaking locals, one of whom subsequently tried to set me up with a friend of his in New York (which fell through without us meeting as she worked even longer hours than me), and
much shopping at designer emporiums whose clothing was available at Gap prices.
Such was the monotony of the steak and red wine diet that serious discussions about aspirin and flight socks took place the night before we were due to leave, with DVTs inevitable otherwise for all hands.
This time around, things were quite different, with one obvious change being a rise in prices. Though still cheap by European standards it was nothing like the bargain of 5 years ago. Last time, I'd stayed in the Hotel Intercontinental but its rooms had doubled in price since then and my own budgetary constraints meant I was back in hostels anyway. To my despair, especially given I have many months of South American hostelling ahead of me, the two I stayed in were of a below average quality, with one in particular possibly the second worst I've ever stayed in (if a room doesn't contain a guy constantly wetting himself then it can't challenge for the number 1 spot). This place's sole virtues were its cheapness and two resident cats. Flaws ranged from a requirement that you had to find a member of staff to let you in OR out
Tango and cash
Dancing for the tourist peso in La Boca of the building, to allowing guests to smoke everywhere including the common room and the kitchen (which they did), to having no quietness policy in the common room (around which all bedrooms on the ground floor were arranged) meaning that you had a 2-3 hour sleep window between the time the chatting guests controlling the stereo had gone to bed and the time the staff got up in the morning and started talking to each other. One of the few times in my life I've regretted not being a chain-smoking insomniac.
I had just one steak on this visit, served rare as that was the only option I knew the Spanish for. It was presented on a plain white plate, a hunk of prime Argentinian beef oozing redly. What made me laugh was the lettuce leaf garnish, of such sickly quality that it wouldn't have passed muster with my childhood guinea pigs. You can hide such a thing in amongst a salad but it's a bit cheeky when it's one of only two items on the plate. My liking for meat has decreased markedly since I left work, so I spent most of my mealtimes investigating the city's immense
La Bombonera
aka Boca Juniors' stadium Italian food heritage instead.
I should add that I don't know Spanish, other than a few stock phrases and some random vocab. Grammar isn't something I've seen fit to encumber myself with yet. Barring a simple yes or no response to any of my questions, I can only look apologetic and trot out one of my excuses for not understanding. I would have liked to have begun this trip with a couple of weeks of Spanish lessons but for various reasons that wasn't possible - I hope to rectify that later. In Buenos Aires there was no shortage of English speakers, but I'm sure that won't be the same throughout the continent. As an additional motivating factor, Spanish looks so easy when compared to, say, Mandarin that I can't believe I won't progress further than the phrases for fried rice and a room with a large bed.
One of the more startling sights in the city is the cemetery in the trendy Recoleta area. No ordinary graveyard, this more resembles an Egyptian necropolis complete with an army of grubby cats. The tombs are works of art, adorned with sculptures, stained glass windows, and architectural flourishes veering off into
the baroque at times. No new ones have been created since the '70s, but the costs ranged from $40,000 - $300,000, i.e. more than the price of a decent apartment in the city. The tombs are crammed together in an overcrowded fashion, some gathering cobwebs and sustaining graffiti damage while others look scrupulously well-tended.
The most famous of the tombs in the cemetery is that of Eva Peron, which the city has resolutely refused to signpost. Courtesy of the precise instructions contained in the RG, I was able to direct 3 groups of people to it - though I don't know why they'd asked me in the first place. Frankly, you could find it by skimming through the whole cemetery and searching for the scrum of jostling tourists. I heard more English and American voices here than anywhere else in Buenos Aires, and wondered whether people had read about Evita and cats and thought it was some kind of Lloyd Webber theme park.
The Sunday Market in San Telmo, close to the more dire of my hostels, is not worth a minute of anyone's time, unless you fancy crowds of tourists so dense you can only inch along,
Cabildo
Old government building llama photo opportunities, T-shirts showing Maradona's "Hand of God", and overpriced shops and restaurants. The commercial sense of the shopkeepers is so acute that when I stopped in front of a store in order to take a photo of the street scene, the owner immediately rushed out and requested I not stand there as I was preventing potential customers from looking in the window. She graciously acceded to my request for the 10 seconds I needed to take my photo.
Also commercialised but rather more appealing is a street called Caminito, distinguished by its brightly-coloured (and oft-repainted) buildings, in the area called La Boca. A short distance away is the stadium of Boca Juniors, Argentina's most famous football club internationally. Local rivals River Plate may have won the country's league title more often but they never had a certain Senor D Maradona playing for them.
Certain parts of La Boca have acquired a reputation for not being exactly tourist-friendly but, walking back towards the centre of town from the stadium, I was attacked in an area not known for being troublesome. My assailant was a dog, which left its owner's side to amble over the road and have
a nip at my ankle. In general I'm fond of animals, but I get rather irritated by people who can't control their pets. This anger gave a sudden boost to my Spanish-speaking ability. Despite only knowing the words for "if your dog", "me again", "its", and "head", and not knowing the words for "touches", "I'll kick", "f*cking", and "off", I managed to get my point across, though the dog didn't seem too concerned.
I found Buenos Aires to be an attractive city that was great for aimless wandering and I could have spent several more days visiting the other barrios, but time was getting tight for me to be able to see some of the national parks in the south of Argentina. With Easter approaching, and that being considered as the onset of (the southern hemisphere) winter by parts of the tourism infrastructure, I had to make sure I got in my dose of mountains and glaciers before they shut up shop for a few months.
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