More Buenos Aires...

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Polly:

Woke up yesterday with our bellies still very happy after some ripe young cow. I imagine it was massaged regularly and fed on fine delicacies, like those Japanese ones, to have tasted so good. We actually made breakfast this morning as well which was a bit of a score. Lots of bread and butter really, can't get used to their Jam. I'm sure it's not Jam.

We had a wonder round a few outdoor shops to try and get me some ski pants/waterproof trousers but can't decide which would be better. Waterproof trousers are cheap, lightweight (thinking of the rucksack), but may make me sweaty betty.

We then went to find the Hotel Splendid, where we join our GAP Adventure's tour and spend the first night. The rack rate was 195 pesos for a double, but when we said we were staying on the 6th with GAP, he said we could stay there before that at the "GAP rate" of 100 pesos (17 GBP). We booked it for the 4th and 5th for a little bit of flashpacking.

We then went to a Spanish school, but when the head master bloke took us in a room and spoke to us sternly we felt like we had been caught smoking behind the bike sheds. Made our excuses and left.

In the afternoon we did a bike tour round the South of the city for 3 1/2 hours with a guide, Diego (named after the great one, of course). It is such a cool way to see a place, really relaxing pottering round on these shoppers with big comfy saddles. There are no gears on ther bikes cos Buenos Aires is totally flat. Diego stopped every 10 minutes or so and told us loads about the history of the city. We went to see the Boca Juniors stadium, which looks like an elyptical IKEA. Actually, they used to have a different colour, but it was deemed too similar to another Argentinia team. They had a play off, to keep the colours, and Boca lost. They decided they would go down to the port and pick the colours of the next ship that came in, which turned out to be from Sweden. Another weird colour fact we learned is that the Coca Cola advertising on the stadium, which is black and white, is the only place in the world where it is not red and white. This is because the rival BA team, Rio Plato, uses these colours.

We then cycled to a nearby place, in Boca, called Caminito. It used to be a poor area, and the corrugated iron houses were painted with random paints stolen from the ships. As a result the place is a mixture of bright colour. They have continued this, and today it is a colourful Tango area.

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Photos

Don Pedro de Mendoza
(After whom the wine region was named)

La Bombonera
(Box of Sweets)

Widest river in the world
At this point it is 50km wide, with Uruguay on the other side

Tango Bridge
It's meant to look like a woman doing Tango and leaning back. Anyone see it?

Presidential Palace
Allegedly, because the city used to be under water and thus dodgy foundations, this was built from lime and animal blood concrete. Eva Peron used to make her speeches from the balcony on the left.