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Published: August 12th 2008
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We arrived at our hotel at around 8am after a 20 hour bus journey. We were in Buenos Aires. The city of ‘good winds’ so-called because the good winds made it easy for sailors to get there.
I had a bit of a sleep and we were ready to start exploring by 11am. First stop was Café Tortoni - the oldest café in Buenos Aires at 150 years old. It had a very European feel to it and it was unsurprisingly full of tourists. There were also what appeared to be some locals there too. I played spot the tourist and tried to work out where people were from. The Americans were the easiest to spot! We ordered the Tortoni breakfast - coffee, orange juice, ham and cheese toasted sandwiches and a cake of our choice. It was just what I needed - and there was plenty of it too. It was a very old style café - and it looked like some of the waiters had been working as long as the café had been open!
We stopped at a few shops to see what they had to offer. I bought a little leather bag as we were
going to go out partying in the evening and I didn’t really want to take my other big bag with me. A local journalist from La Critica newspaper asked if we were tourists (I would have thought that was obvious but nevermind!) and whether it was okay to ask us a few questions. She asked us if we knew anything about the disagreement that was going on between the rural farmers and the government. Being stupid tourists we answered in the negative and explained, when asked, that we didn’t read the local papers because we couldn’t understand them. We probably seemed like very stupid tourists. We then had our pictures taken and were told that the article would be in Monday’s paper. We made a note to buy it in case we were going to be famous!!
Then on to Plaza de Mayo. The beautiful main square. We saw the Casa Rosada - the salmon pink governmental palace where Eva Peron and others have addressed the crowds from that oh so famous balcony. Then the Catedral Metropolitana - a beautiful cathedral. It was incredibly peaceful inside and even the floors were covered in art work - amazing mosaics.
We left the peaceful cocoon of the cathedral and found ourselves back on the busy streets of Buenos Aires and hailed down a taxi. We were dropped off at the entrance to the Recoleta. The infamous cemetery where Eva Peron and other famous and wealthy Argentineans were buried. It was an impressive place. Almost like a city. The streets all had names and you needed a map to find your way around. It was definitely worth seeing it but it was very touristy too and difficult to fully appreciate it.
We left the Recoleta and explored the little market stalls set up in the square outside. There were hundreds of them selling jewellery, wooden carvings, handbags, wallets, belts and lots of other little things.
We stopped for a coffee at a place that had been recommended to us by the taxi driver. We were the only gringos in there so we knew it had to be good. The coffee was great and was a welcome break from the days’ activities.
We got back to the hotel after a quick walk through a design type shopping centre. It wasn’t quite the sort of design shopping centre we were
expecting. We thought we’d be seeing lots of different and quirky designers selling their wares but it was mainly house stuff - new rugs, furniture, storage - that sort of thing.
I got dressed up in my only vaguely smart outfit and we made our way to Millhouse. The hostel where a few of the others were staying. The night life in Buenos Aires doesn’t start til late so we went for a quick bite to eat at about 10pm and then headed back to the hostel in time for happy hour and lots of very cheap tasting and strange coloured cocktails. We had to keep ourselves amused until about 1am when we were being picked up by a bus to take us to Pacha and to see Seb Fontaine. We put our war paint on - literally - Pranav has some glow paint so we all painted our faces with it. It was a very ‘clubby’ place - not really my sort of thing and it was so crowded. Loads of people looking high on some drug or other. When Seb Fontaine came on to do his set the crowds went wild. Everyone was jumping and it was
at that point that I realised that my wallet was not in my bag. Luckily my camera was still there but I was just a little bit stressed. I spent the next 20 minutes using my camera flash as a torch and was shining it at peoples’ feet to see if I could spot my wallet on the ground. I had no joy and decided that the best thing to do would be to go back to the hotel and cancel my cards. The realisation hit me that I had lost both my cash card and my VISA card and that the next month was going to be quite difficult with only a credit card.
We got back to the hotel at around 5.30am and I realised that I must have looked like a complete state to the receptionist at the hotel - I still had all the yellow glow paint all over my face. I phone home to tell the parents the good news and my mother sorted it all out for me - thankfully. Although the bad news was that if the bank cancelled my VISA card it also meant that my Mastercard had to be cancelled
as they were on the same account. That was not good news as it meant I had no means of getting money out at all. Not something I wanted to hear.
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