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Published: March 14th 2009
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Another overnight bus. 16 hours. Destination Buenos Aires, the city of tango. Argentinian buses have the best reputation, so why worry about the 16 hours? Only this time we went with Rio Uruguay. And despite the general reputation it was quite uncomfy, stinked of fuel and the food was shite. So we were a bit grumpy and quite tired when we arrived in Buenos Aires the next morning. Once there, we decided to take public transport to our hostel instead of just taking a taxi, which didn't make any sense, as it was just one stop on the metro, plus more than half an hour walk in total (which is a lot when you are tired, have to carry a 15kg backpack, a daypack and the sun is already up and scorching the streets). And of course we arrived too early anyway to check-in or to have a shower etc.
The hostel
Hostel Suites Florida was perfectly located on the busy pedestrian shopping/business street called Florida (surprise!). It is run by a professional young crowd. They organise a lot of tours and events etc. and everyone speaks fluent english. The only disadvantage was that the common area was very noisy, which was
nerve wrecking at breakfast. But then again: we are getting old.
We spent 5 days in total in Buenos Aires (which was maybe a bit too much for us). The people of Buenos Aires (called "porteƱos") apparently didn't think so and had left the city to the tourists: all the locals were on holidays. We did most of the exploration on foot or metro. The buses seem to be excellent and many go 24 hours but you need correct change for them, which turned out to be impossible in the city of "no cambio". Amongst other things we had to visit the museum of
the Argentinian national hero Evita Peron which was very disappointing. We had the impression it only contains bits and pieces and doesn't really tell a story. Without proper background knowledge you leave the museum and know as much as you did when you entered.
One of the really cool things we did was a 5 hours biketour with
La Bicicleta Naranja. We did this on a Sunday which was perfect as some of the streets in the city center seemed to be completely empty. We learned a few (random) facts about the city, e.g. that the Riachuelo river is the most
poinenous river according to Discovery channel (drinking one glass will apparently kill you). We visited the touristy La Boca quarter with all its colourful houses. Apparently this was a very poor area for European settlers beginning of the century and they used to built their houses using everything they could find, especially from the harbour. And to protect their dwellings against the sun they used colours otherwise used for ships and that's why all the houses had different colours. Most of the original buildings were destroyed and have been rebuilt. That's why it looks a bit like made up for tourists these days.
We also saw the famous stadium of the
Boca juniors. It's called "La Bombonera" (The Chocolate box) because (I guess) has these funny blue and yellow colors. Apparently they had red and white colours (or so) before, which was the same as that of their fiercest enemies. So they had one deciding match to see who could keep the colors and of course they lost. So they decided to go the harbour and use the colors of the first ship which was going to arrive. And that was a swedish one. So blue and yellow it was.
And because red and white is the color of their enemies not even Coca-Cola is allowed to use their traditional colors for their ads (see picture).
After a long long detour to the Parque del Centenario we visited the Recoleta Cemetery, Language confusion caused this mishap. Centenario != cementerio. Ups. It's a cool location for some spooky pictures and the (spanish) tours are for free.
Paul and Karen were at the same time in BA and because it was Paul's birthday we went to the fanciest steak place we could find:
La Cabrera in Palermo Vieja. Famous and popular place. They even served champagne and fingerfood in the queue! And the steak was fucking amazing!
Can't remember much more right now. Just one important thing: we changed our initial plan which was to move on to northern Patagonia by bus to Peninsula Valdes and then Bariloche. But instead we flew to
El Calafate in southern Patagonia...
Andreas & Aynur
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