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Recoleta cemetary
Some graves were bigger than our house I don’t really know where to start with this blog - we spent 10 days in Buenos Aires and really loved it. In order of my favourite things - Tango (both watching and our hilarious lesson), the steak (including going to what is thought to be the best steak restaurant in Buenos Aires) and all the amazing architecture (seen in the pic of my on the balcony of our hostel).
We began our time on BA (sorry I know that’s cheesy but it’s easier the write!) in an area called Palermo which is the rich neighbourgood full of parks, bars, cafes and restaurant - the area was stunning but our hostel was full of loud Americans and rude teenage brits so we moved out after two nights to a really good hostel called Estoril (I’d recommend to anyone going to BA) which had an amazing 6th floor roof terrace and really cool people!
We spent our first few days wondering around the Recoleta cemetery - yes this is a tourist attraction where the graves are bigger than our house - it’s where all the rich are buried including Evita. We visited a huge antique market in San Telmo on
the Sunday which Steve loved and I loved the street tango and random street art which was amazing. On our last night in Palmero we went to a restaurant called La Cabrera which is renowned for its steak - it’s definitely lived up to the expectation and having to wait until 11.30 for a table we were pretty hungry! We were told before we went to share the meal and it was massive - a huge lump of rib eye cooked perfectly so it would melt in your mouth as it was supposed to and then about 15 tapas dishes to accompany it. Stunning! And actually only £20! We’d been cooking our steak for dinner in the hostels until that point as it’s so cheap in the supermarkets £3 for huge pieces.
Our worst experience came again from getting on the wrong bus. This time though it wasn’t our fault - we were told to get this one by the guy in the hostel and even the Lonely Planet says to get this bus number! Anyway, we were heading to an area called La Boca which is famed for its multi coloured houses painted by dock workers years ago.
This area also borders the roughest part of the city and you are constantly told not to leave the tourist area, so naturally when the bus driver pulled up in a bus terminal nowhere near this place we started to panic! Speaking so little Spanish made it worse - we asked him which street is ‘gringo safe’ and he pointed at many saying ‘no’ and then one saying yes. Seeing a group of kids sitting on this street corner though I really just wanted to sit on the bus and refuse to move! We just walked, very fast down this street passing groups of young guys and just trying to look confident (thank God my sun glasses are big - they hid the fear in my eyes!). We didn’t have a clue where we were so we asked an old lady to show us where to go on our map - she kept kissing us and pointing at Steve’s bag and shaking her head. I think we were panicking at this point!! Anyway, we followed her direction passed some burnt out cars and walked on to a main road!! We got further directions from a police man and saw the
colourful houses about 10 minutes later. I was soo upset, it was so scary! Especially the stories we’d heard about that area! When we later went to walk to the Boca stadium (this is the most famous team in Argentina, where Maradona began and ended his career) we asked another policeman if the street was safe and he drew on our map where we should/shouldn’t go - and yep, we had been dropped about 10 blocks in to the ‘no go’ area!! DONT GET THE 130 BUS! I’m going to write to the LP to tell them how bad it is to sent gringos on this bus!!
So with that experience the rest of BA was a breeze - despite the fact we’d met a lot of people who had been mugged/pick pocketed in the city - it seemed worse than Rio for that! We were feeling lucky!
Bad stuff over the rest of our time was amazing, we spent days chilling, wondering round the city and we also went for a night out to a place called Tigre. It’s the world’s second biggest Delta where everyone lives in stilt houses on the river. We were feeling so tired
Street tango
San Telmo market we need to go and recharge (BA is a late city - you don’t eat until late and don’t go out until about 1am!) so this was perfect.
One of the big things i wanted to do in BA was go and watch a tango show and we managed to see one in one of the oldest cafes in BA - Cafe Tortoni - it was pretty amazing - put Strictly Come Dancing to shame - honestly!! I can’t imagine how good the best must be!! Having got Steve to the show the next task was to get him to a lesson!! He was adamant he wouldn’t do it but then some of the guys from the hostel said they wanted to do it so 7 of us headed to a class (recommended by a German tango dancer in our hostel!?! It was called DNI and I would recommend it 100%). It was probably my highlight of South America! I know that’s a statement but it was so so good. The studio was in an old colonial house and wasn’t touristy at all - we arrived early and were able to watch the locals practise before our class. Our
teachers were amazing - spoke really good English and were really fun. We finally learnt a bit of a 'routine' - and Steve and I had to show it in front of the class - we were awful! I couldn’t stop laughing as the look on Steve’s face was hilarious - pure concentration!! At the end of the class our teachers showed us their dancing - the music was gorgeous and it was so cool. We then stayed behind to practise and yes there is some video evidence which will be in facebook soon!! So funny! Tango is so so hard!! Two of the guys we went with are staying in BA for a few months to learn Spanish and they’re going to keep going (so jealous).
Anyway, I think that’s the highlights in BA. I could write so so much!
STEVE - God damn that steak was good. It beat me good, but I gave that cow a good run for it’s money. Great antiques markets!! Boca vs River Plate - “el Super Classico” is the biggest (and roughest) game in Argentina - we couldn’t afford to go but it was good on TV, looked like pandemonium
in the stadium,! As for Tango......well, you try having 2 left feet, keeping time, directing iola around (whilst she is trying her utmost to lead me!!) and still remember the steps...it’s not easy, and I pulled my groin too. But “yes” it was good fun and I would recommend it. All in all a great city and good times.
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