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Published: February 15th 2011
Well I made it! I successfully arrived in Buenos Aires! After a 14 hour trip I even managed to successfully find a shuttle bus and get myself to my hostel in one peice. The hostel was lovely and very quiet YAY! perfect for sleeping my first couple of nights.
For the first 24 hours everything felt very surreal. The city is huge with six lanes on each side running right through the middle. I think I just walked around in awe really trying not to get lost or look like I was at least and taking it all in. The heat, smells, architecture (there are so many amazing buildings here and statues for Africa!), the language (I really understand very little at the moment.) I walked around the city for about 6 hours visiting the cathedral which is gorgeous and I even went on a tour that was entirely in Spanish but got to go into parts of the underground tunnels under the city. which was great.
I met a fellow kiwi girl my first day Julia so she took me out and we had dinner in the neighbourhood of San Telmo. The city is divided in barrios or neighbourhoods. San Telmo is famous for the antique market on Sunday and Tango in the square. There is definitely a European flavour to this city. We had helado (icecream) and I chose baileys and I swear they had just free poured a whole lotta baileys in it was that strong!
I changed hostels on Friday and moved to a busier hostel with a roof top terrace. The terrace is amazing looking out over the city so am really glad I came here. Hostelworld is a godsend at letting you find reccommended hostels. I then went on a walking tour with an english speaking Argentinian guide. There were just myself and another guy in the group so it was like a private tour. We visited amoungst other things the cemetary and WOW I have never seen anything like it. Its amazing with so many statues, and doors that open and have steps that go underground where the coffins are stacked. You look inside them and see 5 maybe 6 coffins just sitting there with remains inside them. It was a bit of a weird concept for me to get my head around. We heard so many stories including how one 19 year old girl was accidently buried alive and then had a heart attack when she woke up to discover she was in a coffin. And of course we saw Evitas grave which wasnt all that impressive compared to the others due to the fact that she was put in with another family so that her body could be kept safe. We also learnt alot more about Evita including the fact that they guy in charge of preserving her body took 3 years to do so as he became infatuated with her and turns out was a necrophilliac! Awful!!
Yesterday I did a bike tour down to La Boca, a neighbourhood I didnt want to go to alone so the biking tour was perfect. I learnt that Tango started in La Boca due to the men waiting in line at the brothel and dancing with each other. And interesting wee story 😊 La Boca is extremely touristy but I really enjoyed seeing the multicoloured houses they are painted like that as the immigrants used the left over paint from the ships they arrived on.
Last night I went to an awesome club night at an old factory. It was mainly Argentinians which was great and they had a drumming band playing with 10 drummers on stage and 2 singers it was amazing! As a result felt slightly average on Sunday but headed off in the early evening to the San Telmo market 😉 lucky for me everything stays open late here so I didn´t miss it! Its a huge market that runs for miles down a street in San Telmo leading the square where they have tango shows.
After 5 days I started to feel I alot more comfortable and was happy to walk around the city alone. Everyone stays up late here even the children with tiny kids up at 11pm with no sign of going to bed. As far as local cuisine goes I had a steak which was nice but still not really a fan of it. There is pizza absolutely everywhere which is all good but really rather greasy. But my pick are the empanadas. They are the equivalent of an NZ pie they are a hot pastry that you can buy with different fillings both meat and vegetarian and like the NZ pie you can get really good ones and really terrible ones 😉 The wine is good even the cheap stuff is nice and tasty and they love their sweet stuff.
I left Buenos Aires on Monday on a plane to Puerto Iguazu near the falls but that´s a whole other entry.
Until next time...
Pictures to come just attempting to load!
lots of love Kate xx
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KateinSouthAmerica
Kate Wilson
Tash youre dish of the week...
Empanadas!