Advertisement
Published: February 25th 2008
A Princess in Paradise
Nath - come and look at the roof of the shopping centre ... it will be fun!The question has crossed our collective (are 2 minds a "collective"?) minds whether or not there is much point writing any more to our blog.
After all - if there are certain members of the readership who are starting to question whether our photos are genuine where does this road end? Are we really in South America at all? Could it be the case that in fact we are spending 12 weeks in a caravan outside Grimsby?
We have fought long and hard, tossed and turned and sat in many cafes staring endlessly, silently into space - trying to find the will, the inspiration to carry on .....
But here we are again - satisifed that there are enough genuine people interested in our (genuine - SJB/Ems) efforts.
This time and this episode in Buenos Aires. The capital of Argie Land.
An Argentinian (we are told) is an Italian, who speaks Spanish, who dresses like a Frenchman but who wants to be English. Of course Johnny English is perfectly positioned to judge the credentials for Argie Landers to be English....
Day 48 - February 17th 2008 - Buenos Aires, Argentina Had a lovely evening with
Peurto Madero, Buenos Aires
... trying to hide the thorough discomfort of a BA evening outdoors ... Patricia and Stuart last night. Heard a horrific story about Patricia getting Altitude Sickness in Bolivia and being urgently sent to Sea Level. Horrible and frightening.
Just like a pack of pumas (when you see them up close enough to take photos - just like we did - when we were in Torres del Paine)
Today we left Patagonia and headed back to Buenos Aires (for the uninitiated - henceforth "BA", not Baracus or British Airways ... Buenos Aires - ok?)
Lizzy was delighted. Nathan was not delighted.
As the majority of you will know. Lizzy likes heat. Nathan does not like heat. When we last left BA (Buenos Aires remember ... not Baracus) it was in the region of 35 degrees C. This constitutes the type of heat that Nathan does not like.
Nevertheless - we had 4 days to enjoy in one of the best cities in the continent. We´d love to pin this one on Branston too (she did too well last time and did like BA) - but there were several other people who also recommended the City to us too. We need to share the love. You know who you
are ....
The flight up to BA from El Calafate was 2-3 hours. The flight passed without incident. PSP batteries are lasting as long as ever you will be delighted to hear.
Got a taxi into Palermo where our hotel was. Taxi driver had no idea where Pringles (the street - not the crisp) was - so Nathan helped him with his tourist map. He still went the wrong way - and then charged us the full metered amount. The 30-35 degree humidity was already on top of us so we didn´t argue. We were talking pence anyway.
Got to the Cahuel Hotel - a lovely small boutique hotel on the outskirts of the Palermo shopping area. We asked for tickets to the Boca vs. Argentinos game and they said they would try to get us some. 2 hours later we still hadn´t heard anything so went out. Shopping.
Today was a Sunday so Nathan was hopeful that nothing would be open - apart from beer shops showing the footie. No such luck.
Nathan has strong, vivid memories about being dragged around "dress shops" with his Mum and sister as a child. This horror is
Obelisco de Buenos Aires
... right in the middle ... commemorating the founding of the city worse with Lizzy. As somehow - despite saying nothing and "trying" to act interested (he is interested really) - Nathan is able to make Lizzy feel guilty about looking in shops.
At a similar time to this we read Mark´s comment about artistic differences between us. This was more Divine Comedy (specifically Dante´s Inferno - with emphasis on the Inferno bit) to Nathan. Liz preferred the more modern "Sex and Shopping" artistic genre. Add to the mix a healthy dose of Yorkshire gruffness, weariness and fatigue. BOOM. We had an argument - an artistic difference.
Which was all forgotten in the Air Conditioned room of the hotel.
Another interesting observation (delete the word interesting if applicable). We tried to watch the Boca game on TV. Obviously the channel we were trying to use hadn´t got the rights to the game. So instead o putting a load of Jeff Stelling-esque, Rodney Marsh-esque and Charlie Nicholas-esque characters on TV - they just show the crowd - and intermittently describe the action by drawing on a football pitch whiteboard. Very very odd ... and mildly irritating.
zzzzzzzz
English-ness Rating = 0
Johnny English Says:
- It was more than 30 degrees and sunny on a weekend. This is not like any part of England.
- All the shops were open at 8pm on a Sunday. This is not like any part of England
- They had substituted Jeff Stelling for a Whiteboard on the aptly named Domin-GOL! footie programme (for a Sunday). This would be sacrilego to a real Englishman.
Day 49 - February 18th 2008 - Buenos Aires, Argentina A fleeting observation on the attractiveness of the average female from Argentina leads us to think that Sami would definitely struggle to control himself here. Add to this the Italian heritage - as well as the heat and you have a recipe for Arab mayhem.
Note to collective selves. Don´t go on a lads trip to Argentina (at least not with the Younis) - we thought we never saw him in Cassis, Dublin and Edinburgh those times? We summise that we "ain´t seen nothing" if we came here.
Monday morning. 10am. A weekday. A perfect time to go shopping? You would have thought so wouldn´t you? No. It is not.
To cut a long story short - the shops didn´t generally
Come on Love - let´s try it again
... dancers not quite sure whether they´ve forogtten how to Tango open until 11.30am. Let´s move on anyway.
Today Nathan agreed that we would need to do some shopping. So Lizzy came prepared with food, water and a willingness to stop at short notice for long spells in air-conditioned sports shops. Frankly it helped only mildly.
The streets are paved with dog muck and water from a plethora of air conditioning units everywhere in BA. This made for some careful negotiation - and some slipping. In the water.
During the shopping trip we stopped off at a travel company to arrange a city tour and a touristy beyond tourist tango show. Felt fleeced afterwards - but the heat put us in no position to argue.
Asked our hotel manager to book us into a steak restaurant this evening. La Cabrera. We will allow Stephanie to take credit for this one. It was marvellous.
Our reservation was for 20:30. We turned up at 20:25 (of course) and we were one of the first there (of course). By 20:35 the restaurant was full; packed. And a queue started to form. It struck us that a queue forming at 20:35 was odd given that 10 minutes earlier the place
Number 10
... Boca Juniors ... that´s right ... that´s the fat lad who could once play a bit ... was empty. Logically - this meant that those in the queue had to wait for at least one table to go end to end on a meal. We wouldn´t have waited in this queue (the first person sat down to eat from this queue 2 hours later).
Nathan looked at the menu - and armed with the knowledge that the portions were large - and not to order side dishes as there would be plenty - ordered the smallest steak that he could find. The Ojo de Bife. Rib Eye Steak. For approximately 7 Great British Pounds.
He also ordered some chips (fatter vs. fitter you asked?)
What Nathan overlooked was that this was an exceptional Argentinian restaurant showing off. The "Ojo de Bife" was in fact the entire section of the cow from which any other restaurant would have lopped an "Ojo de Bife". Nathan could have cut 7 "Ojo de Bifes" from this hulk of cow.
We are truly sorry not to be able to bring you a photo of this monster - we didn´t take a camera. But what do you care anyway? Even if we had been able to - some of
The Best Ever?
Betsy Tomkins meets a fat former Footie International you would have claimed it to be a fake.
Lizzy had pasta - and damned fine pasta at that - and then also the assorted pumpkin, potato, greens etc. that had accompanied the cow. Nathan ate the chips and 8/10 of the cow. Lizzy was impressed. Nathan was impressed. The waiter was also impressed (we bet) - he just didn´t show it.
Had a brief conversation with a couple from Montana, USA. Nathan laughed when the lady´s steak arrived and she threatened to send it back as it was "dangerous" and "undercooked". She should have been with us in Paris when Nathan devoured a Steak Tartare this one time.
Beautiful.
We went home at 23:30 - passing the queue of people who were being served Champagne by the restaurant whilst they waited for a table
English-ness Rating = 0
Johnny English Says:
- It is reasonable to expect the shops to be open at 10am on a Monday morning
- It is reasonable to expect you to be given a steak when you order a steak. Not a cow.
- It is unreasonable to be standing on a pavement waiting for a steak Codo
... just leave us alone mate ... we´re trying to have some quality time together ... we´ll be back soon enough the size of Codo´s leg at 11pm on an evening. In particular when the steak is supposed to serve a single person
Day 50 - February 19th 2008 - Buenos Aires, Argentina A half century. Must keep concentration and gun for the big score. Geoffrey Boycott would be proud and expect nothing less.
Today was a lazy morning. As frankly the digestion thing was still in its infancy and there was nothing else worth getting up for.
Headed for our City Tour just after lunchtime. Laughed as we walked there at the new fragrance sweeping BA. It´s called "Kevin" - and the tag line is "Just a Touch". A touch from a Kevin is enough to make most English Ladies run a mile.
Because we bought a Tango Show - we got this City Tour "for free". Not sure whether this made us feel worse or better given the price of the Tango Show.
It was all a bit KGB anyway. We had to meet at 13:35 at a hotel nowhere near the City Centre and nowhere near our hotel. To this day we don´t know why this was necessary. When a taxi driver
Boca, BA, Argie Land
... all painted up and beuatiful against the deep blue sky of South America Land (a fat Frank Butcher) turned up he simply drove us to another hotel and dropped us off at the bus. The taxi driver had a good time anyway - with his two words of discernible communication "Apache" and "Tevez".
Went around the city - not really understanding a great deal but seeing some of the sites. To be honest - there weren´t that many sites that you would instantly recognise. Of course there is the seat of power, the embassies and the art work - but nothing that you would recognise if shown. Still - the city is a very big place indeed - and is split into several neighbourhoods (primarily Boca, San Telmo, Downtown and Palermo - the biggest). All neighbourhoods have a different story to tell and something different to offer. All of them - this time - we were now 35-40 degrees C. That´s all that Nathan remembered!
We were dropped of in La Boca - the district which is allegedly home to the largest Italian population outside Italy. Brightly coloured using leftover paint from boats at the nearby dock. Walked around the Boca Juniors Ground draped in Blue and Yellow. Nathan wore his Inca
Maradona (he´s the one on the flag)
... would he have been picked for England if he´d been born in England? Kola T Shirt just in case there was trouble.
The Coca Cola signs around this ground are painted in Black and White. The traditional Red and White was not permitted as these are the colours of fierce rivals River Plate. Given that Coca Cola (Red and White for River Plate) owns 60% of Inca Kola (Blue and Yellow for Boca) ... there is something in that somewhere...
Met Diego Armando Maradona. He charged us 1 pound 80 for 2 photos. How the mighty have fallen. Goodness me he has put some weight on you know (and that is of course saying something!)
Got a Tube back with everyone´s heads buried in newspapers pronouncing "Renunció Fidel"
Went to the Tango Show (Almacen) that evening and had a wonderful time (including a meal afterwards). The dancing was great, the music was even better - specifically because of the pianist and a fiddler who couldn´t half play a bit. Betsy totally ignored the missive that pictures weren´t allowed and took a load anywhere. Primarily the back of one chap´s head - but nevertheless the intent was there.
We were told the best dancer was the Cherie Blair look
Don´t Cry for Me Argentina
... the truth is I never liked this heat alike. Let´s just say that Sami would probably disagree with that. Cherie was the oldest. If you see what we mean.
English-ness Rating = 0
Johnny English Says:
- It is not advisable to use "Kevin" as the name for your leading Fragrance. It just isn´t
- What´s wrong with using the May Pole for your National Dance?
- Maradona was Argentinian. If Diego was English Steve Hodge wouldn´t ever have played for England. That would be wrong. Day 51 - February 20th 2008 - Buenos Aires, Argentina Reflecting on yesterday we decided that BA was a party City - to come to with your mates intent on drinking lots of beer and wine. A number of people by this time had told us that you shouldn´t be going to bed in BA prior to 0300. That´s just plain daft to us. And very un-English. We must be getting old is the only sensible conclusion.
Another scorcher - and very hot - up above 35 degrees again. It´s even hotter if your day primarily constitutes trying to change some traveller´s cheques. We spent 2-3 hours trying to do that and failed. It´s a long
Almacen
.... the Tango Show and Music showing the history of Tango story which isn´t that interesting.
Did some more wandering, aimlessly, sapping the life out of Nathan.
Went to the harbour for dinner this evening to a lovely restaurant called BICE. A Lunar Eclipse tonight. At around midnight. Sorry ... even midnight is probably past us at the moment ...
English-ness Rating = 0
Johnny English Says:
- It is required to be allowed to go to bed prior to 3am. Fact.
- Changing money should be easy. Fact.
- IT SHOULD RAIN AND NOT BE SO BLOODY UNPLEASANTLY HOT!!!! FACT!! Day 52 - February 21st 2008 - Buenos Aires, Argentina Nathan woke up excited. Today we were going to Mendoza in the foothills of the Andes, where they grow Vines - and that must mean a decent temperature and the odd bit of rain. More like England.
He was crushed when Lizzy told him the flight was at 17:30.
Not one to moan or worry unnecessarily - Nathan has started to get concerned that his snowman arm (or was that the shoulder) is starting to hurt again. Must be the heat.
Did some more wandering, internet and phoning home. Lily
Tango in BA
... Sami wouldn´t be interested didn´t want to talk to us as she was too busy flying her kite (in hindsight - didn´t this mean she was flying her kite in the dark as it was about 5pm UK Time... has it started to get lighter?)
Flight to Mendoza was bumpy, but we got there .... and there was a blooming thunderstorm.
Nathan stood in the rain like some sort of action hero.
And everything was ok again.
English-ness Rating = 1
Johnny English Says:
- It is good to see that some parts of Argie Land have rain and some proper weather (1 point). This doesn´t detract from the fact that Argie Land has a capital like BA (with weather like BA)
Advertisement
Tot: 0.074s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 9; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0248s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Ems
non-member comment
What does BA stand for again?
And where are the pictures of you two tango-ing? And stop bloomin' complaining about the heat, you don't know how lucky you are :-) xxx PS. Still loving your accounts of your adventures, when's the next one?