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Published: March 1st 2005
Has anyone seen a short fat Argentinian recently? No, well we have.
Went to watch Boca Juniors on Sunday and who should be there but El Diego himself, Diego Maradona. But I'll come back to that in a minute.
Friday night's trip to a nightclub was interesting, to say the least. All of Buenos Aires nightclubs have been closed for about a month since a big fire in one of the clubs. Since then they've all been having to meet health and safety regulations and in true Latin American style have taken a while.
Anyway, Friday night we went to one of the first of the clubs to reopen, a place called Sunset. It was a pretty nice place, with a big outside dance area which was useful when it got too hot. The culture over here is very different to the UK, and people don't go out until about midnight at the earliest. We finally got to bed at about 7am on Saturday morning, which wiped out most of the day, though we found time to have a look around the shops.
On Saturday evening we decided to check out a local beer festival, which failed
to live up to expectations if truth be told (life lesson: don't go to a beer festival with a hangover). Still we had a pretty good time and had an early night (believe it or not 3am is an early night).
Sunday's main event was a trip to La Bombanera to watch Boca Juniors play. After going to footy in Brazil I'm not sure what we were expecting, but it was a pretty awesome spectacle - even though the game was a bit rubbish. The fans are so fanatical, seemingly more so than those we came across in Brazil. About 5 mins before kick off a section of the terraces cleared and all the ultras (the really fanatical fans) came marching down with their flags which then got distributed around the stand. We'd heard that Maradona had a special gold seat there, but hadn't expected him to be there as he's been in hospital (about the only news we've heard whilst in South America). Just as the game was about to start there was a massive roar and the crowd started chanting - sure enough the man himself was waving to the crowd only a football pitch width away
from us. A 3-1 win for Boca sent the little fat man (no, not Andy, Maradona) and ourselves away happy.
We found yet another Irish bar on Sunday (that's an idea for a book - a worldwide Irish Pub crawl) and became Plastic Paddies for the night as we joined revellers celebrating their win in the rugby. The night was a bit of a classic, our first really good night since leaving Rio, and we had a great time.
To help get over our hangovers yesterday we visited Buenos Aires zoo. We were surprised at the conditions, as it seemed okay, if not a little cramped in some of the enclosures. We saw quite possibly the ugliest animal in the world, and you'll have to wait for us to post the photos to see if you agree. It was an Alpaca (like a llama) which just looked pretty bedraggled and not at all unlike Peter Beardsley. Our day of culture continued with a trip to the cinema last night to see the Oscar winning Million Dollar Baby, which was brilliant if not a bit depressing.
Today has been another day of culture (there is so much to
see here) and we visited the cemetery where Eva Peron (Evita) is buried, along with lots of other famous Argentinians. After that we visited the Eva Peron museum (which was a bit boring to be honest) and then chilled out in a big park for a few hours.
We've extended our stay here as we're having such a great time, and plan to make the most of the dirt cheap shopping tomorrow. If truth be told we're cherishing the last bit of civilisation before heading off to Southern Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and Peru.
Bye for now, photos should be posted soon. Also, we'd like some messages to read so stop being so lazy (especially you Royals boys).
AC
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anonymous
non-member comment
stop having such a good time......
sounds like you boys are havin an absolute riot out there going out to new bars and clubs most nights getting leathered....... that is total el paradiso!!! we are trying to keep the vibe alive at HQ with regular trips into London trying to find new bars and venues of all round leatheredness.... the dreamteam are threatening a trip up to see goozletts new home turf in worcester... in other HQ news, the canal froze over outside my flat so i now only have a 30m walk to my nearest pub, great dayz!!!, special bulletin....goozlett has cut down to 9 retts a day!!!, the royals are sadly heading for relegation with another loss leaving them only two points off the drop zone!!!, mike has handed in his notice at work in a bid to resurrect his daytime crew career!!!, some gypsy bast*rd siphoned petrol out the chavalier at the weekend in the dusk of night!!!, finally.... the royals have formed a suicide pact if we get relegated, it has been agreed that we will all cram into the chavalier and drive off beachy head at maximum velocity!!! trans lost... - joooooooooooooodge