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Published: October 24th 2006
The bus journey from Rio to Sao Paulo was excellent. A great bus company (Ipatmimim or something). Was very impressed with the reclining seats, free snack pack and really thick Portuguese newspaper (now we know where the Brazilian rainforests are disappearing to). Hanging around in Sao Paulo bus station for the transfer for our flight to Buenos Aires was fun, a little scary but fun nevertheless. Our apartment in BA is located on the edge of San Telmo and is better than most places we have stayed in and for a fraction of the price ($18 a night). One thing we have agreed on is that Donna's sense of direction and map reading skills are very very bad, we discovered this when we arrived and she had us wandering around the rougher part of BA with our 15 kilo backpacks and 5 kilo daysacks on. The weather was hot so we got frustrated. We met our landlord, Alberto who showed us the balcony, hot water system, kitchen and cable (which is loud, then quiet, fuzzy then turns off by itself etc), but a comical conversation with the superintendent about this got it fixed....lots of hand waving and talking in 2 syllables
and less in spanish!
On Sunday we went to the San Telmo flea/antiques market where the locals sold their handcrafts and old tat whilst other locals spontaneously tangoes on the streets whilst the few tourists there were looked on curiously whilst drinking their 2 pound argentinian finest wines and chewing on their 500g sirloin steaks (3 pounds). It was all a bit of an odd experience as the street buskers varied from mime artists, ventriloquists and grannies in their suspenders and stockings making whimpering noises for money. Check out the videos we have included ..they may or may not work...its a new thing which travelblog is working on...
Last Wednesday night we went to see a Tango show at Cafe Tortoni, according to the Lonely Planet it was inexpensive with $4 tango shows. Not so! it cost triple that per person and only lasted for an hour. Our advice is that if you come to BA then go to one of the many free shows in the surrounding restaraunts or on the streets of San Telmo. Finally Donna is getting the hang of the Spanish lingo (Ricardo: your independent spanish phrase book is extremely helpful). The
La Casa Rosada in BA
Where Eva Peron (Evita) gave her famous speechArgentines are very keen to help us understand spanish and are not condascending at all. They are patient and we have got what we have asked for in shops and eateries with almsot 95% accuracy! Going into the BA restaraunts and cafes is like stepping back in time. Waiter service has the full bells and whistles with white waistcoats, slicked back hair and towels over the arms whilst pouring exquisite wines in antique gold and mahogany surroundings with old tango music playing in the background. At first we passed by several of these grande eateries thinking that they were beyong our budget but how wrong we were. For 7 pounds you can get two sirloin steaks, a bottle of Argentinas finest wine and a dessert. The only thing you have to tolerate is the waiter service which varies from very attentive to very inattentive and the odd surly look from waiters who should have retired many years ago.
We popped across to La Boca on Saturday to try and get tickets to see the Boca Juniors futbol team play against the argentina juniors. We saw the footie stadium and footprints of all the argentine futbol stars like Tevez
School bus!
All the buses make strange hissing noises too! and Batistuta but Maradonna´s footprint was missing (see pics), maybe because he uses his hands to play football instead of his feet? Only the museum was open and no ticket office so we will call back here on the day of their next match to get tickets and watch the madness ensue. Near to the stadium was a very colourful area of La Boca with incredibly attractive architecture (again see the pics). These buildings are evidently called caminitas where Italian immigrants first settled and painted the houses to brighten up the otherwise bland area. This was down by the docks area and again like the area of San Telmo had its share of spontaneous Tango dancing and impromptu club singing! Very touristy but still cheap nevertheless....where are all the backpackers here? maybe the backpackers here just blend in very well with the locals but we havent seen many in BA...mostly locals and yuppie type tourists.
Okay, back to the food. We discovered empanadas on our staggeringly drunk walk home quite early on and have been hooked ever since. Also you cant beat fresh croissants for brekkie, they are even better than the ones in France and the puddings
Av. 9 de Julio
A 9 lane (each side of the road) road which we have to cross each day! are to die for and big enough to share. The weather here has gone from 20 degrees and sunny to 35 degrees and sizzlingly hot almost overnight and when your hot drink rather than food becomes more important. What makes this difficult is that the sodas (coke, fanta etc) is more expensive than the bloody wine and beer which makes for a recipe for disaster. For that reason we decided to go to a local park to cool off so we spent Sunday in true BA style. We got the metro (15p a ride) to the posh area called palermo. The park was great, thre was a lake and botanical and japanese gardens with lots of locals sunbathing and picniccing. There was even a candy floss man selling his wares like we used to get when we were younger (see pic).
One day we went to an area called Recoleta, and visited the cemetery )Evita´s family tomb was there). Its weird, like the rich of BA have built a mini city for the dead with road names and street lighting too. We were decidedly underwhelmed with Evita´s tomb because it was largely understated, maybe how she would have
liked it? Neil serenaded everyone by singing ´Dont cry for me Argentina´with any other words which rhymed with Argentina. The drivers here are slighlty crazy...as with most south american city inhabitants. Alhtough the pedestrians cross the road when the green man appears, the motorists here tend to ignore this and aim to knock over the people on the road. Maybe they get double points in their road rage score system for killing gringo pedestrians. Despite this Neil still tris to face off the cars in true ´man of steel´ style, believing that the car would come off worse than he would. Looking at the age of some of these cars..he may be right. Which brings me back to one of Neils favourite rhymes - ´Dont cry for my old ford cortina´- of which there are many inlcuding..old capris and many other vintage cars.
Well that wraps up our first blog about BA. We have a visit to the tigre, a trip to Iguazu falls and our journey to Lima which will apear in our next blog. Until then.. thanks to everyone who has sent us messages. Its good to see we have people interested in our journey. We
are thinking about everyone in our 34 degree wine drinking, steak eating paradise.
xx
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msprague
Mitch Sprague
Excellent!
It looks like you're getting the place warmed up nicely for me. I'll be down that way in another week. Love the photos!