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I've met so many people on my travels who went to BA for a few days and ended up staying a few weeks. Now I know why this is........ the Argentinians live their lives on a completely different timescale to the rest of the world! On a night out at home you'd be in the pub by 8pm, then falling out of a taxi into your house around 2am ish. But in this crazy country people don't think of even eating their dinner until after 10pm. If you go out anywhere before 2am then it will be empty. People who go out for the night don't come home from the clubs until 7 or 8am. And this seems to be every night of the week! And as a result tourists miss their check out time, stay another night, go out, sleep through check out time, etc etc VICIOUS CIRCLE!!!
Unfortunately (or fortunately) I am not as hard as other travellers and the lastest I got home was 5am. That meant I slept til 11ish and then could spend the rest of the day sight seeing- yey! And there's a lot to see in BA!!!
One of the most photographed places
in BA is a small colourful street in an area called La Boca. The buildings are made out of corregated iron and painted bright colours. Really lovely to look at, but you have to be careful there as it's quite a rough area and lots of people get mugged. Luckily all was fine when I visited, apart from having constant hassle from touts trying to get you into their restaurants- annoying!!!
A classic thing to do in BA is to visit a Tango Show. The dancing was amazing, but I wasn't tempted to take any lessons- it looked too hard! The show was a bit strange in the beginning as there was a lot of singing and farce and not much dancing. However in the end dancing took centre stage and I was really impressed.
It's hard to be in Argentina without breaking into songs from Evita every 10 minutes or so! #Don't Cry for me Argentina, the truth is I never left you......# etc etc.
The shops are full of Eva Peron souvenirs and you can visit lots of sights around Buenos Aires that have significance for her. The Pink House was where she spoke to the
crowds in real life (and where Madonna sang to the crowds in the musical film!!!) and you can also visit the cemetery where her body lies.
It's so weird that the cemetery is such a tourist attraction, but it's not just to see her grave. In fact there aren't any graves at all. The area of Recoleta is where many rich and important people live and a visit to the cemetery is like visiting a small town where there are mausaleums instead of building lining the streets. Most of them are really fancy, and you can look through the glass and see the coffins inside- creepy!!
Also amongst the weirdness of the place lives loads and loads of stray cats!!! Really strange! There are also loads of them in some of BA's nice parks! One of the other funny sights is seeing professional dog walkers walking loads of dogs through the parks and cities!
The 2 things that people always rave about in Argentina are the steaks (absolutely amazing by the way!) and the buses!!! All through my trip people have been telling me about how they had been served wine, whisky and even champagne on their
buses! And as the average bus journey is 20 hours or so, they have fully reclining seats where you can snooze the night away!!! Brilliant!!! Not all the buses are like this, you have to pay a bit more for the pleasure (between 25 and 35 quid) but they were so comfy and so much fun!!! A massive contrast to the bumpy chicken buses in Guatemala where your luggage is bumping around on the roof, your knees are squashed to chin level and there are no head rests in sight. Glad that I'm ending my trip with these buses and not the other way around. I've become acustomed to class now!!!
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Catherine
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Very Arty!
I love your sepia tango photos - it looks like you went back in time to the 1940s!