Advertisement
Published: March 10th 2009
Welcome to Buenos Aires
Trace and Ed settle into Buenos Aires ... in Ed's case with a very girly looking pisco sourPues! Well. We have just spent the last week and a half recovering from a hard core week of "touristing" with Ed and Trace (yes, yes, more friends from LEK). The dynamic duo joined us in Buenos Aires after a couple of weeks touring Patagonia, Iguazu Falls, etc, and there was little rest for the wicked.
We settled into the week with some beers by the pool in our building, before heading out to one of the many restaurants we sampled over the week. Day one saw us heading south to
San Telmo and
La Boca, the traditionally poorer areas of the central city. We strolled through the cobblestone streets and antique shops of the former, and colourfully painted tourist park of the latter. La Boca isn't really a tourist park. It's a very real suburb. The problem is, it is so real, it's dangerous to stray off the three streets designated as a tourist attraction, so those three streets are quite surreal! Still worth seeing, and you can imagine how it would have been years ago when fishermen painted their homes with the bright paint of the fishing boats.
We went from La
Boca to one of the most expensive areas in Buenos Aires,
Puerto Madero, where they have converted the old port buildings into funky lofts. We experienced our own slice of the Puerto Madero luxury, checking out the hotel FAENA, and indulging in a cocktail there. Hotel FAENA is the latest project of BA's equivalent of Justin Hemmes and is a crazy kitsch hotel with bars, restaurants and even a cabaret. We couldn't resist a cocktail in the exotic lounge for the experience, despite the crazy price tag. Thankfully, they were very good!
(We even had a sighting of Faena in his very special trademark all white kit).
The next couple of days we spent touring the circuit made by Buenos Aires, Tigre (a town, almost suburb, to the north), Carmelo and Colonia (both small towns on the Argentinean side of Uruguay). The train to
Tigre gave us more insight into the outer suburbs of Buenos Aires, some of which reminded me of the Sydney north shore with their gardens, mansions and pools. We had a super Italian lunch in Tigre with authentic, homemade potato gnocchi and some great wine, while we watched a tropical style storm close in around
us. We had chosen this route in order to enjoy the ferry trip from Tigre to Carmelo that boasts an interesting delta. Unfortunately the rain meant we couldn't see a thing, so we entertained ourselves with a few Quilmes (the ubiquitous beer of Argentinian) and counting the countries we've all now been to. We hadn't thought about this until one night in San Sebastian when a barman claimed he had been to 106 countries. We decided, being bored on a boat as we headed to a new one, was a good time to count. Needless to say, none of us had been to 106, but we'd all clocked them up.
We got through
Carmelo, our first stop in
Uruguay, feeling a lot like we were in the amazing race as we ran about finding an ATM to get some cash to buy a bus ticket with 10 minutes until it left. All went to plan and, as the sun set, we drove through the Uruguayan fields to Colonia. It felt a lot like driving through the farms on the NSW far north coast, and this is one of the very few times I have felt a little homesick (the
other was when we were in London, it was raining, we had friends around again, and it seemed like it would be nice to be back somewhere with friends, just without the cold rain bit).
Colonia was a quaint little place, and, as all quaint little places in reach of a major capital, quite touristy. However, this didn't ruin the tranquillity and beauty of the former Portuguese colonial town and we spent a really relaxed day there after a somewhat rowdy night, that only ended when it did because the bar closed and the rain was too heavy to seek out somewhere else
(and despite Ed getting my hopes up there was unfortunately no mini bar in the posada). Getting back to Buenos Aires looked unlikely when, when we went to buy tickets, the ferries were full. However, the gods were smiling, and we were close to the top of the waitlist that came through for us. This meant at 5pm we were unsure whether we would be stuck in Uruguay for another night, and by 6:30 we were in a cab on the way to see
San Lorenzo, a BA soccer team, play San Luis from Mexico,
in the intra-Latin American Copa de Libertadores. The game, as all "futbol" matches we have seen on this trip, was sensational, with constant noise from the crowd. There could have been a few more Mexicans to add to the atmosphere (I'm guessing there were about three, and they weren't identifying themselves), but it was great anyway
(some very catchy songs created a great vibe at the game and it made up for the lack of Mexican fans. For the record, San Lorenzo gave San Luis a football lesson). We even got home safely. We had heard that the residents living along the same street as the stadium were really, we mean really, dangerous. We hadn't learnt how to get home. It was evident when we got out of the stadium a cab was out of the question. Thankfully, David had made friends with a local
(Jorge), in turn thanks to the fact his wife thought he looked like Jack Bauer / Keifer Sutherland, who escorted us, amongst the rest of the crowd, to the bus ten blocks away. It was a strange experience. I felt like part of a herd of animals in the African plains. Safe amongst the
mob, but if I strayed, I would become the prey of one of the big cats waiting in the shadows. Anyway, our new friend guided us to the "right" bus - the one without fans climbing out the windows to celebrate on top of the bus as it headed away! - and gave us a guided tour of the suburbs on the way home too. Que suerte!
(I was always comfortable that Jack would have gotten us out of trouble if necessary). We safely headed to an excellent local parilla for a late dinner (even by BA standards) - as you do!
Not to allow a minute to be wasted, we were up and at 'em (sometime early afternoon 😊 to visit the BA suburbs we hadn't yet explored, or, at least, not with Ed and Trace. First stop was
Recoleta for empanadas to get our energy up before a self guided tour of the cemetery. With avenues of mausoleums housing the bodies of rich portenos, the Recoleta Cemetery is like a suburb in it's own right. Beyond this, it's most famous for being the final resting place of Eva "Evita" Peron. Having paid our respects to Evita
and giggled our way through much of the rest of the cemetery, we evicted ourselves and made our way through Recoleta back to
Palermo SoHo (after we'd finally hailed a "pie van" cab that David and Ed so desperately wanted to try) where we enjoyed some drinks and a massive dinner of meat, meat, and more meat, accompanied by about 20 different salsas.
(La Cabrera was the name of the restaurant and it was sensational. At one stage the table was covered with so much chicken, pork and beef that we thought we may not get through it all. False alarm). We spent Ed and Trace's final day exploring BA's
Microcentre (CBD) which boasts the Casa Rosado ("Pink House" - their answer to the White House) which sits face to face down a long avenue with the congress building. We took a tour of the senate to enhance our understanding of Argentine politics, and were a bit wiser for the experience, although I wouldn't be rushing back.
The highlight of the day, and a fitting climax to the week, was a food and wine degustacion dinner at Casa Coupage a "puerta cerrada" (closed door restaurant that has no
Cheers in San Telmo
One of the many figurines that feature around San Telmo and La Boca signage, only a few tables, and for which you have to book. They appear to be the latest trend in BA.) Every single part of the experience was sensational: the warm, intimate setting, the welcome pisco and melon cocktails, every mouthful of food, the two wines that accompanied each course, so we could try how they and the food tasted different when accompanied with each, the games trying to pick wine scents, and general education on the wines we were drinking, and finally, relative to elsewhere in the world, the price! All of it was simply amazing.
(Ed and I finished off with a grappa to end all grappas, that was so tasty, yet so smooth. I couldn't think of a better way to end a great BA week with Ed and Trace). A sensational week that left us exhausted and glad that we, at least, didn't have to go back to work the next week (sorry Ed and Trace 😊, hope you coped!).
Until next time ....
Advertisement
Tot: 0.425s; Tpl: 0.027s; cc: 10; qc: 54; dbt: 0.1329s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Avocado
Avocado
the memories!!!
OMG, brings back so many great memories. Glad you loved BsAs and glad you got to go to la cabrera - i loved that place too!! i'm back in BsAs in May so let me know any more tips :) beges xx