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Published: March 15th 2015
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Nick: As wonderfully refreshing as the near-freezing beers routinely served up in Brazil are, it is certainly not a country in which it one can easily lay hands on a good glass of wine. Consequently, after the best part of two weeks in the country we did find ourselves hankering for our preferred tipple; what good fortune, then, that we should now find ourselves in Argentina, the land of Malbec!
We arrived into the country via Buenos Aires international airport late on Thursday evening. Finding a taxi service and paying our fare up front was straightforward enough, but we somehow contrived to spend a hot and bothering fifteen minutes or so locating the car and driver! In fairness, we were not helped by the frenetic nature of the airport, which was a fairly busy and cramped place to negotiate with a whopping rucksack on your back! We eventually found our driver waiting for us in a less-than-obvious corridor behind the taxi booth, looking decidedly bemused at the time it had taken us to find him. As it turned out, he was a lovely bloke and eager to chat to us for the 25 minute journey from the airport to our
hostel in the San Telmo district. His English was of about the same standard as our Spanish, but between our mutual skills we managed to have a good old natter about the weather, football, travelling in Europe, and generally setting the world to rights. By the time we had checked in and dumped our stuff, it was pretty late and we were both fairly bushed; After a quick beer in the courtyard it was off to bed, looking forward to spending the next day familiarising ourselves with our latest location.
The following day was yet another beautiful day, with the sun shining and not a cloud in the sky. It seemed slightly cooler than the intense heat of Brazil, which made for better conditions in which to explore Buenos Aires. Breakfast was slightly different too; gone were the fresh fruits (sadly), replaced by a bowl of cornflakes. That said, whilst the sweet tapioca cake was also no longer on the breakfast menu, this was more than compensated for by the bread rolls smothered in the super-sweet 'dulce de leche' (a type of caramel spread) that seems to be so ubiquitous in South America.
The San Telmo district that
we had based ourselves in had looked a shade, well, shadey from the window of our taxi the previous evening, but in the morning sunshine it was perfectly pleasant. We could already tell that Buenos Aires had a much more European appearance than anywhere we had been on Brazil, with cafes on street corners that wouldn't look out of place in a Parisian suburb and towering townhouses with iron railing surrounded balconies. It certainly had a different character and atmosphere to Rio. We grabbed a bus to the upmarket Recoleta district and wandered around the streets taking it all in. Recoleta is one of the 'fancier' parts of town and reinforced the European comparisons. In keeping with all other visitors to Buenos Aires we made our way to the Recoleta cemetery.
I can understand why this has become a key tourism hotspot for the city - the great and the good of the city are brought here to rest in peace inside of spectacular family mausoleums. It would seem that each family is vying with their neighbours to house their deceased in bigger and grander structures, and the massive cemetery is packed with towering structures of marble and polished
black granite, adorned with incredible renaissance statutes and brass plaques. With so many such buildings packed in, the cemetery itself is composed of assorted 'streets', some narrow and some broad. We wandered around admiring the spectacle and finally found the key focal point (for the tourists at least) of the cemetery: Eva Peron's mausoleum.
The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering back to San Telmo, via the neighbourhood of Monserrat which was a lively commercial area with plenty of bars and restaurants. That evening we cooked ourselves a basic but enjoyable pasta dish for dinner. It was becoming clear that for our first two weeks we had been behaving as if we were on holiday, eating in restaurants and going out most nights. Having got this out of our respective systems (insert tummy bug joke here) we agreed it was time to start behaving a little more sustainably and whilst the dinner we threw together in the hostel kitchen was simple, it was surprisingly good to enjoy some home-cooked food again. Best of all, it was washed down with a good measure of red wine from Mendoza. Indeed, the shop wine shelf was an array of tempting bottles
of Malbec, a personal favourite of mine. We chose a couple of cheap - actually, very cheap - bottles but despite the price the were lovely. Our hostel was the most social one we had stayed in so far, and we stayed in the courtyard late into the night, drinking wine and chatting with a number of fellow guests. It was a wonderful evening.
Our second day was a bit more low-key. We were up early, but spent our first two or three hours of the day getting on top of some much-needed planning for our trip. We were due to stay in Buenos Aires for another couple of days but after then it was a blank slate. We had intended to head up to Córdoba and from there on to Mendoza, but the previous evening we had spent some time chatting with someone who had just returned from Patagonia, and they were waxing lyrical about it...we had always written off the idea of heading down to Patagonia, in planning our trip. It is a region at the southern tip of Argentina and whilst famed for its natural beauty, it is a loooong way to go. Now, having given
it some thought and hearing first-hand from someone who had been there, we decided to go after all. If we didn't go now, we probably never would. We spent the morning organising flights and accommodation, and finding out the best places to stay in order to go hiking and visit the famous Perrito Moreno glacier (El Calafate, it turns out). During the afternoon, we headed over to another district, Palermo, located a bit further out and on the other side of Recoleta. A hefty lunch followed, and we had a small wander around the botanical garden, the highlight of which was spotting a sizeable bright-green spider, well, bigger than any I'd seen at home anyway! A bit done-in from the exertions of the previous day and the big lunch, we made our way back to the hostel and spent a relaxing evening cooking dinner with our leftovers and, obviously, enjoying a few more glasses of plonk.
Sarah: Sunday morning brought another bowl of cornflakes and rough coffee and a call to Mumrah for a catch up and send Mother's Day wishes! We left her to go and get our cornflakes while she was off to make a bacon sarnie - which I could have killed for this morning!
The clouds of the previous day had gone and it felt a lot less humid (and fabulously hot) as we headed out to visit the San Telmo market which was full of all kinds of trinkets and pretty things and was probably a good job that we're travelling light and so didn't want to add to our load (less than 20kg between the two of us - probably the lightest bag I've ever packed, for the longest holiday, and I haven't discovered any major deficiencies yet!).
After a wander around the market we headed over to catch some of the St Patrick's day celebrations that we'd been told were taking place. There were indeed lots of Argentinians in big green hats celebrating, including music provided by 'The Buenos Aires Tartan Army' (nope, I didn't quite get it either, Irish music played with bagpipes and bongo drums by Argentinians in kilts?). Also, not a Guinness in sight... I think trading standards may have a thing or two to say about labelling this 'St Patrick's Day' celebrations, but it was good fun and Nick got shit on by a bird which provided even more laughter and merriment.
We've finally picked up some steaks (from the Chinese supermarket that was the only butchers open on Sunday). We're going to fire up the BBQ tonight and try and get an early night in preparation for our 5am start to get to Patagonia. We've also got some sausages to grill with the hope of using some for brekkie tomorrow - in your face, bacon sarnies!
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Cindy Brittain
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Greetings from the Pacific Northwest!
Hi ya Nick and Sarah! LOVE seeing your beautiful photos and reading about your adventures. You both look so HAPPY and terrific! I am over a month behind in reading, but don't always have internet access. SUPER glad you two are doing this trip!!!!!! Love you both! Cindy and Susan PS WE will be meeting up with Daniel this weekend. WOO HOO!!!!