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Published: October 12th 2007
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Buenos Aires
Cafe Tortoni Hi there everyone! Well, we really enjoyed Buenos Aires. We arrived there at 9am on Wednesday 3rd October after a surprisingly comfortable 18 hour bus journey from Puerto Iguazu. We stayed at El Firulete Hostel, which was located in the microcentre close to one of the main streets in Buenos Aires, Avenida de Mayo. The hostel was really lovely, very chic and Parisian style, and we had a nice balcony off our room. We spent our first day chilling out at the hostel and had a nice wander down the main shopping street. We went to Cafe Tortoni which is like the Bewley´s of Buenos Aires, but more sophisticated. We sat drinking coffee and hot chocolate for a while, taking in the atmosphere. We wandered down to the Plaza de Mayo where the Presidential Palace is and many many low flying pigeons... Mark had a great laugh as I was crawling along the square holding on to his legs as the pigeons came for me! There were a few demonstrations going on too, which was quite exciting, a good introduction to the political and economic instablity that characterises Argentina.
We ended up staying in the hostel for all you can
Buenos Aires
Cafe Tortoni eat pizza night and meeting some local Buenos Aires guys who were friendly with the people who ran the hostel. We had a very intellectual evening discussing the intricacies of Argentinian politics, law and economics over pizza and beer! It was fascinating to hear their views and to hear first hand how corrupt the country really is. They seem to think that the situation can never change or improve as corruption starts at the top and trickles down. Each political party is corrupt in it´s own way, and this has led the Argentinian people to give up hope of abolishing corruption in the forseeable future. It was very sad to hear. The fact that you can bribe your way out of a speeding ticket is testament to the fact that it is not just the Government who are corrupt. The people don´t know any other way and it is a way of life that they are accustomed to. One of the guys also told us how his family were forced to go into exile to Sao Paulo when he was young. His mother was a nurse in a hospital in Buenos Aires and the family had to flee when the
Buenos Aires
Plaza de Mayo hospital was taken over by the military.
The guys were really sound and they invited us to a party they were throwing at the weekend. We headed down to La Boca the next morning. La Boca is one of the funkiest (and poorest) areas of BA. It is easily recognisable by it´s multicoloured buildings, tango dancers and convivial atmosphere. It was really cool. Diego Maradona was even there to pose for photos with tourists.... hmmmm.... I even ended up buying two nice pictures to frame when I come home, despite my strict rule of not buying souvenirs as I have no room in my bag! That afternoon, we went to the Plaza de Mayo to see the Madres de Plaza de Mayo- the Mother´s of the Disappeared Children who still come to the square every Thursday at 3pm.
The next day it rained and rained non stop. A building close to us was hit by lightning and we could feel our building shake. There was nothing for it but to sleep all day. At one stage we could hear water flowing outside our window AND outside our bedroom door... Mark opened the door and lo and behold Iguassu
Buenos Aires
Plaza de Mayo Falls were coming through the roof and down through each storey of the building! We decided to brave the weather when the evening arrived and walked down to San Telmo for some steak. Having eaten an excessive amount of feijoada in Brazil, we were foaming at the mouth at the thought of a juicy steak. We went to Desnivel (Morag- thank you for the amazing recommendation!), a very laid back and old style restaurant, nothing fancy, but the best meal we have EVER had. We ordered so much food and ate every last morsel of it- steak, chorizo, black pudding, chips, salad, ice-cream, coffees, beer... It really was the best steak I have ever had. We didn´t want to leave, it was just so good! The atmosphere was great, and we were lucky we arrived before 10pm as the queue when we left at 11.15 was out onto the street.
We moved hostel the next day, closer to the San Telmo area. We got the bus to Recoleta, in search of Paseadores (professional dog walkers), which is the only thing that Mark wanted to see in Buenos Aires, apart from copious amounts of steak. We visited the cemetery there,
Buenos Aires
Demonstration near the Plaza de Mayo and Evita´s grave. The cemetery is crazy, and as Mark pointed out, probably the most expensive place to "reside" in Buenos Aires. Actually, they are not so much graves, as little churches in which the coffins are placed. It was very strange to be able to see coffins through the windows. My favourite was the tomb of a very noble family, whose dog was also laid to rest there. We pottered around the market for a while and had a lovely lunch in a very chic cafe where ladies dine with their poodles.
That night we went to a Tango show which was brilliant. Lots of music, dancing and singing. We had a quick dinner as we had to meet the Swedish girls on a street close to where the party was. So off we went to buy some booze. When we finally found a shop that sold alcohol at 11pm, we realised that we didn't have the address of where the party was! Mark had a vague recollection of the street name but we were thrown out of a taxi when the taxi driver couldn't understand where we wanted to go. We decided to approach a policeman, cautiously,
after what our local friends had told us about Argentinian police! He ended up being the nicest policeman ever, and he spent about 20 minutes with us trying to figure out where we wanted to go. The street wasn't on our map and the policeman couldn't understand us! very funny! At this stage we were running pretty late and we were worried that the girls would be gone. Eventually, when Mark mentioned the number of the building on the street, the policeman copped on and even flagged down a taxi for us and explained everything to the taxi driver. We couldn't believe it and started to wonder whether he expected us to give him money. But he didn't seem to, and off we went in the taxi. The girls were waiting for us luckily and we eventually arrived at the party address. It was about 11.45pm at this stage so we figured we were fashionably late. Little did we know that party time in Buenos Aires starts around 1am! We got to the venue, which was a rented room with a bar and disco lights. We were the only people there! We got stuck into our beer anyway and made
Buenos Aires
View from our balcony our own fun for a while. Eventually people started to arrive, and we were on the receiving end of many a suspicious stare! We didn't really care though as we were having a great time. Our friends finally arrived at about 1.30am and we spent the rest of night dancing and drinking and got to bed at 5am. Best night in South America so far.
Our last day in Buenos Aires, was spent pottering around the streets of San Telmo. The Sunday antiques fair was in full swing and it was fascinating to see all the different stalls, mime artists, and musicians. It all had a very parisian feel to it. As usual, we spent the evening packing up the bags once again ( in every hostel we stay in somehow, the contents of our bags end up strewn all over the floor, no matter how long we are staying there for!) We are beginning to pride ourselves on the ever increasing efficiency of our packing at this stage....
Off to Quito next... Over and out...
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