Buenos Aires - Tango and Evita

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The next day I headed back over the Brazilian-Argentine border to Puerta Iguazu to catch my flight to Buenos Aires. I arrived at my hostel to find that its "central" location was not so central and involved a 20 minute metro ride to the city centre. However it was nice to be able to escape from the chaos of the city at the end of the day.

I spent the next few days exploring the sites of Buenos Aires - the plaza de Mayo, the heart of the city with the Casa Rosada where Eva Peron made her famous speeches to the people. Calle Florida, a shoppers paradise full of street performers and Tango exhibitions. La boca, with its colourful painted houses, and where argentine tango origated in the days when it was forbidden.But by far my favorite place was the district of San Telmo, with its cobbled streets, street perfomers and markets the plaza dorrego brings a truly latin-american feel to city that otherwise feels in many ways very European.

I took a one day trip out of Buenos Aires to the nearby city of La Plata, where my friend Pablo and his wife Marina live. We didnt know until the very last minute if the visit would take place since Marina is due to give birth any day now! Baby Nicolas didn´t arrive so we spent the day exploring the city of La Plata...which was....empty! La Plata is a student city and in the middle of the summer holidays there were very few people on the streets. It was very biazarre - it felt like a bomb had dropped on the city but no one had told us!:-) At Pablo and Marinas house I finally got the opportunity to experience the ritual of Argentine Máte.
Máte is the natural drink of Arentina and is an infusion of herbs drunk from a special type of cup (also called the Mate) through a metal straw which also serves as a filter. In Iguazu I saw loads of Argentinian families drinking mate and wondered what it was all about.
The ritual is as follows: One person acts as the server and drinks the mate completely to make sure its good. The server then refills the mate and passes it to the next drinker who likewise drinks it all. The ritual proceeds around the circle in this fashion until the mate becomes washed out. After you get used to the initial bitter taste Mate is actually very good!

That was the end of my Argentine adventure. The next day it was time to head back to the airport to catch a plane back to Brazil and the Carnival in Salvador!

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Photos

Plaza de Mayo
The architecture looks like it belongs in a Parisienne boulevard