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Published: January 13th 2009
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Jetlag is a funny thing. We both woke at 2am and couldn’t sleep again until 4ish despite being tired. We got out of bed around 7.30am and had breakfast at the hostel before heading out by Subte to Plaza Italia in Palermo. We walked a few blocks to find the apartment block that Che Guevara once lived in but found it in the late stages of demolition. 2 or 3kms north we hit Av del Libertador - a 12 lane one way road that ends in the heart of Buenos Aires. At Parque 3 de Febrero there was some sort of event going on, complete with brass band and Argentine and German flags. We never figured out exactly what was going on as our German is equally as awful as our Spanish. Jo lead us to Museo de Motivos Argentinos Jose Hernandez but unfortunately hadn’t noted that it didn’t open until 1pm - we were a good 2 1/2 hours early.
Given our lack of fitness it was time for a sit down and a coffee at Tupak Cafe on Cabello and Diaz (must have been on the Westside). Our complete lack of Spanish meant even ordering coffee was a
mission but we got through. Our crossing of Parque Las Heras turned into quite an adventure as we had our first introduction to paseaperros - professional dog walkers. The park would have been no more than 300 metres across but there must have been 200 dogs in it. As most Buenos Aires residents live in apartments, a new trade for dog walking has developed. Some of these paseaperros had a dozen or more dogs under their control. The noise was something else and we had to watch closely where we stood.
Next stop was Recoleta which was reached by Subte from Bulnes to Pueyrredon. The big tourist attraction in Ricoleta is Cemetario de La Recoleta, a huge maze of tombs including that of Eva Peron, and many other famous Argentine politicians, artisans and elite. We spent a good hour getting lost in the necropolis and ticked Eva Peron’s tomb off the list. Unfortunately most of my pre-trip studies have been focused on Cuba and with so little knowledge of Eva Peron (except that Madonna played her in a movie) it really felt we were just “ticking it off the list.”
We stopped for lunch at Grant’s on Av
General Las Heras. Grant’s is a buffet style smorgasbord but despite the $22 peso (NZ$11) price tag the food - particularly the meat - were excellent.
To walk “Grant’s Gut” off we returned to the outside of the cemetery to Iglesia de Nuestra Señora del Pilar a 16th century church that also had an exhibit of old South American religious items.
We returned to Hostel Suites Obelisco for a nanny nap - me for 1/2 an hour and Jo for a little longer as I typed up the first version of this diary and then lost it as mytripjournal.com crashed.
On nightfall we decided to head to San Telmo district for a look-see and dinner. Lonely Planet describes San Telmo as an “artists quarter” and its certainly an interesting place! San Telmo was where a lot of the fighting happened when Britain invaded in 1806 and it doesn’t look like much has changed although the narrow cobblestoned streets suggest a quaintness not met by the history of the area. Plaza Dorrego, where we had pizza for dinner, was full of poor, hungry “artisans” whose kids seemed intent on asking anyone eating for some of their meal. We
did fork out $5 pesos as a tip for a bloke doing tricks with a glass ball but it was “no, gracias” to the socks, cigars and assorted crafts offered to us whilst dining. One thing for sure though - if revolution ever takes hold in Argentina, it will start in San Telmo. We didn’t manage to finish the pizza and it was snapped up by the kids. One even taking a piece of one pizza and stealing the olive off another! Every one of them thanked us (without prompting from their parents) who were sharing a 1 litre bottle of beer and plotting a peoples coup.
We walked back to the hostel and got to bed at 2330.
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