Feliz Navidad from Buenos Aires

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Hola,

We arrived in the capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires, where we would be spending over a week enjoying the everything the city had to offer.

We took the metro to America del Sur Hostel, the same company as the one we stayed at in El Calafate, which is located in the San Telmo neighbourhood. The hostel is amazing and the area is beautiful, consisting of many low rise buildings that had a very European feel to them. We wandered around the Antiques Market in Plaza Dorrengo for a bit and it was very interesting to see what kinds of stuff there was a market for. We also ran into Jeremy, who had taken the bus to Ushuaia with us. This was our third run-in with someone from earlier on in the trip. We met a Dutch guy who we had seen at Torres del Paine at Iguazu, and then, at our hostel in Iguazu, we met one of the Irish guys who had been on the epic bus ride from Bariloche to El Chalten along Ruta 40. After the market, we walked towards the Centro where we saw many cool buildings including the original Cabildo and the Casa Roasada, which is where Evita used to give her famous speeches. We continued along Calle Florida, which is a pedestrianized shopping street, before ending up at Galeria Pacifico. GP is a large mall but it has many fancy stores in it, a muralled ceiling and the prettiest Christmas tree that we have seen in South America so far. After wandering around the mall in air conditioned bliss for a while, we went to the San Martin monument and then spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around, taking in a lot of the atmosphere of a bustling Buenos Aires. In our wanderings, we came across a large street market that was selling many different things from mate cups to tango cds, and even had live performances as well. We had dinner and then headed over to Puerto Madero, which is a bit like a cross between Gastown and Yaletown, it is being re-gentrified presently, so we could catch Harry Potter 7, finally. It had been over a month of waiting, but we finally were able to see it.

Our next day consisted of walking. A lot of walking. We started by crossing all 14 lanes of Avenida 9 de Julio, which is the widest street in the world, before visiting the Obelisco and Teatro Colon. From there, we walked to flagship store of El Ateneo, an Argentinan book company. The store is inside an old theatre and is very picturesque with large balconies and a painted ceiling. There was a downside though and that was the fact that books are organized by author. This is fine in the novels section, but when one is looking through history books, it makes finding the appropriate one quite difficult. It was kind of funny by the end because we found that our bookstore was very much a microcosm fro Argentina as a country. Very beautiful from a distance but a little confusing and somewhat poorly run. We continued walking and ended up in La Recoleta, which is one of the wealthier neighbourhoods in the city. There, we went to El Arkakao, which is an ice cream place that we read about on an Aerolineas Argentinas flight. All of their ice creams are made daily. It was incredibly rich, but not that tasty. We proceeded on to Buller, which is a microbrewery, where we had a taster sample of the 6 types of beer they make. We then walked around Recoleta Cemetary where we found the grave of Evita. It was much simpler than we were anticipating. We then proceeded into the Palermo neighbourhood and into Palermo Viejo which had nice cobbled streets and many trendy boutiques, bars and restaurants. After this, we headed back across town to our hostel, passing through the Jewish fabric district of course! That night, we went to a lovely little Resto Bar called Territori that made excellent sandwiches and served good beers. It was an exhausting day, but it gave us the chance to see a lot of the city.

We decided to book a daytrip through our hostel and head to Colonia del Sacramento, which is across La Plata in Uruguay. The whole Old Town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of how well preserved many of the old streets and buildings are. Most of the roads in town consist of the original stones and are 250 years old. The ferry was supposed to take an hour, but this being South America meant that it would actually take double that amount of time to arrive. Once in Colonia, we had a one hour walking tour with a tour guide who thought that extreme intonation with her speech was the proper way to talk to a group. We visited many placed including the old walls, the ruins of a convent, many original houses, the Iglesia Matriz and many pretty houses and streets that were brightly coloured and flanked by even more brightly coloured flowers. We had lunch at a restaurant overlooking some sailboats in the old port before heading to the sandy beach for a little bit. We went up the lighthouse for good views of the town before catching the ferry back to Buenos Aires in the evening. We both thought it was a great daytrip.

Buenos Aires is known for its shopping so we decided to dedicate at least one day to shopping. We headed along Calle Florida, which is a pedestrianized shopping street and visited many of the stores along there before going into Galeria Pacifico for a bit. The shopping in the city is good and there are many different stores, the only problem being that there is not a tremendously diverse selection of things to buy. We then wandered through Puerto Madero. The area was the old site of the port and has been revitalized extensively. It is a mix of old cranes, refurbished warehouses and skyscrapers and is very reminiscent of Yaletown. There is even a bridge designed by Santiago Calatrava there which Peter may or may not have taken a million photos of. Later that night, we met Rebecca, from Antarctica, and Kat & Tom, from the Inca Trail and Salar de Uyuni, at a bar called "Le Cigale" for drinks. we stayed there for a while and it was great to see them again. Unfortunately, we spent so much time "catching up" that the next day was a bit of a write-off.

On Christmas Eve, much of Buenos Aires had shut down. Argentinians celebrate Christmas Eve and stay up into Christmas morning so many Porteños were at home for the day. As a result, many of the roads were empty and it was a little eerie walking around. We went to the grocery store because Peter was going to make his traditional trifle, as he has done for the past 15 years, for Christmas desert. After that, we had lunch and met Kat and Tom by the pretty Christmas tree in Galeria Pacifico before heading to Puerto Madero and enjoying a beer in sunny, 31 degree weather. That night, the hostel put on a big Christmas dinner. There were many different types of meat and unlimited drinks. The meat itself was cooked fairly poorly, as it has been for much of Argentina. For a country that loves its beef, we have found Argentinians to be poor cooks of it, for the most part. We met a lot of interesting people and celebrated well into Christmas Day itself. Most things were closed on Christmas so we were not able to do anything for much of the day but it was very odd Celebrating Christmas in 31 degree weaher with sunny skies. That night, we went to Puerto Madero to have a nice Christmas dinner. There were many people out walking around the waterfront and there were even groups of people out rollerblading while wearing Santa Claus outfits. We went to a restaurant, that turns into a club, called Asia de Cuba. It had a beautiful interior with ornately carved pillars, secluded booths and buddhas. it was a Japanese fusion place and we had some excellent sushi, the best in South America so far, including rolls with mango, prosciutto, salmon and brie. The deserts were amazing as well!

On Boxing Day, Argentinians do not go shopping so we had to search for something else to do. We decided to go to La Boca. The neighbourhood is quite rundown and dodgy in parts, but it has some nice things including "El Camintio", which is a streets of brightly painted houses, and it is the home to "La Bombanera", which is the soccer stadium where Boca Juniors play. On the way out of the area, we ran into Val's friend Quin who was in the area with her boyfriend. We the headed back to our hostel and met up with Kat and Tom for a bit as they were in San Telmo. For dinner, we met with Marc and Laura, who were in Antarctica with us, before joining Kat and Tom at their hostel for home made Capirinhas. We then headed back to the hostel via Avenida 9 de Julio, where they were starting to set up things for the start of the Dakar Rally.

Bye for now,
Peter and Valerie

Things we learned in Buenos Aires:
-Christmas in a warm climate is hard to get used to
-The whole clubbing at 2am concept is tough on the system
-Ice Cream helps one get over a hangover
-It is possible to share a room with an Italian for 6 days and yet still never speak to him

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