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Published: November 3rd 2015
Painting Seller, La Boca
I thought this shot summed up La Boca - art, colour and people making a living.My original plan was to try and get from Paraguay all the way down to Uruguay and Montevideo. Due to border and bus schedule logistics however, this would prove too problematic. It was much easier to get to Buenos Aires and with a load of newly made friends waiting for me there, I thought that I might as well head there first for my planned week in the Argentinian capital before going across to Uruguay after.
To get down to Buenos Aires, I boarded my first overnight bus of the trip - fourteen hours from Encarnacion.
It was pretty painless in the end. I managed to type out a blog entry before getting a pretty good sleep - the
semi-camas are pretty much like La-Z-Boys so I had no trouble sleeping.
With only four passengers in the downstairs section of the bus with capacity for sixteen people, I had plenty of room to stretch out as well. It was almost...comfortable.
You may remember that I was playing some drinking games with some Brits in
Foz do Iguacu - well, these were the people waiting for me in Buenos Aires.
Knowing that I would be staying with these crazy peeps in a
Recoleta Cemetery
An extraordinary town of tombs. crazy hostel, in a crazy city famed for its nightlife, I ensured that I rested (kind of) and braced myself in
Encarnacion in preparation. I still wasn't quite sure I'd survive though.
Said crazy hostel is the famous-among-backpackers Milhouse hostel, of which there are two within close proximity to each other in Buenos Aires's
microcentro. I was staying at the smaller of the two, the Milhouse Hipo.
The reason that the Milhouse name is so famous is due the plethora of activities laid on by the hostel, from walking tours, football matches, nightly parties and tango nights - there is plenty to keep you occupied without having to do much organising. I also suspect that the place does a pretty good margin on these activities - being a de facto travel agency and event organiser as well as offering beds in dormitories is surely the way the modern hostel makes money and I'm sure they are creaming it here in Buenos Aires.
Walking through the front door and into a foyer full of young internationals, with the sound of Spanish in the air and a whole lot of activity sign-up sheets on the front desk, I thought for a
It Takes Two To Tango
Taking in a professional tango show, one of Argentina's most famous traditions. minute that I had been transported back to my Spanish language school in Barcelona.
It doesn't really matter what night of the week it is - there is always a party on at either Milhouse Hipo or its sister hostel Milhouse Avenue and it was no exception on my first night in Buenos Aires, which was a Monday night. The parties are pretty hardcore too - drink specials, beer pong, party music and ridiculously strong cocktails are all provided - and people end up getting pret-ty trashed.
The parties begin at 10.30pm and go on until 2am; when those who are game and are still able to stand up end up going out to the club of the night. With not a lot of Argentine
pesos on me and with a week to go here, I was a little hesitant about going out but everyone seemed to be up for it and were going hard which was what persuaded me to go out in the end. We ended up at a club called Severino's that was supposed to be playing 80s music although the promised music was conspicuously short in supply. It mattered not for the majority of our
Palacio del Congreso
Where Argentina's lawmakers sit. party from Iguazu - we ended up getting home at around 6am, although with not too many people in the club I would rate the night as so-so.
I was booked on a walking tour the next morning and having already paid for it, I was determined to make it - which I just about did, if still a little drunk.
The walking tour was through the working class neighbourhood of La Boca - literally, "the mouth" in Spanish, as that is where the River Plate first fed into the Buenos Aires's old port. It is where the majority of the first European immigrants first set foot in Argentina back in the 19th century. Although it is a poor part of town, the touristy part of it is a very cool and colourful place with lots of character. It was also easy to see the connection between the local community and Boca Juniors, the famous club of the area. We ended the walking tour with a tour through their stadium -
La Bombonera.
It is a really cool stadium with the stands really close to the pitch, almost hanging right over it from a great height. On one side
La Boca
Buenos Aires's original and colourful working class neighbourhood. of the pitch is a stand for VIPs only - basically an entire stand of corporate boxes that looks like a row of council flats. The stadium has a capacity of almost 50,000 although you wouldn't think so looking at it.
Argentina has had a pretty tumultuous history, often lurching from one economic crisis to the next. Inflation has soared in recent times, making the local currency infamously volatile. It is therefore recommended that you carry some US dollars on you as the locals will give you great rates for them - as the US dollar is stable and pretty much holds its value, the locals want them because they can prove to be a canny investment in a year's time when the peso devalues even more and you can get twice as many pesos for your US dollar as what you paid for it.
I was lucky enough that the restaurant where we had lunch as part of the walking tour was willing to do a trade - 15 pesos for every US$1 I had, of which I had US$100. This is compared to official rate of about 10:1. Such a practice is illegal - but it is
Calle Caminito
The reason why La Boca is so colourful is because apparently the locals used whatever leftover paint was available on the docks to paint their houses soon after the port here was established. done everywhere and it was better to get my money changed at a reputable restaurant that had a business relationship with the hostel, rather than with a shady
cambio on the street, some of which offered up to 16:1.
The party on the second night was at Milhouse Avenue, which is bigger and resembled a swanky hotel-lobby-cum-bar. The "Buenos Aires Iced Teas" I was drinking that night sure packed a punch. They f*ck you up real good. About 80%!o(MISSING)f the pint glass was filled with liquor. Definitely think that an Argentinian pour tops a Spanish one now.
The club that night was Kika, out in the trendy suburb of Palermo and it was more packed than Severino the previous night and it played better music even if it wasn't the indie that was promised.
Argentinians are big smokers - the indoor smoking ban hasn't reached here yet and I am sure that it never will - of which I am not a fan. I was dead on my feet by 5am, my clothes and my hair reeking of cigarette smoke.
Two massive nights in a row meant that I didn't even leave my room the next day.
Plaza de Mayo & Casa Rosada
Buenos Aires's landmark square with the president's office just behind. I still managed to make the party that night though, but declined the opportunity of continuing on to the club. Speaking to people the next day, it was apparently empty, expensive and shit so I guess I chose to right night to have off.
A curtailed night allowed me to finally do a bit more sightseeing outside the walls of my dorm as I checked out the sights of Buenos Aires's microcentro.
In a big, bustling city with wide avenues and narrow alleys, the city centre had a mix of 80s edifices and old European facades, which made Buenos Aires feel like a host of different cities and architectural styles mished-mashed into one. Parts of it look like Paris, others resembled New York, and I swore I was back in Barcelona again in some parts..
Argentina has had a rough economic time of it recently and it seemed reflected on the faces of the people walking the streets. It seemed apparent that no-one was really happy with their current lot. With an election in just three days time, there was also a pulpable tension in the air that made me feel decidedly uncomfortable. There was a protest in Plaza
Lavalle
One of Buenos Aires's two busy pedestrian streets full of shops, restaurants and shady cambios. de Mayo and another one on Avenida 9 de Julio - protests are quite commonplace here apparently, but the protests and their accompanying police presence did nothing to allay the sense of unease I felt across the city centre.
The busy pedestrian streets of Florida and Lavalle felt oddly safer - maybe this was due to the fact that Buenos Aires's notorious traffic could not reach here and due to the sheer number of people going about their business. The scores of BA's homeless weren't so conspicuous as a result either.
In any case, at the end of the day I felt like Buenos Aires was probably the most intense city I have been to so far in South America - even more so than the
megalopolis of Sao Paulo.
I was back on it that night where the club for the evening (morning) was hip-hop club Lost, which was a fifteen minute walk from the hostel.
The place was absolutely rammed, mostly with faux gangsters with baseball caps, which wasn't fun - but the music was finally what was promised and it ended up being the most enjoyable night so far. Towards the end when there was a bit more space
Lost
Hip-hip club in Buenos Aires - one of four clubs I managed to visit during my stay. available, a few break-dancing circles broke out and it was really cool to see the young guys and girls go at it, despite the presence of broken glass over much of the dance floor.
The night came with a cost however, as I wasted another day mostly lying in bed - I did play some football in the late afternoon however, the first time I had played since I left London for the second time four months ago. The hostel organised a 7-a-side match that was really enjoyable despite the everyone's lack of fitness and states of hangover. Everyone was at a good level ability-wise and the match was competitive until my team ran away with it a little towards the end. I didn't play too badly myself either - still got it...
That night was the last night for many of the Iguazu crew - Billy, Lloyd, Jens, Amy, Paige, Elliot and Connor - so it would be a mandatory night out tonight. Over the course of the last few nights I had also managed to make some new friends including Brits Alex and Jordan, Swede Max, Dane Gustav, and Dutch Wilbert - who quite amazingly, is
Teatro Colon
Buenos Aires's primary opera house. a really good friend of Yannick, the Dutch guy I met and travelled with for a while in
South Africa earlier this year. What a small world.
For these new friends, it was also their
ultima noche.
After getting tanked on yet more Buenos Aires Iced Teas, the club Belushi's and its electro-dance-pop was probably the best place we went to all week. With its 1940s classic decor in the front room playing 80s, and a back room club for the more energetic, there was something here for everyone in classy surroundings. Friday nights are a bit crazy here though - Milhouse had us entry for not just Belushi's but also Kika which was right next door. As we left Belushi's for Kika, we were annoyingly turned away at the door - apparently no-one is allowed into any club after 5am
by law. To make things worse, we weren't allowed back in to Belushi's either. Annoyance. So with our morning curtailed, we went and drank a beer at the cafe around the corner from the hostel which was open for
breakfast.
On the way back to the hostel, we witnessed the quite surreal scenes of youngsters stumbling out of a hard house club directly
Cabildo
The colonial council building on Plaza de Mayo that now houses a museum. opposite the hostel at 7.30am in the morning with the place inside still going off. There was a police presence as well, seeing as girl got stabbed a week ago outside this venue by
another girl. Drunken local youngsters and police at 7.30 in the morning alongside people starting and getting on with their day. I've never seen nightlife quite like this, anywhere. These Argentinians party HARD.
Needless to say it was another wasted day the next day although I had the pleasure of 'enjoying' the Rugby World Cup 2015 semi-final between my beloved All Blacks and South Africa. The ABs won ugly this time but they had to - they were never going to produce a repeat of the 62-13 performance against France a week ago, but they trusted themselves and their game plan to play territory and wear down the Springbok defence and it paid off. I trust these guys now, with all of their experience and was never really too nervous. A two-point win was a little too close for comfort though.
With most of my crew having now left Buenos Aires, it was time to take a complete break from alcohol. Buenos Aires and
San Telmo Market
Sunday antiques market in the antique-y neighbourhood of San Telmo. Milhouse was beginning to feel a bit like Hotel California - I needed to get out of there and stop my money being sucked away but I couldn't / didn't want to. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave...
Following my alcohol-free night was probably my most productive day in Buenos Aires. First, I visited the San Telmo Sunday market where I happened upon one of the best street bands I think I have ever seen. They were called
">Tonimontaña and they played an energetic brand of Latino-ska that was ultra catchy. They consisted of two acoustic guitars, two trumpets, a bongo and a guy using an old wooden speaker box as a drum. No bass though, so I don't think that they'd be Meghan Trainor's cup of tea.
San Telmo itself is a really cool neighbourhood where all the hippies and artists hang out. The buildings are all colonial style and many of them are run-down which lends them a classic, rustic quality. The Sunday markets really bring the place to life where all sorts of antiques and bric-a-brac is on sale.
full of tall apartment blocks. It reminded me a bit of Jardim, in Sao Paulo. Recoleta's biggest draw however is its cemetery which sounds odd to the uninitiated. And then you see it. It blew me away somewhat - I'd not seen many tombs as big as the ones here let alone so many of them altogether. It was a town of tombs complete with streets. Some of them could be used as houses for the living rather than the dead! While some were grand and ornate, Eva Peron's (Evita) tomb was relatively modest.
The next neighbourhood that I explored was probably Buenos Aires's 'coolest' one. The self-described "open air shopping mall" is full of cool boutique shops and trendy eateries and there was a relaxed vibe about the place on a sunny Sunday afternoon. If I come back to Buenos Aires, this would definitely be where I would want to stay - the 'Shoreditch' of BA. Palermo is also where the majority of Buenos Aires parks reside - it was a beautiful day and the parks (including one with a lake and pedalos) was brimming with people exercising and just chilling out. Completely surrounded by busy roads and with
few trees however, I wouldn't say that the parks had the most relaxing atmosphere.
The only problem with wanting to stay in Palermo is that it is a little difficult to get to by public transport. You need to get an 'Oyster' card to ride buses and they are hard to procure; and while the metro system is OK, it probably isn't extensive enough.
The next day was probably my most frustrating one.
Getting money out here is a bit more complicated than other countries; there are usually huge queues for ATMs and even then, getting money out of an ATM as a foreigner is a no-no. This is thanks to Argentina's pesky inflation as explained above. Getting out money from an ATM will give you the official exchange rate which is about 14:1 with the pound. Shady "cambios" who approach you on the street will give you 21:1 - so a lot, lot more - but often you will get some counterfeit bills in the money they give you. The safest way to get a good exchange rate was through a money website called Azimo. You transfer money to their British bank account (so nice and easy for
me as I have a British bank account too) and then they convert it to whatever currency you want that you are then able to pick up in cash from a location in the city you are in. For me, this location was a dodgy looking kiosk in Constitucion train station.
Thanks to the election, nothing was open the day before meaning that I had just 75 pesos to spend for the whole day and I still needed to save some for metro trips to Constitucion. All I ate was the hostel breakfast (the only time that I made it) and three empanadas that day on top of all the walking I did. So imagine my stress when I arrived at Constitucion sans ID to collect my money and being down to my last 15 pesos to get to the hostel and back to pick it up. I got my money eventually, which was a relief, but the whole exchange carry-on is a real hassle.
It is however the difference between paying £27 and £18 for something that is the same price here in Argentina - which is exactly what I did later that evening after forgetting to bring my
hard earned cash with me and having to pay my bill by card at the official exchange rate. In addition to all the museums I wanted to visit being closed on a Monday, it was not a good day.
Instead of hitting museums I ended up walking around the relatively flash Puerto Madero neighbourhood which is the Canary Wharf of Buenos Aires which was actually quite pleasant in the end as it was another sunny day.
My last night was a nice way to cap off a bad day and my stay in Buenos Aires.
It was a tango night that came with a free one hour lesson, dinner, unlimited wine and a tango show. The basic tango steps we were shown were relatively simple - much simpler than salsa - and the dance is very sexual. We joked about how it is impossible not to get a bit worked up after doing some tango and how it must almost inevitably lead to sex. The steak I ordered for dinner was excellent - the best I have had in Argentina so far - and the unlimited wine got us completely sloshed. The show was awesome to watch - all
in all it was a really cool early-20th century, typically Bueno Aires, cultural experience...well worth the extra money I had to pay for it.
All that wine made it an impossibility not to attend the Milhouse party before hitting Severino's again afterwards. It was much better than last week and had way more people - it was a fun night in the end and an apt way to spend my last night/morning in Buenos Aires.
Before catching my ferry to Uruguay on my last day in BA, I managed to fit in a couple of museum visits.
First up was the interesting El Zanjon dos Granados where 18th century water systems were discovered under an old colonial house in San Telmo. It was a fascinating insight into colonial immigrant life in Buenos Aires and how the early sewer systems were constructed.
Second was the ultimately disappointing Museum of Modern Art Buenos Aires although it did have a really interesting and popular temporary exhibit that I didn't have time to check out.
- Even on a boosted exchange rate, I still found BA relatively expensive. I was still paying over £5 for
a McDonald's combo, for example and I found myself constantly running through money way quicker than I was expecting to.
- The reason I was even eating McDonald's was because finding dinner each night was a bit of a mission. I was keen to try restaurants but a lot of good ones were far from the relatively soulless area of the microcentro and I hate going to restaurants alone. Quick bite options seemed relatively thin on the ground as well unless you didn't mind eating
every night. There are only so many of those things you can eat...
- I found BA relatively intimidating, particularly around the microcentro. I eventually got used to it but at first I found the intensity of the place almost too much. I felt like I was walking on eggshells when conversing with a lot of locals and shopkeepers as if the slightest offence might set them off. I didn't like the way I was looked at here either - I often felt like I was being talked down to with my relatively elementary Spanish. In fact, I would go as far to say that there is a general arrogance - pride as well
- among the general populace here in Buenos Aires.
After spending a bit more time in the city and learning a bit about Argentina's history though - constant economic crises, a period ruled under a military dictatorship - I began to understand more the Argentinian psyche and why perhaps they are the way they are.
- I unfortunately couldn't attend a football match. It is apparently an amazing experience but procuring tickets was a little difficult, there weren't many games on during my stay, and what was available was prohibitively expensive (over £70 to watch River Plate for example) - prices I wouldn't even pay to watch Premier League football in England.
While I had loads of fun here and saw a few cool things, I was glad to be getting out of Buenos Aires. It is a great city but the vibe I think, is not for me. And spending any more time at Milhouse would have completely killed my liver. I somehow managed to survive.
Next, I am hoping for a calmer experience when I get to Uruguay.
GRACIELA
non-member comment
WELCOME and COME BACK!!!!!
You wrote a very good article on Buenos Aires. The pictures are really very good ones. Argentina is not easy, but it´s fascinating. I live at about 400 km from Buenos Aires, in a city called Tandil, lovely place surrounded by hills. Hugs from Argentina.