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Published: November 6th 2005
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Buenos Aires is a lovely city with tree lined streets and old buildings -at a glance you could be in New York, Paris or London but the best thing is everything costs a fraction of the price.
We stayed at the Gran Hotel Oriental in the Congreso area - sounds a bit like the Mandarin Oriental, but at only 5 pounds a night each including breakfast, the name is where the similarity ends! The hotel was a bit strange but fine, as long as you don´t want a hot shower in the evening and you don´t mind walls that have been filled in with cement! Initially we thought our bathroom didn´t even have a shower (or a bath) but upon closer inspection it turned out the shower and the taps were just fixed on the wall between the toilet and the basin. No shower curtain so the entire room gets completely soaked, and take one step to the left whilst under the shower and you could fall down the loo! We thought about moving to the Milhouse - one of the trendiest hostals in the city but as it was more expensive we decided to stick with our peculiar little
hotel and just make use of their facilities - i.e tour company, internet and their halloween party.
Buenos Aires is divided up into distinct neighbourhoods and we covered most of them in the few days we had. We planned our trip to Iguazu on 2nd November to perfection as that was the day President Bush was arriving in Argentina and the Argentinian people hate him. There were Fuera Bush (stop Bush) posters all over the city, the main city buildings were all fenced off and there was a huge police presence in the main squares. The protests were still going on when we returned, roads blocked off and people marching through the streets.
Before going off to Iguazu, we saw Evita´s grave in the Recoleta cemetary, the Casa Rosada, took a walking tour of La Boca - the old port area where tango was born, saw the famous La Boca football stadium and took in a Tango show at the famous Cafe Tortoni - an old fashioned coffee shop and tango house just down from the Casa Rosada.
Like London and most big cities there are hundreds of nice coffee shops and restaurants but it is so
much cheaper here. We had a 3 course lunch in a very stylish restaurant in the Palermo area for just 13 pesos - about 2 pounds 50! A similar lunch in London would have set you back around 30.
On returning from Iguazu we had one afternoon and an evening left in Buenos Aires before our flight to Santiago the next day. We went to the Evita museum in the afternoon, after saying our goodbyes to Rebecca :-(
As it was a Friday and our last night in Buenos Aires we were determined to make the most of it, especially as the earlier part of the week had been fairly quiet. Meat, especially steak, is the speciality in Argentina so we headed to an all you can eat Parilla called Siga la Vaca on the docks that had been recommended by the girl at Milhouse. For 31 pesos - around 6 pounds you get a bottle of wine, starters, salad and as much chicken, pork, steak, lamb, chorizo, and offal as you want, followed by desert. The meat was really good but unless you are a huge eater, it is probably better value having less food elsewhere. After
dinner we went in search of some action in the San Telmo area and found a bar with live Brazilian music. After a few too many Caphirina´s and a having made friends with the band (which was interesting as being Brazilian, they only spoke Portugese) we crawled into bed at 4am.
Ellas bit:
OK so after our bottle of wine and our first Caphirina I knew we were up for a special night....Alex, after making eyes and smiling at the cute guy with the tambourine announced "Ooo I love a guy with rhythm"....
Eventually they finished their set and we had finished our third caphirina....Alex followed the cute guy to the toilets but they didn´t get that far....somehow without speaking Portugeese she managed to get him and his friend to come and sit with us....it must have been the language of Love!!??
Alex spent the next few hours stroking his arm and disappearing outside!....good on her he was the cutest guy there!
The rest of the evening we don´t really remember but I know we ended up in a club nearby. When we left Alex and I had the munchies and Alex shot across the
road for some much needed chocolate, we scoffed that and Alex suddenly announced "Cor...I could just eat a Keebab!"...see we´re British girls at heart! :-)
Great evening and a nice way to say goodbye to BA
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Cynthia
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Alex cannot believe you gone to BA to snog a Brazlian you should have gone for an Argentianian they are much nice looking. Anyway good for you approved. :-)