Buenos Aires - Paris of the south

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Firstly, thanks to Cyril, Dot, Debs, Holly, Dax & Michelle for your messages, we love getting word from home.

Buenos Aires ...

After 1 1/2 hrs flight from Santiago we arrived in Buenos Aires where we had 3 days to look around before joining up with our tour group - which would travel from BA for 17 days eventually finishing in Rio.

Our first day we made our way,from our hotel in the city centre, to the inner suburb of Recoleta, the upmarket part of the CBD. Most of the accommodation here comprised of apartments. With a population in this city of 11 million having a house and section would be virtually unobtainable within the metropolitan confines. As such, a lot of money is spent on high quality furnishings, dressing well and socialising. Recoleta supports that precept well! Car parking is at a premium, due to lack of space most of the apartment dwellers’ vehicles are stored in buildings where an attendant would put the car in a lift and by means of mobile travelators, shove it into an allocated space. The owner would only see his vehicle on deposit and collection. This method could see many cars stored in areas where there is no access lanes and requiring a ceiling of approximately 1.5 metres.

This leafy suburb eventually led us to the old cemetery, Cementario De La Recoletta, which contained 100s of mausoleums including Evita Perons. These miniature crypts are either highly maintained on a regular basis or have fallen into disrepair, possibly because the family line had died off. Those incarcerated included nobility, military hierarchy and politicians. We did even see one for an obviously famous boxer whose statue stood in front of his eventual resting place clad in robe and boots! Of all of the buildings we saw no two alike, all of them elaborate and would have cost plenty to construct. Whilst we were there an internment took place, with a huge party of mourners following the casket to its place of rest. The residual wreathes and flowers were piled high in the street outside for other resident’s families to help themselves to the remenants to decorate their own deceased plots.

We could have spent all day there, but we moved on to the local craft markets which spilled from the outside walls down into the local parks. Most of the wares were handicrafts of leather and wood with, as always, a host of variously decorated Mate cups and metal perforated drinking spoons. These are extremely popular all over Argentina where people can be seen carrying these cups made from small gourds, filled with mate leaf, which looks like green tea, being filled with hot water from thermos flasks as they suck up the brew through the metal straw effect spoons. This practise is common to both men and women. Whilst not unlike our own tea consumption it differs in that it is drunk whilst walking the streets, shopping and generally being outdoors and its not uncommon for shop assistants to have their own perched on the counter. We noticed very elaborate carrier bags for the flask & cup some were even made of leather with wooden handles or shoulder straps!

At the end of this excursion we arrived at La Biela Restaurant, favoured by many racing car drivers and one of the oldest in the area, amongst others it was the favourite haunt of the illustrious Fangio. Our Lonely Planet guide recommended we lunch here, we did, and we weren’t disappointed. Being Saturday many of the Portenos (as the locals are called) gathered with their extended families for a meal. It was nice to see everyone from the grandfathers to the grandchildren enjoying each others company.

As mentioned,Buenos Aires has a population of 11 million and all of the cars to transport these people appear to be European, in fact you would be hard pressed to find a Japanese job. With that amount of volume you can imagine our amazement when we discovered Ave de Julio 9, which is one of the major thoroughfares, where you have to negotiate 20 lanes of traffic … 10 in each direction! Fortunately there were breaks with small islands which made it easier, but still it was an exercise. This led us, in due course, to the Plaza de Mayo, which is renowned as an area where the inhabitants can demonstrate with regard to any cause they see fit. Many of the banners and associated photographs depict those people who went missing in the military dictatorship of 1976 to 1983. The memory and demand for answers regarding those men and boys that disappeared, is still kept alive by the ‘Madres y Abuelas’ (mothers and grandmothers) who mass to harass the present government. Eventually, we fed our way to ‘Calle Florida’ the city’s major pedestrian shopping street, which reputedly clocks 800,000 people a day, rivalling Bangkok as the busiest shopping destination. The whole walkway encompasses everything from street vendors through to Harrods (now closed) with all you might want in between. The cost of living in this city is very cheap with a good meal at a restaurant costing NZ$15-$20 a good bottle of wine at NZ$8-$10 and any amount of well priced high quality clothing, not to mention the leather goods.

Close to our hotel is the Teatro Colon. We had wished to do a tour of this celebrated opera and orchestral theatre but due to ongoing renovations we were not able to. We then elected to visit the port end of the town and ‘La Boca’ the multi-coloured, soccer mad, Tango driven , full on enclave.

La Boca is famed for its buildings made up of remnants of ships that berthed there in the 1800s. With painted exteriors comprising of blues, yellows and reds it is a mass of uncoordinated colour. This seaside suburb, being historically a poor area,saw the original local builder/renovator source all of his paint from the left-overs discarded by the ships. Such is the recycling attitude of this area the local Retiro (railway station) is constructed entirely from wrought (forged) iron shipped from Liverpool in 1914. Whilst this is a very touristy area now it does have its own charm, to say nothing of its consuming passion for football. Its local home-grown boy is Maradonna and he is revered everywhere, any type of icon resembling him can be bought. The provincial La Boca Juniors team always feature highly in the South American Premier League and the Sunday games are always a cacophony of sound and colour. When talking of passion, BA in general, and La Boca in particular, resounds with the music of the tango. The street corners and public places are awash with both amateur and professionals alike, engaging in the most dramatic of footwork to the delight of the onlookers.

The adjacent suburb is San Telmo, this precinct has the unfortunate history of being ravaged by Yellow Fever in 1871, the then residents of what was once an affluent suburb moved out to the aforementioned Recoleta to avoid succumbing to the plague. Subsequently the deserted properties were populated with the tide of Italian immigrants that make up the combination of Italio/Spanish people today.

For all of the affluence that abounds in Buenos Aires, there are still many homeless (some by choice) that frequent the city. We noticed that they are accepted members of the society and the locals seem only too willing to contribute something to their wellbeing. Having evaluated the situation surrounding the poor, we concluded our roaming of the city with a meal at Desnevil a wonderful steak restaurant where for a mere pittance we indulged in a steak that was well over a kilo and done to perfection. Such was the repute of this establishment we had to queue to get in. The amount of meat devoured here meant that the parillia (steak) chef used a broom and a 20ltr bucket of olive oil to keep the huge grill moist whilst he carved and cooked steaks and sausages which would individually keep a small African nation alive for a week.


Tomorrow we make our way to the hotel organised by GAP for the start of our tour and to meet our fellow travellers.

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