The rest of Buenos Aires

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- Food: None of the restaurants have pepper, only salt. LOTS of salt though and most of the food is incredibly sweet. Dulce de leche (caramilized milk) rules. Nice but very sweet. Variety of sauces with all the bread instead of butter. Empanadas (pastry with filling) are Argentina´s snack food and are lovely. Steak - good but was expecting better. Surprisingly un spicy food. Helado (ice cream) an rightful Argentinian best. Licuado´s (smoothies) delicious.
Mate which is like a bitter tea is the national drink drunk out of little bowls with straws. A flask of hot water carried around to constantly top it up!

- People: Are very patient with me attempting Spanish and let me try, even if they speak English, without interrupting. They seem to speak Spanish slower than in Spain.
Hardly any rough sleepers but lots of woman with babies begging and lots of sellers on the trains.
Not many people about at all but that may be due to Easter so everyone is on holiday and it being autumn here so peak season is over.

- Area: Lots of graffitti - all over the main statues also. Streets full of dog shit!

- Weather: Still hot but a few clouds and torrential rain one day.



Ok, for those of you still reading after Day 1´s detail, I´ll try to be more brief!

Fri 25th: Tracy arrived (the relief). We discovered the bus terminal (already thinking about the next stage) and empanada´s - a snack consisting of pastry with a meat or cheese filling. We also tried the experience of travelling on Metro Line A which still has the same trains running as when it began 100 years ago! A bit clanky but lovely wooden carriages.
We decided to try Argentina´s steak for dinner. However, it wasn´t the best and quite fatty. GUTTED.

Sat 26th: I awoke to discover that leaving the window open is not the best idea in the world. 1,000 mosquito bites. I must have got sweeter (no comments please) as I never used to get bitten so much. Maybe I should start taking those malaria tablets... What with that and frizzy hair due to lack of products I don´t like this side of travelling already! How will I cope?

We found the lovely, grand old Teatro Colon and marvelled at it before buying tickets for the opera. Knowingly going to the left after reading that this was the entrance for the ticket booth, we were surprised to find armed guards. After Tracy´s efforts to get past them, I remembered enough Spanish to ask where the entrance was. With amused looks, they pointed to another grand old building across the road - the actual Teatro Colon and not the government building we´d been trying to enter!

We also found B.A´s equivalent of Leicester Square - Florida Street. A horrible tourist trap, packed street full of Macdonald´s and the like. But in the middle of it is The Richmond - a big old tea shop with dressed up waiters, a sense of calm and good coffee.

After relaxing in the park all afternoon we headed to the correct Teatro Colon to see the opera - a first for me. Amazing and we even had a box! However, I didn´t quite feel like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman with my bites, scruffy clothes and straining to see the view over the 10 other people in the box with us.

As we´d enjoyed the theatre so much, we decided to wonder to the docks to see the water. Bad idea. After the long trek to get there, the docks were the next big tourist hell with the expensive menu showing McCains chips, Hellmans etc. Hmm, we left straight away to find a midnight mass happening at the cathedral for Easter - very beautiful and peaceful - even with the population on B.A. in there. Not so peaceful was the noise of my flip flops when leaving.
The evening ended with another Argentinian great - helados. Amazing ice cream!

Sun 27th: San Telmo antique market day. Thank God we got there early before the crowds arrived as it was packed with lots of tourist tat and not much in the way of genuine antiques I´m sure (although the prices would suggest otherwise). We did see an old couple performing tango though. Although I´m not so sure I wanted to see the old women´s garter!

In the afternoon we went to Recoleta to the cemetry. It´s a maze of narrow alleys with the most over the top decorative tombs. The cemetry was empty apart from the stretch where Evita´s tomb is - you can´t miss it as even though the tomb is very plain, it´s covered in flowers and American´s with big zoom lens cameras.

After a very long walk to the Richmond for some needed coffee I nearly had my first bout of tears - it was CLOSED.

Palermo which is the posh area provided us with a Mexican dinner. Surprisingly the Argentians don´t like hot or spicy food so it wasn´t quite the same as Mexican´s back home. Where is all the good food?

Mon 28th: Spent trying hard to find travel shops which proved hard and we ended up at lots of head quarters with non English speakers! As most of them were in Florida Street, we had to visit the Richmond twice to save our sanity. Also, the sun disappeared and there was torrential rain - the heaviest I´ve seen - the streets became rivers.

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