Big days out in Buenos Aires!

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We have well and truly embraced the BA lifestyle, cruisy mornings and late, late nights with much activity packed in between. The days are so full when I think back I wonder what we did when but let let's have a go...

Tuesday the sun shone and the weather was perfect for walking the streets. We breakfasted whilst watching dog walkers with up to eight dogs on leads at a time go about their business, all leads straight, dogs all behaving and the walker with an attitude of this pack is easy to mange. Have to say the coffee is excellent, best I have had any where.

First stop of the day was Reccoletta cemetery, the resting place of the city's famous and not so famous, with 4,800 vaults it's a city in itself, with streets and sign posts and benches to sit and reflect. The vaults are vast and highly decorated, some holding up to 25 of a family's nearest and dearest, others small, narrow and in ruins. You can amble around here for hours, parts like the street Eva Perone lies in are packed with tourista and other streets empty but for the cats that live here.

After a busy morning we took a break on a corner whilst we tried in vain to remember where the tango shoe store was, a local stopped to ask if we needed help, we said no, he said clearly we did and that he thought our best plan was to eat! Taking a chance we followed him to a local haunt, learning a lot about the difficulties of living in a country with extremely high inflation where the government has all the power. For people under so much pressure I have to say they are so easy going, nothing a problem and quick to smile. There is however an undercurrent of a hard life lived. Lunch was delicious with home made deserts........The afternoon was spent wandering until we found a boutique with handmade shoes.......no more to say you all know what happened. My god they are gorgeous!

We caved on our travel principle and said yes to the tourist tango show...... Atmospheric room with house wine and plenty of tourists. The tango dancers looked completely bored and went through the motions, the guachos (native cowboys) were fabulous and looked like they would have a great time anywhere but the crowd favorite was " don't cry for me Argentina" sung by a lady that looked vaguely like Eva/ Madonna with Aregntine flags flying proudly as the closing notes were sung. We paused for a photo on the way out, and struck such a fine tango pose that we were copied by others and stopped to chat, had an offer to join them and then were reminded that the was a bus full of people waiting for us.... see we really aren't tour people. The tour was so scarring that we required rooftop cocktails to roundout the evening and who can say no to shots for 10 pesos...........

Wednesday the day of meat........began with a trip to La Boca. This is BA's infamous area where immigrants originally settled by the port, built their homes from left over scrap tin from the ships and painted them in bright colours to spruce everything up. La Boca is the birth place of tango, the poorest area in BA and home to the apparently mighty Bocca football team. We wandered careful not to stray from well known streets as we have been warned by many before the trip, many in BA and then by the locals themselves on the streets. With no more wandering possible Rochelle drags me though the most excellent wax museum of early Porteno culture ....enough said about that beside her owing me the entry fee for my pain and suffering.

Meat, meat and more meat lets say that we went vegetarian on Thursday after Wednesday nights dinner. For Wednesday nights dinner I set my heart on having parrilla - grilled meat so tender you can cut it with a spoon. We got lost, walked of miles, but eventually found the place, where there was a communication break down and I ordered Rochelle ribs, and myself a steak. Turns out Rochelle did not want ribs, which explains look look she was giving me and left us with a large man size serving of meat to get through. Much excellent red wine was needed to accompany the half a cow I am sure we ingested. Waiters were laughing and I am pretty sure they were taking bets on us getting through it all but we trumped them and also had dessert. We left feeling smugly satisfied and for some strange reason not that full!

Thursday dawned hot and sunny with a trip to Colonia del Sacramento, Urguay. A unesco heritage listed portuese town full of quaint buildings by the sea and not much else. This led to a long lazy lunch of paella and sangria, and some horror at the size of our bill, not even dodgy maths could explain this one. We stuffed exchange rate and the $1 magnets really cost us $10, pity one of us is not better at maths. PS it did have seven museums but we did not go in them...... ferry trip on the way home was first class and came with champers and happy snoring Portenos.

Two more days in BA left, so more to come.

Pxx

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