Buenos Aires...

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Buenos Aires is a beautiful city. The sun was shining upon arrival and we headed straight to our hostel which was really clean, comfortable and most of all had powerful, HOT showers...something we were only dreaming about in Bolivia. Everything about the city works which is unlike most other parts of S. America. It even has its own tube line which reminded us of Barcelona's underground. Buenos Aires has beautiful architecture and as predicted, it was very European in style. It is again a city where poverty lies side by side with huge wealth and affluence and we experienced a number of areas within the city, each offering a different flavour of BA...

We visited and stayed in the urban and trendy (almost like Shoreditch) Palermo. This offers bars, arty shops and markets. We enjoyed the amazing and HUGE steak and picadas (a selection of hams, cured meats, cheeses, olives etc) and because the pound is so strong against the pesos here we were always pleased to see our money going further. We also walked to the Japanese and the Botanical gardens from Palermo. The Japanese gardens were the more picturesque and we enjoyed some sushi and green tea in the cafe!

The Plaza de Mayo is the city center and we also spent a few nights here (the city, in fact, was literally built around it. Surrounding it is the Government House, the Metropolitan Cathedral, and the Cabildo (town hall). The Plaza de Mayo has always been the focal point of political life in Buenos Aires. Its current name commemorates the May Revolution of 1810, which started the process towards the country's independence from Spain in 1816.

We made sure we visited the famous Cementario de la Recoleta, Eva Peron's final resting place and enjoyed the many exquisite tombs (sounds weird??!!). Eva was never an officially elected political figure but most agree that by her husband's second term in office she had come to exercise more power and influence within the government than anyone but her own husband. In 1951, Evita launched a campaign to be allowed to run for the office of Vice-President of Argentina. She was opposed by the military, politicians alike and of course, her husband Juan Peron. She was perhaps most famous for founding the Female Peronist Party in the late 1940's. At this point in time women were largely left out of any political processes and were unable to vote. With this and many other groundbreaking campaigns she earnt the official title of "Spiritual Leader of the Nation" in 1952.
The cemetery is quite an elaborate display of death and one which we found both beautiful and odd at times (in some tombs you could actually see the caskets...perhaps not somewhere to hang out on a free night, might be slightly scary!).

Towards the end of our stay here we also made a trip to La Boca, the most colorful area in Buenos Aires and one of the poorest. Here an assortment of brightly painted low houses made of wood and metal burst upon the eyes. The main street here is Caminito, which has an artisans and painters fair, open air tango shows, and typical Italian restaurants and street cafes. It is also home to the world-famous Boca stadium.

Whilst in BA we also embarked on some tango lessons...(Mark, Sarah has you lined up for some lessons in Sydney! Be warned)...It was fun to attempt learning the steps but what we found even more amazing was the culture that comes with the dance. We visited a proper ballroom one evening and admired the atmosphere (not an old ballroom though, a fun, arty and "hip" one with a huge degree of class...naturally we felt at ease). There were all ages, all abilities and everyone was thoroughly "into it". It was all very serious and romantic. The couples dance with their eyes closed like there is no one else in the room. The tango is an extremely passionate dance (see from pics) and we were lucky enough to see some world championship contenders perform in one of the Milonga's we attended. Unfortunately, the photos we captured of the tango are slightly blurry due to the movement of the dancers but if anything they depict the intensity of the dance.

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