fondo fondo fondo

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Just got back from traveling to Rosario! Friday afternoon at 1, Taryn and I met at the Retiro train station to get on our omnibus. It took about 5 hours, we got to our hostel a little bit after 6. It was called Che Pampas Hotel and it was amazing - so clean, really small, chill staff, included desayuno, living room with dvd player, patio with parilla…hot!

We dropped off our stuff, grabbed some maps and immediately went exploring. We walked all the way down Avenida Belgrano (shady!) to see the Planetarium but it was closed, the only thing going on was some lecture type deal, so we bounced. We went to the festival del cine and then walked through a neighborhood that looked a lot like Palermo. We tried to find a restaurant and it took awhile but we finally stumbled upon Club 953. We had a bottle of wine, steaks, and appetizer for under 100 pesos - Rosario is SO much cheaper. We headed back to the hostel and made friends with the guys in our room - 2 guys Casper and Kenneth from Denmark and Eli from France. We then made our way to Madam, a huge boliche not very far from our hostel. Unfortunately, Taryn and I didn’t get in because it was 25+ night, and we told the bouncers we were 21 without realizing it, and we had left our documentations at the hostel. Bummer, so instead we went back to the hostel and ended up watching White Chicks.

The next day we woke up, grabbed some medialunas and headed to Estacion Fluvial to buy our boat cruise tickets. The guy told us that it was supposed to storm and it was probable that the cruise would be cancelled, which was a major blow because that was the thing we were most looking forward to. We headed to La Bandara, the museum where they have the first Argentine flag ever sewn, and the crypt of Manuel Belgrano the man who designed it. There’s also a really high tower where we were able to take pictures of Rio Parana and the city.

After grabbing lunch, we went to see Che Guevara’s first house. You can’t go in, and there’s just a sign outside that says Birth Place of Che Guevara. I guess he moved to Cordoba when he was still an infant. After that we tried to find Museo de Ciencias Naturales to no avail, we finally went into a facultad of some school and some really generous Rosarino called his friend and found out that the museo burned down a few years ago and the remains of it had been moved not very far away. Basically, a bunch of stuffed animals and dinosaur fossils. So, we booked it back to Estacion Fluvial and found out the cruise was still on because the skies had cleared up. We took a 2 hour boat cruise around the Rio Parana, really relaxing but also really REALLY boring. After that we walked back to our hostel with intentions of just relaxing and then maybe going to another museo before dinner. We ended up chilling in our hostel, meeting new people - a Swiss German guy who quit his job in Zurich and is spending 2 months traveling Argentina, another French guy named Julian, 2 Moroccans and a bunch of Argentine guys.

We head out to dinner, just the 2 of us, with intentions of going to Rich, the restaurant recommended by my guide book. The guide book was the most frustrating part of the trip! It was so outdated, none of the schedules, prices, or locations were correct. It was so frustrating because we didn’t have any other guide books with us. We tried to go to Teatro del Rayo, but it was torn down..grr! We ended up going to Lorenzo, an Italian place and eating soo much delicious food. We headed back to our hostel and joined the huge group of Argentine guys. Smoked a joint with one of them, Augustin, who then grabbed a guitar and started playing songs like Twist and Shout, La Bamba, and the national song of Rosario. Goood times and after a lot of Quilmes we joined the Argentine guys to a pre party at a girl’s house in the afueras of Rosario. The girl’s name was Maria and it was the house her parents had just bought and that was still under construction. It was really really nice, but just all of us gathered around a picnic table in the dining room sitting on lawn chairs, playing Taboo and telling jokes. It was so interesting to observe a group of Argentine friends, and for the first time being here really feel like part of a group. Guys here are a lot more intimate with each other, they touch each other a lot more, and call each other by terms of endearment…friendships just seem so much more genuine, you could tell that everyone in the room had a lot of history and were extremely comfortable being around one another. It was really great to see, and made me wish that friends interacted more like that in the states.


After the party we headed to Madam, we finally got in! It was HUGE! It was a massive boliche, there were a ton of people, which is weird because Rosario is a lot more calm than Buenos Aires, and I never really saw any young people outside those staying at the hostel. Well we were at Madam til about 6, walked back the 20 blocks to the hostel because there were no available taxis. When we got there at about 6:45 we headed into the living and plopped down on the bean bags and slept for about an hour before getting up, getting our things together and heading back to the bus terminal. Slept the entire bus ride there, it was glorious…just got home in time for the parilla for Angeles’ birthday and ate lots of yummy chrorizo…and really want to go descansarme but have too much work to do 😞

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