Rosario and Buenos Aires

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After leaving Asuncion we decided to descend onto Santa Fe, a small town near Rosario where the Argentinian constitution was signed, we got there at 2 o clock in the morning and slept in the bus station until sunrise. It rains a lot in South America and Santa Fe was no exception. We woke up to see queues of people waiting for taxis, we thought this was odd as usually you don´t have to wait for a taxi outside a bus station. We went to investigate and saw the streets. Santa Fe had temporarily become a river. Still in the bus station we said...fuck this lets go to Rosario.

Rosario is a medium size town in Argentina described as the "cleaner greener Buenos Aires". We left Rosario bus station and we knew we were in Argentina. One of the first things saw was a plaque saying "Malvinas por siempre Argetina" (The Falkland Islands will always be Argentinas). It was a proud moment to be British. We were only in Rosario for two days so there is not much to say. We had a fun night out in this club inside a shopping centre and had our first sip of Fernet. After enjoying Caiprinha so much (the Brazilian cocktail which is Cachaca, Lime, Sugar and Ice) we thought we might like Argetinas favourite drink, Fernet y Coca. It is one of the worst tasting things in the world. Hands down. It tastes like off medicine but students in Argentina go absolutely nuts for the shit. We also walked around Rosario a bit, saw the plaza, there was also this pretty incredible monument to General Belgrano. It was a very Argentinian place, but then again so is all of Argentina. They have this huge pride about there history and culture, they also clearly see themselves above the rest of South America. As a fan of history it is a pretty cool place to be for me. Colonialism drips from every city with its architecture and grid cities. You see the schools, the Cathedrals, the Plazas built by the Spanish. I think it is why so many Europeans fall in love with Argentina, it is safe and comfortable. Especially Buenos Aires.

We spent 8 days in Buenos Aires and we barely did anything. Nevertheless it is probably the best place we have been to so far but I am hoping to see better. It is a mega city both culturally, economically and politically. It is the heart of Argentina. It is also hands down the funnest place we have been. We arrived in B.A. on a Tuesday we checked in to our hostel then walked down to Plaza de Mayo (the Trafalgar Square of B.A.). This is probably the most politically important spot in Argentina debatebly in South America. It is where Evita and Juan Peron spoke to the masses from the Casa Rosada, I think it is where independance was declared in 1810. Today it is still a key protest point, the mothers of the sons who were killed/disappeared under Jorge Videlas military dictatorship in the 1970s ask about information for there sons. Apparently a few days before we arrived in B.A. there was a protest over Britains oil explorations in the Falklands but I think it was pretty small. The Plaza is basically where the main tourist attractions of B.A. are centred, you have the Houses of Parliament, the Central Bank and the Metropolitan Cathedral all within walking distance.

Our other big day outing was to La Boca. When we were in B.A. Boca Juniours were playing Estudientes (team equivalent to someone like Tottenham or Aston Villa). We thought it would be a good game but where not going to pay the exhtortianate 250 pesos our hostel was charging. So me Hal, Dom and some of our friends we had met along our travels went down to see if we could still buy tickets. It had sold out, we were pissed off so we went to a cafe in La Boca. We watched some free tango which I might add is a pretty cool dance. There are two versions, the new sexy version and the old school Argentinian version. The old version is a very masculine, men walk around in there Gaucho hats and boots and stamp on a wooden stage. It is a hybrid of tango and tap dancing but it is awesome. The other version is the version I am more familiar with which is the sexy over the top romantic dance. After our little tango session it was 7 o clock and our friends we were with saw some guys they knew. They said that they were going to the game through this other guy called Leo. Basically Leo was a Boca ultra (football hooligan), his friend charged gringos to go to the game. Because he was half English he would pretend that he was a tour guide from a hostel then bribe a few people to get us into the game. He promised us it was full proof and even said we didnt have to pay him until after the game if we didn´t believe him (which we didn´t). So we tried to go to the Boca game. It was unsucessful. Hilariously so. Basically when we were walking to the game a TV crew tried to interview us gringos (the usual why are you here, are you excited about seeing boca, blah blah blah). This attracted a lot of attention to us, which our dodgy ultra tour guide didn´t want. It attracted the attention of Buenos Aires Chief of Police. So we were fucked basically because you can´t bribe the Chief of Police (well you can but I think he is used to bigger bribes then a few hundred pesos). The Chief of Police was hilarious looking as well as furious with our football hooligan friend. He looked like a 1970s pimp, he wore an open neck shirt as well as having a perm and bad sunglasses. Anyways our hooligan friend got off the hook because we told the chief of police he wasn´t trying to break us in he was just showing us where we could buy tickets. So unfortunately we never got to see a game.

Our last day trip (before we talk about the mad nights of B.A.) was a bike tour around B.A. Now I don´t really ride a bike in London, I haven´t ridden a bike since I was about 11 so it was fun going down 10 lane roads on a dodgy orange bike. We managed to go through most of the districts of B.A. we saw some of the sites, sat in a few parks. It was all very romantic. We also saw this crazy metallic flower which is sensitive to the sun so during the day it opens and by night it closes.

Moving swiftly on because I have bored you enough lets move on to the big nights of B.A. Before we went my wise guru of a brother warned us that you can easily party all the time in B.A. and not do anything by day. We were pretty close to doing that. The problem with South America is they only have two types of clubs. They have local music clubs (like Reggaeton and Cumbia), these have good looking women but god awful music. They also have "electronic" clubs, this pisses me off. As a fan of techo, electro, experimental, drum n bass and dubstep I am really baffled by what they mean by electronic. In some areas it means a gay club, but the term basically means either house or bad continental techno. Buenos Aires was the only place to offer anything else. It had drum n bass, it had dubstep, it had good house electro. So we went sick. First night we arrived we had a hilarious night. It was one of those nights which was funny because it was so awful. We had been advised to hit up this club called Hype! It was advertised as a drum n bass, dubstep and pop night. Naturally us London boys were there. We arrived at about 1 30 and for about 3 hours all they played was shit. It was Black Eyed Peas (who are unnaturally popular in South America) and David Guetta on a loop. Me and Dom decided to have words with the DJ who promised that at 5am some drum n bass would come on. We decided to stay. We needed our fix. Turns out drum n bass isn´t that popular in Argentina. At about 4 50 the club was 75% full, by 5 10 it was about 10% full (if that). Me, Dom and Hal wouldnt let an empty dance floor scare us away so we raved until it closed. The only people left in the club by that point were either from London or Australia. It was jokes.

The other big big night we had was Pacha. For me this was probably the best night of South America. At this point we were staying at Millhouse (if you go to B.A. you will know what Millhouse is, my advice is stay away. It is basically like a Dulwich College school trip. Just full of ignorant private school twats). Millhouse is a "party hostel" which is a loose term given to hostels in South America which basically means that lots of Brits, Aussies and Irish people stay there. So we racked up the cheap drinks and headed down to Pacha. By the time we were leaving for Pacha we perhaps had taken the concept of pre-lash too far, but it all culminated in a very funny moment. In my blog about Brazil I think I mentioned that in Florianopolis on the last night our toilet flooded. In our Florianopolis hostel there was a group of 8 girls from England who were all 18, they are probably the only people we have met while travelling who we haven´t liked at all. They were at Millhouse on the night of Pacha and we awkwardly talked to them, they mentioned the toilet flood and to our revelation it turns out that Hal was the person who flooded the toilet (the bastard destroyed my book and half my clothes). The look on the girls face was absolutely priceless. Hal mugged himself off. It was very funny. Anyways we headed to Pacha, had a fun time, went into VIP (turns out our Millhouse wristbands work as VIP) and raved until the sun came up (there was an outside dance floor it was all very cool). We also had a dance off with some Argentinians, I am confident that we won with our South London skanks. My advice is if you go to B.A. you would be a fool to miss Pacha, because it was too fun.

We also had another good few nights. We met with some friend along our travels got drunk had jokes, nothing special to report on that front. Our last night was us going to another drum n bass club called Barhein, it was a pretty special club on a music front. Had a decent sound system and was bringing out tune after tune including a drum n bass remix of Calle 13 (right up your street Ralph).

Conclusion is B.A. is fun. It has everything you want and we have even more stories from the big capital which I have either forgotten or already told most of you guys. It is also a very revealing city about Argentina and its history. You can see that Argentina was a great country in the past, it had a booming economy and was by far the richest in South America. Buenos Aires shows the bleak decline of Argentina, although you can see the grand colonial buildings of the past in the centre, in many other places there is abject poverty. The bus station is next to a huge slum, La Boca is clearly as very poor area. Argentina in general is a very decadent area, it is frequently described as a country that has yet to come to terms with its decline. You will notice this when walking around B.A. it is a city which thinks it is as important as Paris or London, but the grand centre is covering up the huge poverty on the outskirts of the city. All very sad really. Still history lessons aside, I had a blast.

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