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Published: February 10th 2011
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And so we were back in Buenos Aries, with only 4 nights left of our trip. There is so much to see here that there was little time to think about getting home or how we would readust to being back. Argentinas capital is a great city, Euopean in its architecture but distinctly South American in attitude it is a fusion of the best of both old and new world. Heavily influenced by the Spanish and Italians who came here the city boasts grand avenues, beautiful palaces theaters and countless old squares in many distinct neighbourhoods. The locals or Portenos (named for port) enjoy a life with all the ammenities of great cities, reflecting the grand history of the place which was one of the richest and most important cities in the world 100 years ago.
The city is divided into many areas or Barrios and with 5 days there we had a chance to visit most of the ones that are recommended to tourists. We had a walking tour through the main micro center on our first morning there which took in the presidential palace and the congress building as well as some very wide main avenues. On the
main road between the palace and congress they leave barriers up all the time because there are so many protests the police got sick of putting them in place each time they were needed. We later had a tour of the palace which is open at the weekend and looked out from the balcony where Eva Peron made her famous speeches.
We found a very good deal for a hotel and were staying in a grand old place that was also a tango school. Best of all it had a swimming pool on the roof for dipping in to to cool off which was very welcome as it was really hot, about 35 in the middle of the day and so too hot to walk around very far. We cant be sure when people go to bed at night as we didnt make it up that late but it must be after 3am. They all then have a siesta seemingly from around 2 until 5 when everything is very quiet.
One night we went to a tango show in an old theatre, dinner was included and had a really good night with a little booth to watch the
show and a good meal with unlimited wine. The dancing and orchestra were very good and we got to meet a couple of the dancers. Tango is everywhere in BA, lots of cafés have free shows to entice tourists in so we saw quite a lot some of it just sitting in a square having a beer when suddenly they would start dancing around you.
We had a really good last evening in South America. Firstly we went to the races which was free to get in if you didn’t want to sit in the poshest part. They have a 2.5 mile all weather track some impressive stands and facilities. The main building is one of the grand old buildings of Buenos Aries and I think they have some very posh meetings. Ours was a more casual Sunday afternoon affair. The cards have roughly 16 races, one every half hour from 2 until 10 (that’s what you get if a casino runs the racecourse) but the quality seemed quite high and the fields were of decent size, most of the horses had American or Irish heritage. We stayed to watch 3 races and had one winner. After the races
we had a reservation at a restaurant called La Cabrera which had been recommended and that we had tried to book earlier in our stay but had been unable to get in despite thinking we had a booking. It is an upmarket steak place and was worth the wait. Helen tried Kobe beef for the first time and Rick had a 600g rib eye. These were probably the best steaks we had in Argentina though like everywhere else “rare” seemed to translate to “medium”. 600g is a lot of meat and I don’t think it would be very pleasant to have to eat that much everyday but it was really good to do it once! The Kobe came in two pieces and Helen could only eat one which gave us the opportunity to sit in Mc Donalds in the airport the next evening with a coke and surreptitiously eat the worlds finest beef which I found very satisfying. It was an excellent evening to end an excellent trip.
We are back in the UK now and it is surprising how quickly everything seems normal again. We have some wonderful memories and around four and half thousand photos to bore
you all with. We thoroughly enjoyed every part of the trip, it is impossible to find one highlight as there were so many varied and wonderful experiences, how can one contrast climbing a volcano and looking into the smokling crater with looking down over Machu Picchu? I don’t think we have “found ourselves” but we were not looking. We do know that we both want to travel more Perhaps it will be hard to readjust to everyday life but we have so much to look forward to this year with ours and lots of our friends weddings that we probably wont have time to think about it.
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