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Published: January 9th 2008
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Speechless...
Sam and his Steak, or the calm before the storm Hello reader & comrade,
Sorry it has taken me so long to get round to blogging, unfortunately I have not been as wise with my internet time as Sam who I do have concerns about, I believe there are camps in South Korea for children who spend too long on the internet, I may put him forward for treatment.
So, firstly to the 6th Jan; we decided we would take advantage of a free city tour we got when we booked our hostel. Though we had slight reservations about being guided around the city with a bunch of overtly touristy-looking peeps, it turned out to be a really good day with many highlights and colourful characters. The first of such characters was our guide who deemed everything ´the most important in Argentina´( said in very deep and meaningful broken english).
The first stop of note was La Bombanera or ´the chocolate box´, the stadium of Boca Juniors. The Boca fans and anti-Boca fans are extremely passionate, as we have learned the hard way (namely Sam dropping the phrase - so are there any Boca games on to a local who had a distaste for them). We got to
The Samba Band
Sam not being able to help himself in La Boca have a walk around the seats, and take a couple of snaps, also got to mingle with the statue of Diego Maradona, to whom I have been compared, hopefully for my footballing skills and not rotund stature.
We then went to La Boca, an extemely colourful region with again colourful characters, this time we were accosted by a samba band with an average age of 85, the youngest of which took almighty pleasure in dancing with a life sized doll which was conveniently sewed onto him. Sparrow couldnt resist and got in the mixer, with one of the guys letting him play his maracas and even giving him a small hug. We also got our first taste of the tango here, with several street performers showing off their skills. It was very loud and lively and was the first experience of the party city that is Buenos. The outskirts of la Boca were very poor and a far cry from the riches of Palermo a place where we are stopping for a couple of nights from tomorrow.
After the tour we went down to San Telmo, where the local weekly market was on. This was just as lively
Diego
Maradonna at the Bombanera as la Boca in many respects, again several gaggles of the samba and drumming and interesting personnel. This time a lady dressed in purple caught our gaze with an impressive show of illegal substance-induced dancing, as did a crazy man wielding a guitar in the air around a crowd of people who were drumming loudly, prior to this his guitar was becoming drowned out amidst the drumming in his defence.
There were many nice local products and gifts but after a hectic day we decided to retire to a pizzeria where we sampled an incredible bolognese pizza, estupendo.
Later that evening we went for a couple of drinks in San Telmo in the hunt for an open air tango show, luckily we stumbled across a big square where the locals were getting on down tango style, it was interesting to see the old men head straight for the younger women, believe this is some kind of convention. In fact we have noticed that the men in Buenos Aires are quite shameless when it comes to their relations with women, we were walking behind one scantily clad lady for 2 blocks at one point and she received about 6 honks of the horn, a couple of possible requests for marriage, many stares and one poor man who was slightly overcome walked passed simply dabbing his forehead and shaking his head.
7th Jan; On the 7th we took a trip up to Tigre which was again arranged by our hostel. This was a really nice place, it is a city built on around the Reconquista River. There were many long and winding rivers with houses or shacks built just off the water. We chilled with a couple of Quilmes and took in the sights, fairly relaxing stuff.
The evening of the 7th saw our first truly awesome eatery experience, the much heralded argentinan steak. Less a steak more an actual cow, it was incredible, very juicy and made a mockery of the ones we eat back home. Sam was speechless during the entire meal. We spent that night down in the notorious Milhouse Hostel Bar and got drunk with a few Israelis and then went out and spoke to a couple of texans who were partners at a law firm, I think I asked them for a job and I seem to remember them giving me their business card, thats the career sorted.
Yesterday was pretty much a write off though we did book El Calatafe on the 17th - 21st which we are looking forward to and that brings me to today. Today we went to La Recoleta, a cemetary in the Recoleta neighbourhood which houses the graves of many important Argentinians, or very important judging by the size of the things. Sam was extremely anxious to get to the grave of Eva Peron, or ´Évita´ as she is known in popular culture. Turns out he has a special affection for her and broke down singing don´t cry for me Argentina upon witnessing the grave. A touching moment for all. We also donned our culture vulture hats and went into the Museum of Fine Art and of Latin American Art, both enjoyable though the sun did get to us slightly. I forgot to mention that at various different points we have been sampling empañadas, the famous argentinian snacks which are also very nice, a little like a greggs pastry but with a bit more class.
Hope everyone is well, I will endeavour to get a couple of snaps up as well to colour the blog a bit.
Aaron
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Mom
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Great pictures and detailed account of your days so far! keep it up, we all look forward to reading these updates. lots of love mom x