I apologise in advance for the length of this blog. Okay so it sounds really lazy but my legs were so so swollen I decided to fly from Ushuaia to Buenos Aires and I got a really good deal to also fly from Buenos Aires to Rio de Janeiro. I didn’t feel too guilty because I bussed it all the way down and to save some time it made sense to fly. Such a luxury and it avoided 80 hours on the bus to Rio – sweet.
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I’m not massively a city person but I have to say I fell in love with Buenos Aires. There’s an indescribable quality about the atmosphere there, which differs in every neighbourhood which changes different nights of the week, and honestly, if it wasn’t for the ham and cheese sandwiches, I could see myself living there for a while. It was also fan-feckin-tastic to be back in the heat, after cold windy Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego.
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Got my bearings on the first day with a stroll around centre and San Telmo, a fab neighbour with cobbled streets and beautiful old mansions – abandoned by the elite during times of disease epidemics. I think this is the neighbourhood I’d live in if I had the choice, the buildings, the antique shops with great markets and tango on every corner come the weekends. It’s just gorgeous.
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Met a great group of people in the hostel and we all headed off to see a percussion band, La Bomba, that night which was really good fun. They are a huge group and all their work is improvised which makes for great interaction between them and amusing to watch. La Bomba check out this video. Now I’m not into beer all the much but this night was a bit a of beer fest, as we’d queued for ages so we had a few while waiting. This is Gavin, or Billy as I called him (no real reason why)

and he led me to my doom with these litre beers which you had to drink pretty quick or they went warm. Fun night and a nice way to get to know the group.

The next day a couple of us did a walking/history tour offered my the hostel. Our guide was a university student who gave us the political/economic low-down and boy was it interesting. A very engaging guy who really knew his stuff and if you can hold my attention on these topics, you must be good J We strolled by a lot of the buildings each with it’s own piece of history and we also visited the Evita Museum.

Eva (Evita) Peron is a goddess over here and from what I gather, she was like the Oprah of that era, you know, an actress/charity founder/one name entity that crosses all the boundaries, even into the political arena, pushing for women to get an identity card and a vote. It was a very interesting afternoon.

Much to the disgust of my loved ones at home, stating I knew NOTHING about football, I headed off to see a Boca Juniors match that evening with some of the crew. Okay so maybe I know nothing about football but this experience for me was more about the people watching. Football is like religion here. We got stood on, sweated on, squished into the stand with avid fans of all ages. They sing for the entire match, check it out – Boca Juniors

The game itself was little slow, not such an important one so the Juniors scored and relaxed but not the fans, they cheered and booed and sang like it was the world cup final and by god you had to sing with them I might mention that we didn’t even sit in the crazy fan area where football really is a case of life or death. Really funny though, many fans are in the stands 90 mins before the game, the real crazy one arrive about ten mins before, push away anyone sitting in “their” seats and proceed to shout, sing and bounce around for a couple of hours. It was a long and sweaty night and we were pretty filthy coming back but such a good experience.

The following day I dragged Gavin/Billy to Palermo to walk through the botanical gardens and parks and it was like another totally different world again in Buenos Aires.

Huge open parks with lakes and fountains and dogs being walked/baby-sat. Man was it hot though and we walked for a while (well miles and miles according to Gavin!) Saw some interesting things on the way though. 

I supposewe did lose our way a little but eventually we got to Ricoletta Cemetery. Very interesting place and we stumbled across a funeral there, which I’d say doesn’t happen much these days with the cemetery being so full and that. We were a little surprised about how unimpressive Evita’s grave was though, there were a lot more outrageous but hey I guess they spent the money shipping her around the world before finally laying her to rest 🙂 This one was pretty awesome though……

We went for a nice steak dinner that night and then myself, Chris, Paul and Gavin went to meet some local Argentine girls who showed us the spots in Palermo Soho. Bit of a late one but good fun, we got to laugh at Gavin and Belin partaking in a dance off hosted by a ladyboy!!!

Oh come on Chris, smile……

…..much better 🙂

Managed to tear myself out of the bed and headed to the Caminito area in La Boca with Paul. It’s such a lovely area, originally inhabited by Italians, I’m sure you’ve all seen pics of these really cuty painted houses. It’s a really poor neighbourhood and tourism is probably the only thing that brings money there.

These days it’s quite touristy and most of the houses are now museums or shops. There’s still some nice artwork to be bought on the street and we stopped for a drink at a tango restaurant. Tango Restaurant We even got an impromptu tango lesson, lots of fun, apart from flip flops and me being half a foot taller than the guy! I hardly buy anything at all while I’m travelling, I’ve been so, so good, especially in Buenos Aires where there are gorgeous dresses for cheap-cheap. I did fall for this beautiful hand-painted mask which was to be for Carnival.

This guy had really lovely stuff and myself and Paul had some fun trying things on. I also have his website as he does ship things if anyone is interested.

We had a big old BBQ in the hostel that night, which was good fun and I’m really gonna miss this bunch of people. It’s so good when a group gels like that.

Continuing on the theme of tango, I had got to my last night and still hadn’t gone for a tango lesson. So we headed for a Milonga, which is basically a more informal type of lesson. You can get up and sit down whenever you want. It was great, held in this huge, well kinda barn actually. Loads of old furniture and great paintings.

The wooden floor was worn down from all the dancing during years, god I love seeing things like that. The Milonga is also good as the locals go there and get up to dance as they please. Some great moves from the some of the most unlikely looking candidates, in some cases. Seasoned Tango-ers We did our best with the dancing, I kinda think the more you concentrate the worse you get!! Amateur Tango Also trying to tango in flip flops and/or splinters isn’t the easiest but I don’t have any heels so that’s the way it has to be. I’ve said it to loads of people though, when you’re in Patagonia, you can rent hiking boots so why can’t you rent heels when you go to the cities!! You heard it here first people, I claim all royalties!!

Have to again mention the great people I met at the hostel here, all good craic. Funny though first impressions do really matter because Chris told me afterwards that when he saw me first he thought I wouldn’t talk to anyway and honestly I was just wrecked tired and trying to wake up!! Anyhoo he got his story straight soon enough.

Also want to mention my hostel, which was recommended by Nicole who told me to make sure I stayed in the dome on the roof. These are my room mates Emily and Miriam, lovely, lovely girlies.

We shared a gorgeous spacious room away from everything with stars on the ceiling and a machine who emitted a kinda hippie smell – yeah, yeah I think I am a hippie. It’s funny though because Nicole told me to stay there and on my last night I met Andreas who we figured out met Nicole and Stefan just after I left them in Ushuaia. She told him to stay there too. So it’s not just Cork that’s a small world, it’s all over!! Kinda like that though 🙂 The hostel was also part of an old building with one of those tiny evelvators where you have to pull the doors across, again – loving it!!

And so I sadly and reluctantly left Buenos Aires, it’s now my top destination that I would have liked to spend more time at. Still though I can’t really complain as I’m off to Rio de Janeiro for Carnival!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

More photos on http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157614078023790/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157614194081435/

P.S. If you’ve actually read this far down, I’m sorry, the next one will be shorter I promise……