Colourful La Boca

Colourful tin houses in La Boca

View more photos 

Day 2 in Buenos Aires was serendipitously spent exploring the the various barrios of Buenos Aires.  Regina and I were supposed to go to Colonia, Uruguay but we missed the ferry.  We ended up walking around Puerto Madero, the new barrio with fancy restaurants and glitzy office towers next to the port.  It reminded me of Canary Wharf in London.  We then walked back to the hostel, snapping away at the wonderful buildings including Casa Rosa, the pink presential residencies made famous by Evita Peron as she waved to the adoring crowds in the 1940s.  Also went into the Catedral Metropolitana, built in the neoclassical style and containing the tomb of the revered liberator Jose de San Martin.

After a brief rest at the hostel we attempted to catch the public bus to La Boca, a working class neighbourhood originally settled by Genoans from Italy.  We were given completely opposing directions by different police officers but eventually found the right bus stop.  We climbed on to Bus 64 and 80 pesos´or 30c later, we were in a different neighbourhood.  The streets were grimier and lined with ugly concrete apartment blocks that looked like housing commission buildings.  Our final stop took us to the La Boca tourist area with the bright Camito building at the start of the tourist walk.  In another era, La Boca could be an advert for Dulux paints, but now it is a major tourist trap.  It consists of a couple of streets lined with brightly coloured houses and artists selling their artworks of these buildings and passionate couples doing the tango.  At every restaurant, waiters try to pull you in by employing various tactics such as getting tango dancers to dance outside.  Regina and I finally settled on a reasonably priced restaurant which had free tango and live music. We ordered parilla or steak, some sides and soft drinks for 50 pesos or about $8 each.  The food was definitely  underwhelming but the live tango and music was brilliant.  We even got to try out some raunchy tango poses with the tango dancer!  The waiter was extremely friendly and we ended up exchanging details....who knows I might see him on Sunday if I go to San Telmo as he lives around there.  Regina also got lucky as she picked up a lonely Brazilian guy who followed us back to the hostel...after Regina convinced him to buy a couple of wines for us to try!

Opera Bay bar in the background

View more photos 

So it was back to the hostel after a warm goodbye to the restaurant owner and the performers.  Enroute we stopped at a winery and picked out a Malbec and Syrah from the Mendoza region.  

Regina and I were sufficiently happy by the time we went to met Florian at the obelisk at 9 de Jueve, the widest street in the world.  After some discussion, the Brazilian guy decided not to join us ¨_ I suspect he was hoping to spend the evening alone with Regina.  Flo and his gf Felicitas drove us to a great restaurant in Palermo.  We had some beautifully juicy parilla and more wine_ this time a cab sav, also from mendoza.  Flo recounted how we met...very randomly in front of the Red Cathedral in Saigon, 3 years ago and how we subsequently met in Sydney, Melbourne and now Buenos Aires.  Just goes to show how easily it is to meet great people while travelling!