Beautiful Buenos Aires

The Thursday march of the women who have lost children, husbands, friends etc under military dictatorship (will have to look up what they are called)
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Buenos Aires means beautiful airs because its located right on the coast at the mouth of the River Plate and I guess the sea breeze helped the first European settlers come up with the name. What can I say about Buenos Aires in the 20 minutes left before this internet place closes? Its a beautiful city, and for certain one of the most amazing places so far on the trip. Its charm is the colonial archictecture mixed with western European style and the generally laid-back attitude of South America. Definitely a place I would recommend, and certainly someday would like to return.

Park in downtown Buenos Aires
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Its actually my fourth day here and feel like I have hardly even touched the surface. We´ve done all the usual touristy things Tango show, visits to La Boca(Carmita). I´ll have to look these things up and fix up this entry another time and of course upload way more photos. This internet place is a little on the dodgy side and the computer I´m using is a pile of junk! I actually can´t even upload any photos, so they´ll have to wait til Bariloche where were about to head on a night bus for the next 22 hours!! Not looking forward to that, but apparently its another of those luxury things on wheels and you get dinner (errr...) which on this one includes champagne.

Buenos Aires in 3 days

Another park in downtown Buenos Aires
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Other technical difficulties I´ve had here include no mobile phone. That´s a shock to the system. I´m thinking Optus has no agreement with the principal provider here (Movistar), so havent even been able to send a text message. But all is well, so no one worry. From the photos I´ll upload next time, I will be able to prove it!

have to go now ... shop is closing ... stay tuned!

Ok, finally found a good internet place, so I´m staying put for another hour or so to finish this which I´m actually writing from Bariloche, so will have to remember back five or so days, which is beginning to get difficult considering how much has been packed into it. Ok, Buenos Aires. As I mentioned an amazing city for sure! Very metropolitan, very European and well organised. All those things you´d expect of a major city of the world. Its no wonder they call it the ¨Paris of the South¨.

Some cathedral in Buenos Aires
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The first day we arrived the heavens opened! It rained and rained and rained. But I was determined not to let that get in the way of looking around and doing some site seeing. A couple of us walked to a Modern Art Museum only to find it had been shut for 2 years! Man, that kind of thing is annoying. Anyway after walking for about an hour and a half to the other side of town, we decided to catch a few of the museums on the way back, and weren´t disappointed. There was this Ethnographic Museum where we had a personal tour from an English-speaking guide! It was excellent and I assume that the weather had chased the usual throngs away. The displays were essentially about the demise of the indigenous tribes in Argentina. There were pictorial and also artefact displays which were quite amazing. The guide was so informative and so very pleasant with it. We ended up staying (also to get out of the rain) about 2 hours or so. It was very informative.

La Boca barrio
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The next day was absolutely beautiful, clear skies, soft breezes and much better photo-taking opportunity. We spent the day mostly shopping, eating at ritzy little cafes and looking around at the amazing colonial buildings and statues. That evening we were packed off to a Tango show where we were instructed in the finer points of Tango at a class before dinner where there was bottomless wine served.  The dinner was a set menu and a choice of steak, fish and chicken served with vegetables. There was also wonderful desserts which included chocolate brownie and creme caramel. When in Argentina, you must go for the steak, which did not disappoint. For dessert I had pears in redwine with homemade lemon icecream. The whole meal was soo delicious! The Tango show that accompanied the meal was amazing (possibly something to do with the unlimited local wines they were plying us with!) Live music, fantastic dancing, ritz and pizzaz out the whazoo! Jennifer you will have an amazing time when you come here, particularly since you already have the knowhow to start with! I think I like watching Tango more than salsa, but that of course is from an untrained eye.

More La Boca barrio
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Because we were on such a high from the show, a few of us decided to try out the local club scene. So off we went to some club in the port district. There were 300 people trying to get into this place I swear! You had to squeeze through one of those metal detector things and I kid you not, it was like a rugby maul! Anyway I guess because we were gringos we got some preferential treatment. The club was a techno thing packed with mostly Argentinians. It was such a blast because for some reason they wanted to speak to non-Argentians that night. So we had another amazing night on top of the one we just had! It was so good that four of us got home at 7;00 in the morning after having brekky on the way home. Gawd I haven´t done that in years! Girls, I must tell you that these latin men are very persistent and very cute!!  Anyway dont get the wrong idea from this, it was all just good fun and we had an absolute ball.

Craft market in La Boca barrio
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That day of course I felt a bit rough around the edges so decided to hook up with a city tour so could just vege out. It went for about 5 hours but the first hour just consisted of picking others up from various hotels. That part was a bit annoying, but still got to see much of the city area from the bus which saved me hoofing it I guess. We went to the usual touristy spots, soccer stadium and La Boca - the barrio where all those colourful little houses are. Even though I was under the weather, it was quite amazing and probably the best activity to do for that day, considering.

My dinner at one of those meat places
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The following day a few of us walked to the Ricoletta (its got some other name as well but I don´t have the map with me). Anyway its this cemetary full of extraordinary crypts and mausoleums. Blocks and blocks of em. I have lots of photos but something doesn´t seem right about putting dead people on show. Eva Peron´s tomb is there, but is nowhere near as elaborate or ornate as some of them. I have never seen anything like it, and nor had the others. It was spellbinding but creepy at the same time! After we had enough of seeing dead people it was time to eat again. (Geez people, if I thought this was going to be a detox and exercise fest, sorry to disappoint! Its been anything but!) Anyway we ate at this little restaurant near the Ricoletta (again a bit creepy, coz you could still see the angels and things which adorned the crypts over the 4 metre high wall! Anyway the name of the cafe was Pane e Vino which I thought was funny, got a pic of that too.

Tango show
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The last night we headed off to one of the famous meat places in Buenos Aires. La Cervica I think it was called, and again another meat marathon. I swear you get meat sweats after a while, there is just so much of it. But because its so fantastic, its of course hard to knock back. There is an open spit where you walk in with whole animals roasting in and around it. Its all very flamboyant and the people in the restaurant were obviously enjoying themselves. The salads were also great as were all the usual accompaniments. I´m trying to avoid all the bread tho, there is also tons of that stuff at every meal, so that´s one small thing I guess in the face of this huge eat fest. The other thing is I´m skipping breakfast. Brekkies here are not what they were in Brazil unfortunately, so I´ve decided to give em a miss. They don´t do eggs or cooked breakfasts, and I no longer want to stuff myself with more carbs in the shape of sweet croissants, so give it a miss and sleep in longer. Although breakfasts are included, it is meagre, and not worth getting up for, so I wait for lunch.

Ricoletta - the cemetary where Eva Peron is entombed.
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Anyway I think I´ve rambled on enough about Buenos Aires, so apologies for that. I can highly recommend it tho, and plan to one day return. I must also say I don´t think we had near enough time there, which was also unfortunate. But as they say its not going anywhere, and when I return, I´ll have a pretty good idea about the place, and know where to go. I think next time however I´ll save my pennies (yeah right!) and stay somewhere with a little more pampering.

Hopefully I havent bored you too much ... Hasta la vista!