After a mammoth 16 hour bus ride from the Iguazu Falls (which
I managed to get pretty drunk on and slept through most of it) we arrived in
Buenos Aires. The hostel was right in
the city centre and a lot more commercial/structured than any of the hostels from
Brazil. A lot more people around so was
able to meet some great guys and had a good bar in the basement that pretty
much closed when the last person leaves... Fun times!!
First impressions of Buenos Aires were not that great...
Having spoken to a lot of people along the way, the general theme was that
there is not that much to do compared to somewhere like Rio; however the one
thing that everyone had in common was that they all said that the city was a
grower, just takes a bit of time. The
city is broken down into a few main neighbourhoods; Centro, Porto Madero, San
Telmo, Recoleta and Palermo; each very different and with their own
personalities.
The first point of call was to sample the one thing that
Argentina is famous for; Steak!! So,
following several recommendations, we headed to a restaurant called ‘Siga La
Vaca’ (meaning ‘Follow the Cow’ - apparently) and I worked my way through the
best part of a whole one...
After a lazy Sunday morning we made our way through the town
towards the old town of San Telmo. On
Sundays it is famed for having a large antiques market and as Kate has an eye
for this sort of thing, we wandered around there for about 3 hours. Each stall was pretty similar but also so
different... Each one was selling pretty much old junk – old toys, medals,
matchboxes, old photos, postcards, stamps, pieces of metal... the lot – however
there will always be a couple of little hidden gems dotted around. One stall was selling out records; Led
Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Kinks etc... All in a decent condition and all really
cheap; probably worth a bit back in England.
After coming out of the market there is a main street that runs through
most of Buenos Aires which was lined on both sides with small stalls, people
with blankets on the floor selling beads, necklaces, sandals. The main attraction for me was the smell of
meat wafting through the air, which drew me over to a tiny bar with a huge
grill, lined with the juiciest, softest meat and sausages. £2.50 got me a sandwich with 2 slices of blood
red meat laced with a pesto/garlic/chilli marinade and a cold refreshment;
Happy days!! Needless to say most of the
marinade ended up down me and on my feet.
The buzz on the streets was pretty good too. Nice hot day again and the market people were
not hassling at all or trying to force you into buying anything that you don’t
need anyway.
After San Telmo, we wandered back into the city centre and
went to the Casa Rosada (The Pink House) for a free walking tour. The Casa Rosada is one of Buenos Aires
Presidential executive mansions and also houses the balcony where Evita made
her famous speeches to the Argentineans.
The tour guide was for all accounts odd... The tour was for both the
English speakers and Spanish; and having spoken in Spanish for at least 10
minutes on each item/room the English version would last about 30 seconds.
Not content with all of the walking that we’d done so far we
thought we’d take another 30 minutes to walk up to the Congressional building,
which was an amazing site; however strangely located with a main bus stop
directly in front and about 20 closed down shops around. After all the hard work of today we were
rewarded with a well earned couple of pints in the bar beneath the hostel;
which was hosting a Superbowl party.
Having got back to the room just after 11 we found to have
new room-mates (Poppy, James and Jay) who were just getting ready to go
out. After firstly declining the offer
to go out I then had my arm twisted by Kate (who I might add did not go out) to
go with them. So off we went into Palermo
to get what I can only describe as Absolutely Plastered!! We managed to somehow latch ourselves onto a
pub crawl in one bar and managed to get half price Vodkas and tried in the
space of about an hour to consume the best part of a bottle. Next stop; Club!!
After about 4 hours sleep, Gatorade, Ibuprofen and a big
bottle of water, we decided to continue the cultural theme and head over to
Palermo, where we told is the posher part of the city with good restaurants and
shopping. Not really knowing where we
were going and being clever enough to leave all 4 maps back at the hostel we
managed to get ourselves vaguely near to the centre via the metro; pretty much
the same as London: stupidly hot, but twice as dirty. Oh, and full of nutters (which Kate seemed to
attract wherever we went; I get the stray dogs, Kate gets the deranged... What
a team we make!). One of the strange
creatures did however point us in slightly the right direction and having
back-tracked twice and asked 2 policemen, we were in the centre of Palermo
where the need for coffee was at the highest point of the trip so far. We found an amazing little bar called
Gonzalez which was kitted out like an old brewery complete with a rusty old
Vespa and a big Harley attached to the wall.
As well as a decent coffee, they also made a mean Empanadas; of which I
had 3 – obviously.
For the latter part of the afternoon we headed by taxi to
the Recoleta Cemetery; where we bumped into a couple of guys from a hostel in
Iguazu. I’ll leave the cemetery stories
there as it will take up another post to follow this one...
Following on from this it is getting close to 5pm local time
which could only mean one thing; Spurs were about to kick-off against Liverpool
and a hair of the dog was needed badly!!
Kate decided to throw the football a big ‘NO’ in favour of shopping, so
I headed to the bar beneath the hostel to watch the game. Little did I know that not that many people
in Buenos Aires were interested in watching the match, so I had the entire bar,
3 big projector screens and 4 Plamas complete with 6 bar staff to myself for
the next 2 hours. Not a single soul even
came into the bar. 6 pints later there
was only 1 thing to have before passing out in bed; MacDonalds!! Now, the best thing about MacDonalds in
Argentina is that the standard amount of burgers within a bun is 3... So easy
enough choice; Triple Mac... Large!!
On Tuesday we completed a walking tour to La Boca and San
Telmo. We met at a hostel around the
corner and had a nice small group of only 7 people (2 Italians; Antonio and
Giovanni (Obviously), 2 Canadians and a guy called Matt from LA). This was also the first time in Argentina
that we had taken public transport; which didn’t go to well as Kate had her
sunglasses stolen within the blink of an eye from her bag.
The main part of La Boca (the Caminito) is a strange place
and very different to the rest of Buenos Aires in the way that it is really the
only part of the city that is extremely colourful. The reason for the painted houses and
buildings is that once the port became disused, the place began to get dirty
and was not looked after; so as a revitalisation, an artist used left over
paint from the ships in the docks and painted all of the building different
colours to inject life into the place.
The buildings to look amazing and within the main square there were 2 or
3 Tango shows taking place to attract the tourists. La Boca is also a main homage place for
Maradona as he played for their club Boca Juniors at two points during his
career. There are large statues of him
all over the streets/balconies and even a pretty convincing look-a-like.
Following La Boca, we were taken on another bus along to San
Telmo and shown around the main town before being left within a large market
square complete with a nice bar; so all 7 of us decided to get a couple of
drinks and some food to re-fuel after a long, hot morning. The remainder of the afternoon was pretty
chilled out and we decided to treat ourselves to another Steak-fest at a
restaurant recommended by several people called ‘La Cabrera’. This has been pitched to me as one of the
best Steaks you will ever eat, and having had a few crackers in the past
(namely from my favourite restaurant ever; Gaucho) it had a lot of competition
to get out of the way. We went along
with Matt who we’d met earlier and after being told the wait will be about
45mins we skulked off to a quirky - to say the least - bar next door until
called. Right so, with eyes bigger than
our bellies we tried ordering pretty much everything on the menu only to be
continuously told by the wait to stop ordering because there is far far too
much. Ok; let’s get to the steak. If I was going to have a steak that could
quite possibly be the best of my life, then it has to a big’un!! 800g Rump was the cut of choice; Medium –
blood, but pink, not red. Verdict:
EPIC!! Can’t quite say that it was the
best Steak I’ve ever had, but it is definitely in joint 1st
place!! Everything about the meal was
perfect and after sinking a few bottles of Red and the total bill coming to
just over £100, the three of us were more than satisfied and ready to pass
out... which is indeed what followed for the next 8 hours.
The following day, Kate had booked herself onto a Ranch tour
– which I decided to spend the money on Boca Junior tickets for Friday; for a
blow-out before leaving South America for another continent; so Matt and myself
headed into town to continue the theme of ‘culture’ by getting the bus into
Palermo and walking through the town, past the grand university building and up
to the Evita Museum. As museums go it
was pretty poor... was more of an extended wardrobe; but what it did well was
show the amount of work that she put in for the Argentinean people and how much
she contributed to their society. After the
depressing-ness of the museum (the last part was about her death and the way the
opposition treated her body) we took a stroll back towards the main station and
past the Giant Flower monument which is firstly huge! and secondly, closes up
at night.
The evening was a little less dignified... Having spend the best part of the day on the
ranch and was pretty drunk when we saw her, Kate decided an evening in was
probably best. Matt and I had met a
really cool Dutch guy called Mike; whose catchphrase seemed to be... (mother,
look away now) Rock out with your cock out!
Which was said approx. 20-30 times a day – and we headed back to the
Steak induced coma place; AKA Siga la Vaca.
Between us we did a pretty good job and I’d confidently say kept them in
business. Each of us had 3 plates of
meat (easily over 1kg each) as well as a jug of beer each... as well as
dessert!! I don’t think I’ve seen that
much meat, let alone eat it!!
That concludes the bulk of South America; but there are a
couple of other little gems waiting for ya in the next few posts!!!
x
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