We flew into Buenos Aires and decided that a US$40 taxi ride
to our accommodation was a little on the steep side, so decided an adventure on
the local bus and then tube would be far more fun and cheaper – it only cost us
US$1.50 for both! After quite a long journey we arrived at the loveliest
B&B! Our room was large, had an amazing modern bathroom (which meant you
could actually flush the toilet paper down the loo!) and later we would find
out, a really great breakfast too!
We were keen for an early night as a long day of walking was
in store for us!
 |
| Congress Building |
We had heard about a company doing free walking tours of the
city and were keen to join! We met our tour leader in one of the squares in
front of the Congress Building – rather impressive – and headed down one of the
main roads that connects the Congress Building to the other presidential
office, the Casa Rosada or pink house in English. A lot of history and politics was explained on
this tour, all super interesting! What
Evita did, what happened after she died, how for 8 years Argentina had a
terrible dictator and how thousands of people went missing and were killed in
that time. All the while still passing amazing buildings, famous coffee houses (Café
Tortoni), as well as an Obelisk symbolising hope for the future and where they
celebrate their successes.
 |
| The Obelisk |
 |
| Casa Rosada |
After the walking tour we decided to do a tour of the Casa
Rosada – the actual building where the president has its office. Now it’s
famous because it’s painted pink and because Evita delivered famous speeches to
the crowds from one of the balconies. Well, being an Evita fan, there was no way we
were going to miss this tour and get a chance to stand on that very same
balcony! Pretty interesting tour – very ornate building and we were even
allowed into the current president’s (who happens to be a woman called
Christina) actual office! Bizarre – the White House definitely doesn’t do that!
Haha!
 |
| The view from Evita's balcony |
We continued to walk around the city, managed to do a little
window shopping and then carried on sight seeing the streets of BA – one lovely
thing about Buenos Aires are its parks. Hundreds of them and so green and lush!
One not so lovely thing… a lot of dogs and a lot of doggy doo on the pavements
to match!
That evening we had a picnic dinner with some red wine,
sitting outside at our lovely, quiet B&B. A very relaxing end to a long
day.
Sunday mornings are known for the Antiques Market that
happens in San Telmo, the suburb we were staying in. The one very long street
is crowded with people and stalls, all the way up to Dorega Square where the
market continues. Such lovely antiques, art, food and things to buy! We ended
up buying some great photographs taken of the city. In the heat, an ice cold
beer on the square was so needed! We
also happened to bump into a couple folk that we had met back in Bolivia!
 |
| Vintage soda bottles for sale |
 |
| Some more antiques for sale at the market |
 |
| Tango in Dorega Square |
We headed back home only to come back via the same Dorega
Square on our way out to dinner, to find the entire square being transformed
into tango city! All the stalls had been dismantled and a dance floor full of
dancers dancing the tango there instead. Fairy lights in the trees and loads of
dancers, young and old, experienced to not so experienced tangoed away. It was
quite funny to see, some ladies in heels looking quite the part whereas some
beginners in takkies and baseball caps trying to master the art. We sadly had
just missed the pro’s giving the crowd a demonstration.
That evening, famished from a lot of walking, we headed to a
restaurant called Siga la Vaca which literally means “follow the cow”. An all
you can eat meat buffet! We certainly followed the cow that eve, with 9 pieces
of steak (of various cuts) between us! A little more quantity then quality we’d
say, but fun nonetheless! We thought the bottle of wine per person was a pretty
enticing deal too! haha!
 |
| Steak number 5! |
On the way home we decided since home was a fair walk away,
a taxi, our first would be great. Getting into the car, the metre in the taxi
already read 6 pesos, with my guide book instructing me to question this and
ensure the metre starts at zero, I politely tried to question the taxi driver.
Well the minute I pointed to the metre reader, he slammed on breaks and clearly
comes from Italian blood – lots of gesticulating and raised voice – kind of
scary. Derek tried to defuse the situation and in a couple minutes we were back
on our way home. The thoughts of taxi driver dumping us in a bad neighbourhood
or worse, chopping us up somewhere sprang to both our minds! We got home safe
and relieved to be out of the car!
The next morning we headed out to explore Palermo and some
of the boutique stores that lined the streets. Unfortunately it was a public
holiday and so none of the shops were open. An old lady walked towards us gesticulating
and saying “Todos Cerrado!” meaning everything is closed. This summed up our
morning, but we ventured on through the streets and all the way along Avenue Liberatador
through the suburb of Recoletta. We were really heading for the San Martin
square as we wanted to do the BA Free Walking tour of Retiro and Recoletta as well
because we had heard this was different from the tour we did on Saturday
morning. As we were waiting for the tour it started raining pretty hard and we
needed to run for cover. We were sceptical that the tour was going to happen at
all because of the public holiday, but just as we were deciding to leave we
spotted a group led by a green shirt and luckily the tour went ahead.
 |
| Little Ben in Buenos Aires, a gift from the English |
 |
| The streets of Retiro, some amazingly beautiful architecture |
Sol was our guide for the afternoon, also a Porteno she was charismatic
and entertained us for nearly 3 hours. She took us around the San Martin square
and then through the Retiro area down some of the most affluent streets in BA.
There are these amazing old family “homes” (more like massive mansions), there
used to be hundreds but only 32 remain in BA and she took us past about 10
telling us stories about each of them.
 |
| One of the old mansions, now the Park Hyatt Hotel |
When we reached this one street she told us that there are a
lot of people in BA who have had plastic surgery and this was because a lot of
the medical aid plans have plastic surgery as an option every two years. So she
gave us the code word for someone that had had plastic surgery: a lion! And
then anytime we passed someone she would say: “look there’s a lion”. As we were
started down the street she said: “Let’s go on our safari!” We loved it. The
tour finished in a park next to the Recoletta Cemetery and before we left she
told us the story of Eva Peron’s grave in the cemetery. We were going to visit
the cemetery on our own on Wednesday. This tour was also great and we learned
more about the history and culture of the people than on the morning tour. It
was a very interesting and worthwhile experience.
On our way home we had to stop past Volta ice cream, Tess
had heard or read that it was the best ice cream in BA. The ice cream was great
and we strolled up Santa Fe street looking at the shops and then through a
lovely park on our way to the tube.
The next day we were off to Polo Elite where they would
teach us to play polo and then we would be able to watch a practise match that
our teacher would be playing in. Fernando picked us and Lucas, our Aussie
company for the day, up not far from where we lived. An hour’s drive away we
arrived at the polo estate and got ourselves kitted up and ready to go learn
some polo. It was good that we had all ridden before so Fernando could get
right down to teaching us the basics of polo rather than teaching us to ride.
In no time we were walking, trotting and cantering our way up and down the
field hitting the ball. Fernando was our backstop and would ride behind us and
every time we missed the ball instead of us stopping he just hit it back in
front of us so we could carry on.
After about an hour he said that we should take a break and
have some lunch, a simple yet delicious meal. He offered us some wine and thinking
that our polo was done, iIwas quite keen on a glass or 2. Only after the wine,
he told us that we would be going back out there to play a chukka, just the 4
of us in a small area. Between lunch and the afternoon session we got a chance
to relax at the pool for an hour or so, soaking our already tired limbs from
the morning session and getting ourselves ready for the afternoon.
Lucas and I were
going to take on Tess and Fernando. The one good thing was that Fernando said
he couldn’t score, otherwise we would have been beaten very easily. When we got
to the field he taught us a few of the rules of polo and gave us a few tips on how
to defend and then we started our little game. The game was a little slow as we
struggled to come to terms with the whole cantering, hitting, defending and trying
to score goals thing, but we really loved it. It’s actually really hard work!
No, not just for the horses, but for us too!. All our limbs were going to be
sore the next day. The practise match where Fernando was going to show us some
of his stuff on a full size field started and didn’t last long before the rain
poured down that sent us, all the players and grooms alike scurrying for the
stables. End of polo for the day was what Fernando had said as it started and
he was very right.
When we got back to BA we headed out for dinner to La
Cabrera, one of the famous Argentine steak restaurants. Unfortunately it was in
Palermo and it was raining really hard! Not to be deterred, we jumped on the
tube and went in search of our restaurant. On the way from the tube we got wet
again, but we had made it and our table was still there even though we were a
little late. We had one of the large steaks to share (the one we had was 600g,
but you can get them up to 800g). We had a lovely evening and were really happy
to have gone to a quality restaurant after the quantity of Siga la Vaca. This
time the cab ride home was a little less eventful than 2 evenings before.
Our final full day in BA was fun. On our way to the
Recoletta Cemetery we passed an amazing ice-cream place we’d been recommended.
Passing it seemed like too much of a waste and although it was only 3 hours
after breakfast, we went in, sat down in this café, Derek ordered a coffee and
me, the most amazing, delicious, smoothest ice-cream ever! It is homemade every
day, with no additives and all that bad stuff and you can taste it! The whole
experience was great, the waiters in cute uniforms, ice-cream served in glass bowls
with real teaspoons – just so grand! The highlights started early that day!
 |
| Ice cream to die for!!! |
As we arrived at the Recoletta Cemetery, Derek spotted
camera crews and in no time we spotted Phil, the presenter of The Amazing Race
( one of my favourite shows ever!) It was so exciting! After our wander around
the cemetery we spotted a couple contestants being interviewed for the show and
heard one of the girls complain about the 18hour bus ride they had just had to
endure! We laughed – we’d definitely been there and done that!
 |
| The Amazing Race crew |
Now the Recoletta Cemetery is truly worth seeing. Everyone
goes to see Evita’s tombstone and expects it to be like the monstrous, huge,
massively ornate, almost house-like looking tombs that are abundant in the
cemetery. However, hers is fairly simple in comparison and the reason being
that she’s buried together with her father’s family ( Duarte, who never quite
acknowledged his daughter until she became famous) as Peron her husband died
before he could arrange burial arrangements in his family plot - ok, there’s an even longer history
explanation, but I won’t bore you now!
 |
| One of the most amazing tombs in the Recoletta cemetery |
But the cemetery was quite something to see! The money these
families must have spent to create such tombs is incredible, as are the hugely
ornate coffins you can see sitting inside them! Bit creepy.
Anyways, we then had a really long walk up to Palermo - a great neighbourhood and luckily we found
all the cool shops everyone had told us about.
Clothes are seriously pricey in Argentina, but it was still fun to look
at all they had to offer. The whole neighbourhood was lovely – green and leafy
and fairly quiet, yet loads of shops to choose from. Think an ideal shopping
spot if you are a Porteno, pronounced portenyo – a native of Buenos Aires
City. It’s quite funny to ask an
Argentine what they think of poteno’s! Not the most positive response, claiming
they are rather snobby!
 |
| Us in our booth for the show. Very romantic! |
We got back to our B&B in time for a quick shower and
then headed to our meeting spot for our pick up to Esquina de Carlos Gardel –
our tango show. Carlos Gardel was a famous tango singer when he was still
alive. We arrived, a little underdressed compared to the many elderly and distinguished
patrons, but hey, you got to use what you have so jeans were the order of the
day! We got taken to our seat, a very romantic semi-circle booth for just us
two where our waiter Raul took our order for our 3 course meal before the show
began! Good meal, lots of vino and Tango show together with the live orchestra started.
A great mix of entertainment which included singers and various different types
of tango – some very gymnastic which was pretty impressive! It was certainly a
very traditional Argentine thing to see and a great way to end our stay in
Buenos Aires.
 |
| The orchestra for the evening |
The next morning after some breakfast, we made our way to
the bus station for our trip to the North, our last stop on Argentine soil,
Iguazu Falls.
