Buenos Aires (Argentina) - Week 18

16th - 18th January


No more Central America!! We arrived in Buenos Aires about 6am and headed straight for the 20p (for two people!!) 2hr bus ride into the city centre. No hostel booked so we winged it and went to the first one on our list Che Legarto, in San Telmo. They had space - phew. After putting our bags down we got that morning´s free breakfast, ham, cheese and baguette with coffee with 10 mins to spare before breakfast was over. Afterwards we went for an explore with the end goal being an all-you-can-eat buffet (tenedor libre) recommended in the book - Gran Victoria. The food was really good considering the buffet cost 2 quid each. We had grilled beef shoulder and chicken, loads of tasty salad, lasagne and chinese. The city was very hot (33C and 80% humidity) for exploring but we headed down to the newly renovated dock area for a looksey. After just a couple of hours sleep on the flight that wiped us out so we headed back to a cinema we had found that had a deal for two films back-to-back for 1.13 quid per person. After watching the first film (The Departed) we started to watch the second film (All the Kings Men) and gave up due to tiredness and the naff southern american accents. We headed back to the hostel for a crap nights sleep with drunken idiots coming into the dorm room every half hour or so...



Next day we looked round the main plaza, Plaza de Mayo, where the Catheral and Goverment buildings are. One building, Casa Rosada, had the famous balcony where Eva Peron made her speech.

Plaza de Mayo

Statue of Christopher Columbus behind Casa de Rosa

Next we got rudely spoken to by the staff at Teatro Colon who basicaly just laughed at Katie for no reason when she asked when the theatre would be reopened after renovations. The Buenos Aires men can be wierd, rude and annoying, most are okay but some... We thought food was in order so went to Guerrin´s, a traditional cafe that hadn´t changed for 80 odd years. After a massive meal of pizza and ascado (beef shoulder BBQ´d) and a bottle of good wine for 2 quid. Next up was a subway ride back to San Telmo and a little square, Plaza Dorrego, for a couple of beers. As we sat there a couple perfomed a Tango and a traditional dance.

We headed back to the hostel for while and then headed out to a historic cafe, Cafe Tortoni. This place had barely changed in over a hundred years, with lots of famous writers and polititions frequenting the place over the years. After another bottle of wine we spotted an Irish bar on the walk back. The temptation of Guiness to James was too much after 4 months so we stayed for three and a hangover for Katie next day!!

Cafe Tortoni

The last day in Buenos Aires we thought we should check out the Evita angle so we headed to Recoleta Cemitary to see where Evita was buried. It was a very eirie place with lots of mausoleams with visible cofins.

One mausoleam was the burial place a young girl who fist time she was buried was actually in a coma and not dead as they thought. She banged so hard on her coffin that workers at the cemetary heard the noise and let her out!!

Also we saw one of the dragons from the Dragon´s Den on BBC2. He was a bit of a twit, as we overheard him say "...when you´re in business as long as me you tend get a bit cynical..." Dickhead.

Avenida 9 de Julio, the world's widest street

This is just a tiny part of Buenos Aires - we are going back for another week (and a Boca Juniors football match!) later in the trip...

Books we read: On Beauty, Zadie Smith