San Telmo is a section of Buenos Aires which is especially famous for tango. It´s just outside the city centre, and we stayed here for 4 nights. But alas, we did not tango...instead, we did the reggae-tone beat til early hours of the morning in true Buenos Aires style for Jeb´s birthday. Buenos Aires really doesnt sleep and the action does not kick off til after midnight and in clubs it all starts happening about 3am. Gives a new meaning to the word siesta, and we have definitely settled into the routine of sleeping late as a result. Dinner also does not happen til after 9pm so an adjustment of the clock is necessary.
The drink of choice (ok, lets be honest...one of the drinks of choice) for the bday evening was Fernet which is a popular drink in these parts of the country. Medicinal tasting liquor, with a hint of mint and herbs and a strange aftertaste...the only thing i can compare to is jagermeister. But you drink this with Coke and people love it here. So when in rome...
On a Sunday in San Telmo, there are famous antique markets where people flock to snag a bargain and experience the area in its quaint glory. Antiques dont interest me much but it was cool to wander through the streets and check out very old chandeliers, paintings, vases, watches etc, and watch street perfomers and tango dancers do their stuff in the cobblestone streets.
Futbol is a phenomenom here in Argentina, and a item on our agenda, so Sunday we went to a Boca Juniors game which is the most popular team in the Argentinian leagure and home to the legendary Diego Maradona. The area of La Boca is actually very impoversihed and quite dangerous at night with some sketchy slums and favella areas. Tix are all reservered for members of the stadium and there are more members than tix. We had heard some horror stories of people getting robbed and riped off and i wasnt confident of my spanish to haggle with scalpers so we opted for a tour option where tix were guarenteed. Was truly an experience and the vivacious fans go absoultely nuts. A concrete stadioum felt like it was moving amid the continous cheers, songs, jumping and dancing. Very squishy and packed but dry at least considering it was pouring rain and alot of people werent so lucky being under cover. Boca won 3-1 with all the action happening in the last half...very cool, glad we got to experience one of the most craziest futbol teams in the world in their home stadium.
But enough of Buenes Aires...we felt like we had seen everything and wanted to get out of the main city. BA is great but with its European architecture and big city feel, we wanted to move on to more Andean and inigenous areas. So on a bus today to Rosario which is still a major city north west of BA, but we on the move north. The seats on the bus for this 4 hour trip were awesome and they were only a`semicama´. This means you gets snacks, lunch, your seat fully reclines with lots of space and it comfy. For the next class up and not much more money, you can fully lay flat in the bus and sleep like a baby. We are heading to Iguazu Falls on Thursday in this kinda seating which is greta becuase its about 18 hours or so.
Thats definitely enough from me now...ciao x
Showing posts with label tango. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tango. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Buenos Aires
Day 5 in Buenos Aires and we are starting to get the hangs of things over here. The first 3 nights we stayed in the city centre and wandered around checking out the architecture, Recoleta cemetary (where Argentian aristocrats and Evita is buried) and other key sights (will post photos of places later, but can´t download straight from camera to blog or flikr - or can i? If anyone knows, please email me. For now, i will be posting pics in bulk every couple of weeks). So for now, you just get some idle ramble and thoughts about BA from me.
And what better way to start than beer. The local beer is called Quilmes and its good. You can buy it for 4 pesos from the Supermercado (my new favourite word, but even better is the `Disco Supermercado´ which is like a chain of supermarkets over here). To clarify folks, thats about $2 aussie dollars for 650ml. Needless to say, Jeb is happy about that! Another cheap success story has been steak. Massive cuts of meat and its available everywhere. Without understanding a word of the menu on our 2nd night, we were served this fantastic steak and salad meal which costs about $10 each. Bueno! But not all things are so cheap, for example, accomodation is probably double what it said in the guidebook. This is not helped by the global financial crisis and the fall of the aussie dollar. Lots of things are in US dollars for comparison purposes, so we are paying a bit more than expected but all good and this is probably going to be the most expensive city on our travels anyway.
Yesterday we took the subway to an area called Palermo which is a leafy neighbourhood on the city fringe filled with huge parks, and lots of resturants, bars and cafes. A shop sign described it perfectly - bougeouis bohemian. The area is trendy with a fantastic weekend market where i wanted to buy everything i saw. It reminds me of a cross between Surry Hills, Paddington and some northern city suburb. On the other end of Palermo are grand, ornate consulate buildings and wealthy residences where ladies walk their designer dogs but with less pretensiousness than other cities.
My Spanish is improving every day, or at least i am getting more confident. I am also now tutoring Jeb with 2 new words or phrases a day, and he is an a great student. After some very confusing language experiences (especially on the bus...argghh!!), we are practising with each other and looking at the phrasebook frequently so will continue to improve.
Last night it stormed and rained heavily and being a Sunday today, most things are closed (perhaps as it´s the Sabbath in this Catholic dominant country). Feeling vegie deficient already in this land of meat, potato and cheese, we cooked a vegie stirfry last night despite struggling to find any kind of asian sauce or soy to cook it with. Tonight we are back to steak before leaving tommorrow to get the ferry to Uruguay and spend a couple of days there. Hopefully the rain will pass and we will come back to BA for tango, antique markets and a La Boca futball (soccer) game next weekend.
And what better way to start than beer. The local beer is called Quilmes and its good. You can buy it for 4 pesos from the Supermercado (my new favourite word, but even better is the `Disco Supermercado´ which is like a chain of supermarkets over here). To clarify folks, thats about $2 aussie dollars for 650ml. Needless to say, Jeb is happy about that! Another cheap success story has been steak. Massive cuts of meat and its available everywhere. Without understanding a word of the menu on our 2nd night, we were served this fantastic steak and salad meal which costs about $10 each. Bueno! But not all things are so cheap, for example, accomodation is probably double what it said in the guidebook. This is not helped by the global financial crisis and the fall of the aussie dollar. Lots of things are in US dollars for comparison purposes, so we are paying a bit more than expected but all good and this is probably going to be the most expensive city on our travels anyway.
Yesterday we took the subway to an area called Palermo which is a leafy neighbourhood on the city fringe filled with huge parks, and lots of resturants, bars and cafes. A shop sign described it perfectly - bougeouis bohemian. The area is trendy with a fantastic weekend market where i wanted to buy everything i saw. It reminds me of a cross between Surry Hills, Paddington and some northern city suburb. On the other end of Palermo are grand, ornate consulate buildings and wealthy residences where ladies walk their designer dogs but with less pretensiousness than other cities.
My Spanish is improving every day, or at least i am getting more confident. I am also now tutoring Jeb with 2 new words or phrases a day, and he is an a great student. After some very confusing language experiences (especially on the bus...argghh!!), we are practising with each other and looking at the phrasebook frequently so will continue to improve.
Last night it stormed and rained heavily and being a Sunday today, most things are closed (perhaps as it´s the Sabbath in this Catholic dominant country). Feeling vegie deficient already in this land of meat, potato and cheese, we cooked a vegie stirfry last night despite struggling to find any kind of asian sauce or soy to cook it with. Tonight we are back to steak before leaving tommorrow to get the ferry to Uruguay and spend a couple of days there. Hopefully the rain will pass and we will come back to BA for tango, antique markets and a La Boca futball (soccer) game next weekend.
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