Buenos Aires Pt3

Hi all,

31/07/09

Met a German in the morning who was stopping off in BA for a few days before going to Uruguay for a research placement. She was a bit nervous about walking around BA on her own so we struck out to La Boca for a walk around. It´s meant to be the working-class district of BA, and was certainly much more interesting, although I did get a lot of warnings to look after my stuff...mmm, safe. Had a look around the Boca Jnrs Stadium, that was quite impressive, but the best bit was certainly walking down one of the market streets there. All the buildings were painted different colours, most of the stalls were selling original artwork, and there was even a Maradonna look-a-like (sic) there that you could take a picture of - for a price of course! Needless to say, I declined the offer.

After that we caught a bus into town (the bus system here is extensive, but most bus stops don´t have the routes on, so unless you know it off by heart, you just jump on a bus and hope it goes the right way!) and walked around a bit more. I got an amazing steak and a litre of beer for GBP8.50 - this thing was atleast the size of my hand, and about an inch and a half thick, it was sooo good.

That night in the bar at the Hostel I met some more travellers, a Kiwi couple living in Australia, Phil and Irene, a British couple, Debbie and Elliot, A Swede, Bjorn, a pair of Brazilians, Carlos and John, and a Macedonian, Goran. We all sat around, drinking beer and playing pool on an absolutley awful pool table, the cue-ball has a chunk missing, and it the table itself rises and falls like a small mountain range!!

01/08/09

Went on a farm tour thing today, it cost 150pesos for the whole day, including food, thats just over GBP20. Can´t decide if it was worth it though. The coach took 3hours to get there, the first 1.5hours was spent driving round BA picking up other people. Once I was there I got to ride a horse, which was pretty fun, but it was more like a glorified pony ride really, my horse just followed the one infront, and that was it! After that was food, which was good! They BBQ everything here, so it was sausage, black pudding, chicken, and steak. Along with bread, salad and wine, good times. During lunch there was live music by the owner of the place and some traditional dancing too. The Goucho show after lunch was impressive, its a riding show displaying different skills and horse control. If the coach had gone straight there, I think I might have enjoyed it more, but as it was I lost an entire morning to sitting on a coach. There wasn´t any history of the farms of Argentina, or the Gouchos either, which was a real shame as they played a big roll in the initial setting up of the country.

Everyone that I was playing pool with yesterday went out for a meal in the evening, another huge and great steak for another rediculously cheap price! We hit up a Tango Show after, supposedly one of the best in the city, it was pretty poor though. 4 out of the 6 of us that went almost fell asleep, the dancers were an older couple who were pretty unimpressive. All in, atleast I can say I saw a tango show, I think thats the best thing about it...

02/08/09

Spent all day walking - 10hours in all! Left the Hostel early and went to a big flea market in San Telmo, spent a few hours walking around and just taking it in. San Telmo is very different again from the other parts of BA that I´ve seen. It´s the older part of the city crammed with quiter streets, little tat shops, and covered markets. Had a really good time just walking about and looking at all the rubbish you can buy!

Following that I walked all the way across town (its a big town) to check out Rocletta, the more up-market end of BA. Again, its a world apart from the other areas I´ve seen. Botique shops and posh restaurants everywhere. I checked out a small photography exhibition in the cultural centre which had some great photos but there were only 7 of them, which was a shame. There was a Star Wars exhibition there too that I wanted to go to, but the ques were massive!! Hit another market selling more variaties of crap - some genuine Argentinian stuff, and alot of rubbish. In the park in the middle of the market was a puppet show that was meant to be for kids, but there were more adults there! It was really relaxed, everyone was just sitting around drinking Maté (a tea that you share with friends) and enjoying the show. It could never happen in the UK, people would get drunk, shout abuse, and passout! The tree that I was leaning on to watch the show had 2 long pieces of cloth hanging from it that I didn´t notice at first, then a guy started climbing up them and doing acrobatics from them, it was amazing, think I got some good photos too.

(A note on the photos, these PC´s are quick and have USB ports, but, they don´t register anything that you plug in! No one here has been able to upload anything.)

Took a walk around a huge cemetery, each of the museliums (spelling??) was atleast 10ft tall, impressive structures. It isn´t as large as the one I went to in Habana, but because each of the structures is so big, its much easier to get lost in there, infact, I did for a while, but never mind! Went over to a huge sculpture next thats a giant flower made from steel and aluminium. The petals open and close with the sun, although unfortunatly its not solar operated as you would hope for something that works with the sun. Grabbed some dinner, jumped in the Subway to get home, I didn´t have anywhere near enough energy to walk all the way home. Managed about half a beer before I totally crashed out. I was in bed by about 21.30/22.00!

That brings us up-to-date, take it easy