Buenos Aires

Hola!

The last post I wrote finished in Buenos Aires, a city which I knew literally nothing about but had booked to stay in for 7 nights. 

My first day there was pretty much taken up by sleeping off the exhaustion of the 22 hour (possibly longer) bus journey it had taken to get there. That evening I met ANOTHER Dutch girl called Dilan and we went for dinner and decided to join the party at the hostel which ended in a huge open air night club. Unfortunately I couldn’t muster the energy to stay for sunrise but was pretty impressed by my effort nonetheless. The next day Dilan and I went to the weekend market in the San Telmo district. I ate an absolutely delicious pizza in the indoor area of the market, which reminded me a lot of markets in London. 

The street market stretched for what seemed like miles and sold everything from shoes to antiques to musical instruments so we spent a couple of hour browsing and enjoying the atmosphere.

That evening I had a bottle of delicious Argentinian Malbec on the roof of the hostel with two English boys who were in my dorm room. We ended up going to the classy Palermo district for drinks and some food, and after accepting that no clubs were open on a Sunday night, decided to come back to the hostel. The next day I spent relaxing and joined others from the hostel that night to watch the famous La Bomba De Tiempo which is another huge open air venue with a 15 person drum band who improvise amazing music to a very lively crowd. The description of this doesn’t do the actual event justice, I had such a brilliant time there and recommend it to anyone going to Buenos Aires! 

One of the best things about it was that it finishes at 10pm, so I got my first decent bedtime since arriving in the city! This early(ish) night meant that I could make the most of the following day and that morning I set off to the Recoleta Cemetery, famous for being very decedent and the final resting place of Eva Perón (more famously known as Evita). I loved peacefully strolling through the lavish vaults but at times there would be something that would send a shiver up your spine, such as a open vault door or an old coffin on show. 

I walked back through the city, through some of the many parks and past gorgeous buildings which reminded me a lot of Paris or London. The city itself has a very European feel to it as many of the inhabitants descend from European immigrants who arrived in the city when the economy was particularly strong, mainly from Italy, France and Spain. That evening the hostel had organised a free Tango class, which I took part in and managed not to step on any toes! 

The next day I went on a walking tour of the Boca area of the city, a completely different side of Buenos Aires. Boca is famous for a few things, being the birthplace of Tango, the many colourful houses and a world famous football team, which counts Tevez and Maradona as some of its past players. We walked around with our guide who told us that the houses may have originally been painted with paint stolen from the boats which came into port here to protect the wood from the elements.

The area itself feels very safe during the day but has a reputation for being dangerous at night and in the less popular streets. We had an incredible sandwich for lunch and then got to go inside the Boca stadium before heading back to the hostel. 

I met my new roommates that evening, two Spanish girls, Carla and Sara, who were living in London and got on with them instantly. The night we all decided to go out on a pub crawl that night with the hostel, which was great to get to know some of the other backpackers.

The next day I took the girls to San Telmo again for round two of that awesome pizza and we stopped off at Cafe Tortoni on the way back, a glamorous high-ceiling-ed coffee house which is famous for being the meeting place for many politicians, writers and artists in the past. 

On my penultimate day in the city I had grown to love I went to the bus terminal to book my bus to Brazil and then walked back to the hostel through more beautiful parks and streets. I met up with the Spanish girls and some others from the hostel in an area that reminded me a lot of London’s Southbank and we had a few beers, some heated but interesting debates and some delicious food. That night we went to Palermo again and found a really cool quirky bar which we stayed in and danced for a while. 

So there we have it, my time in Buenos Aires was full of meeting great people, partying and even fitting in some culture along the way. My next stop was Foz Do Iguazu in Brazil where I would be meeting Grant and starting my final two weeks on the trip, but I’ll fill you in on that next time :)

Thanks for reading!

Emma