Thursday, October 20, 2005
South America Trip - Day 2 Buenos Aires
Breakfast is provided at the hostel so we popped down at 9 to have some breads and fruits. The dining area is lovely as you can look up past the other floors to the sky light above, there is artwork on the walls and hanging plants on each floor.
There is a free walking tour, with a dude called Nacho, provided by the hostel so we took advantage. We started by taking a bus (go figure) to La Boca. This is a more blue collar area. There were tango dancers in the street having their photos taken with tourists. They would have also launched into some dancing but we weren´t around for that. There were also market stalls with pictures of tango dancers and other crafts related to tango. The buildings with bright and colourfully painted corrugated iron walls and there is also a football (a big passion for the Argentinians) stadium. The hostel also provides free Spanish and tango lessons, visits to see a football match, and other events in the evening. It has a great atmosphere and is maintained with lovely small touches. The dorms surround a central open section with a sky light at the top and there is a great bar and open top/balcony area on the top floor floor.
After walking around La Boca we walked to San Telmo. This area seems to be the main antiques district. I think it also has many tango bars and great steak restaurants. Well as they say "When in Rome". We have been told that the steaks in Argentina are the best in the world so we went to a restaurant that Nacho recommended. The steak was juicy but didn´t induce me to want to go back to eating meat. The best cut cost 12 pesos which is about 6 NZ dollars! After lunch we went on a tour of a building that was excavated for commercial purpose but became an archealogical site as evidence of the founding of Buenos Aires was found underneath. This was evidence of the original creeks that ran through the original city carrying disease and general filth around it. It was very interesting to learn more about the history of the area. There were settlers mostly from Spain, Italy and France. In fact Buenous Aires is called the Paris of South America (Joseph may have mentioned this before). The buildings are very beautiful as they are decorated with intricate designs similar to those found on the buildings in Europe. Apparently in the past the Argentinians thought they were a cut above the other South Americans. After the tour we walked to the main square where the Congress and other major government buildings are. An election is on in the weekend so there were many rallies.
In the evening we waited for a wine tasting however it did not go ahead as we needed to book into it. We went instead to have some pizza and beer. The restaurant was right by the busiest road so it was very noisy. The traffic is very dense here which causes a lot of noise pollution. There are a few main streest which are very wide (around seven lanes either way!) but the other roads are quite narrow.
The main event of the evening was our visit to Cafe Tortoni. This is a famous restaurant where the rich and famous used to go in the old days. It indeed was a reminder of the lavish old days when Argentina was a thriving country. We saw some wonderful musicians, singers and of course tango dancers. It was kind of like a music hall performance. The performers where very professional however the real passion of tango didn´t quite show through. Apparently you can go to places where the locals all get up and dance and you get a real feel of a 1920´s dance hall. Unfortunately we won´t have time to visit these places as they are a little further out, carry on late into the night and we have to get up early to catch our flight to Iguazu. I´m happy with the little taste we got. Joy was lucky enough to attend a tango lesson at the hostel.
There is a free walking tour, with a dude called Nacho, provided by the hostel so we took advantage. We started by taking a bus (go figure) to La Boca. This is a more blue collar area. There were tango dancers in the street having their photos taken with tourists. They would have also launched into some dancing but we weren´t around for that. There were also market stalls with pictures of tango dancers and other crafts related to tango. The buildings with bright and colourfully painted corrugated iron walls and there is also a football (a big passion for the Argentinians) stadium. The hostel also provides free Spanish and tango lessons, visits to see a football match, and other events in the evening. It has a great atmosphere and is maintained with lovely small touches. The dorms surround a central open section with a sky light at the top and there is a great bar and open top/balcony area on the top floor floor.
After walking around La Boca we walked to San Telmo. This area seems to be the main antiques district. I think it also has many tango bars and great steak restaurants. Well as they say "When in Rome". We have been told that the steaks in Argentina are the best in the world so we went to a restaurant that Nacho recommended. The steak was juicy but didn´t induce me to want to go back to eating meat. The best cut cost 12 pesos which is about 6 NZ dollars! After lunch we went on a tour of a building that was excavated for commercial purpose but became an archealogical site as evidence of the founding of Buenos Aires was found underneath. This was evidence of the original creeks that ran through the original city carrying disease and general filth around it. It was very interesting to learn more about the history of the area. There were settlers mostly from Spain, Italy and France. In fact Buenous Aires is called the Paris of South America (Joseph may have mentioned this before). The buildings are very beautiful as they are decorated with intricate designs similar to those found on the buildings in Europe. Apparently in the past the Argentinians thought they were a cut above the other South Americans. After the tour we walked to the main square where the Congress and other major government buildings are. An election is on in the weekend so there were many rallies.
In the evening we waited for a wine tasting however it did not go ahead as we needed to book into it. We went instead to have some pizza and beer. The restaurant was right by the busiest road so it was very noisy. The traffic is very dense here which causes a lot of noise pollution. There are a few main streest which are very wide (around seven lanes either way!) but the other roads are quite narrow.
The main event of the evening was our visit to Cafe Tortoni. This is a famous restaurant where the rich and famous used to go in the old days. It indeed was a reminder of the lavish old days when Argentina was a thriving country. We saw some wonderful musicians, singers and of course tango dancers. It was kind of like a music hall performance. The performers where very professional however the real passion of tango didn´t quite show through. Apparently you can go to places where the locals all get up and dance and you get a real feel of a 1920´s dance hall. Unfortunately we won´t have time to visit these places as they are a little further out, carry on late into the night and we have to get up early to catch our flight to Iguazu. I´m happy with the little taste we got. Joy was lucky enough to attend a tango lesson at the hostel.
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