touch from home (for my dad)

Sunday 31August (2nd day) - center (San Telmo)

Just south of the Plaza de Mayo there is a neighbourhood called San Telmo. It is made of smaller streets and on Sundays it is packed with a street market of all sorts of things, some very nice, some quite typical. It was also of course packed with tourists!

It is quite a nice place with cobbled floors and little shops, and people going around selling sandwiches, empanadas, tea/coffee (carrying a whole trolley full of flasks, of the type that you would yourself take to a picnic). Buenos Aires seems quite a nice place for markets. I have seen a few so far (of course it is the weekend here). You also find a lot of music outside, and in this case some Tango shows on the street!

After this walk (again quite long) I headed back to the tube and to my little corner of BA where I bought some empanadas and enormous alfajores (sandwich made of biscuit and dulce de leche, covered with chocolate). I then proceeded to sit in a park with a Starbucks tea and my alfajor. The park was packed with people, families and youngsters... I thought it was quite touching that I stayed for like an hour with some dad and his girl hitting me repeatedly with a football while they played (in their defines it was mainly the girl...). It seems these things don't change!

Tonight I am having empanadas and wine... :)

Sunday, 31 August (2nd day!) - the center (Plaza de Mayo)

Hello Again!!

Today was my first proper day in Buenos Aires... I am trying to set my good self into holiday mode so today I "forced" myself to stay sleeping till late. I think I must have woken up at 10:30!!! And I went to bed early last night as was really tired...

After that I decided to go for brunch and get out into the city. Brunch didn't go very well. Streets look very small in the map but this place is quite big, and also, the places that seem very good in the Lonely Planet guide, tend to no longer exist!! So basically I ended up going up and down for an hour without getting any food in... I am being quite hungry in this trip for some reason... In the end I went into a "Dia" and bought some fruit and some biscuits and had some of that. I must say my knee is not doing too well so every hour or so I have to sit down and let it rest for a bit, oh god am going old...

Then proceeded to take the tube (Subte) to the center. Buenos Aires has a simple tube system with 5-6 lines. It seems to work ok so am quite happy. Yesterday I even bought myself the BA version of the Oyster card loaded with 50 pesos. Which at around 5 pesos per trip (50 cents) will get me around for the whole trip! The trains themselves are quite shabby and there is a lot of people going around selling bits and pieces or singing etc.
(pic of map)

I went to the center. The square of May/Plaza de Mayo. Around there I could see the Casa Rosada (Pink House), which is the main presidential building (where the lady president has her offices), the cathedral and the Cabildo.
(pic of plaza and cathedral)

I went into the Casa Rosada and they have this hour long free tours of the house, which was quite good. A very nice lady guide showed us the place and told us a little about it. See below some pictures of:
Salon Azul (Blue room, where they receive visits from outside)

Salon Blanco (White room)

Balcony from where the presidents used to speak to their people

Corridor of fame (grrr)
(pics)
Piece of on of the flags raised in the Faulklands (jijj)
(pics)
Some other bits and pieces

It is a pity that they wouldn't let us take pics of the presidential office itself, although they did allow us in briefly.
It is funny because there is (understandably) a lot of stuff about the independance still now. I feel a bit bad for being spanish... (not really)

30 August, Arrival to Buenos Aires

Post 1

So, I got to Buenos Aires today, precisely at 8 in the morning. I cannot complain much about the flight really. I got the best seat I could get in tourist (front row, no one in front of me so full leg space), and I must have slept for a lot of hours because in a 13 hour flight I watched a film, dozed off and when I decided to check the remaining flight time there was 1 hour and a half to go! BTW I watch Labour Day in the plane and actually liked it a lot!!

I spoke a bit to the guy sitting next to be before we landed and got some practical bits of info in terms of how to get to the center (he did offer me a lift half way but I thought my mother would kill me for that one) and where to get money (best is to get it on the street, getting 13-14 pesos per dollar, which gives you around 60% more than in the bank!!). 

So getting to the city went quite smoothly via taking a bus for around 140 pesos. It was an interesting system they have there. You go and ask about where you want to go, actually giving the lady at the airport desk the address. Then you jump on the usual big bus and this takes you to a centric location, where the company has their own terminal (in Retiro). From there, you jump of this bus and as passengers with similar destinations arrive they group you and pack you in a small van which takes you, one by one, to the chosen addresses. All this with the upmost efficiency! So I ended up with a middle aged Argentinian lady who came from Spain, a French guy who lived in Buenos Aires and an odd-looking fur-clad old lady who didn’t seem to know too well where she was going (but did get there in the end). In the end it was an interesting trip, as the very nice middle aged lady informed us (me and the french guy) of where we should definitely-definately go to learn tango… (apparently a place called La Viruta would do the trick for beginners…). After this I ended up safely in front of my hotel. Of course too early to check in but good enough to leave my bag. And off I went for the first roam around Buenos Aires. 

I am staying in Palermo as per the recommendation of a couple of friends. So I headed towards the Plaza de Italia and a few green spaces around there including a zoo, a botanical garden, a Japanese garden and one called the 3^rd of July. 

This last one seems to be quite popular for locals (understandable as it was a Saturday morning) who were in their most sporty selves doing rowing, skating, cycling and best of all I saw a big bunch of them, jumping up and down following the step of a lycra-clad lady with the aid of serious music… (see video). 

(video)

It was quite nice to go for a quiet stroll (with the exception of the aerobic of course) as I was rather knackered from the crouching position within the aeroplane (best-seat or not). 

From there I headed to the Recoleta, a posh barrio, and its famous grave yard where among others I saw the grave of Evita.

So, what is my first take of Buenos Aires? I think I am feeling strangely at home. I mean once you get past the first, mnnn, what am I doing here? I have come to feel really more at home than I have felt for quite a while. Everything seems very familiar. Buildings are kind of the same as in Madrid, cars and traffic follow the same untidiness, Spanish is all around, people are loud and happy… Of course it is slightly different, may be a little bit wider and a bit more run down in places, but really the atmosphere is not that different than in my home town…

Only problem is I am already seeing the food turning into an issue as, as per my usual thing, I tend to leave it and leave it and leave it, and end up eating a crappy little thing like a little alfajor with some tea (with which to be fair I had been dreaming since I landed). 

The problem is that instead of having it for breakfast as per my initial intention I had it past lunch time when I was almost fainting and really I should have been eating something proper.

It is always a bit of a hussel eating when going around and alone. Tonight I am ashamed to say I had a sandwich in Starbucks… but don’t worry I will get to the steak and wine at some point soon….

One odd thing is that I swear I saw the guy from the plane go by an hour or so ago when I was walking around Palermo. In a city of millions, what are the chances of meeting the same guy twice???

Wellcome!!

Dear all,

so, new year, new trip!

Given that I am a Spanish speaker, I was feeling a bit ashamed that I had not, until this moment, seen pretty much anything of South America. This led me to focus this years holiday trip here.

The trip will last from tomorrow, the 29th of August, until the 16th of September. Yep! 2 weeks and a half that I feel I have earned dearly lately...

Here goes my itinerary, for anyone's curiosity and of course for my mum....

30th Aug - 01 Sept Buenos Aires
01 Sept flight to Mendoza
01 Sept - 04 Sept Mendoza (hopefully sipping some wine)
04 Sept bus to Santiago de Chile
04 Sept - 08 Sept Santiago and surroundings (I am a bit unclear here but looking into visiting Santiago, Valparaiso, Vina del Mar ...)
08 Sept flight to Punta Arenas
08 Sept Punta Arenas & bus to Puerto Natales
09 Sept - 11 Sept Puerto Natales (Parque Nacional Torres de Paine and around)
11 Sept bus to El Calafate y Perito Moreno
12 Sept flight to Ushuaia
12 Sept Ushuaia and around
13 Sept flight to Buenos Aires
13 Sept - 16 Sept Buenos Aires
16 Sept flight home!