For a football-loving fag-hag like me, the choice of entertainment for our first evening in Buenos Aires boded well for our stay - a choice between the first leg of the South American equivalent of the Champions League between Boca Juniors of Buenos Aires and Gremio of Brazil or an evening with Liza Minelli at the theatre two doors down from our hotel. Finances dictated that we opted for the football. The fanaticism of the supporters, the brilliance of the play and the excitement generated by a Boca victory meant that we did not regret our decision but I don´t think I am ever going to be able to go to a match again as nothing is going to quite live up to the buzz of watching that match in Argentina.
After Montevideo, Buenos Aires seemed like a proper grown-up city with broad avenues, hundreds of shops and enough traffic to make crossing the road an intimidating prospect. Our hotel was right in the centre, on the Avenida Corrientes - "Argentina´s Broadway" - and it was a gleaming, glistening conversion job staffed by bright young things in matching T-shirts, but I found myself hankering for the gently crumbling geriatric splendour of our hotel in Montevideo.
My banks in England decided to add some spice to our stay in Buenos Aires by suddenly suspecting that my cards had been filched by a fairly modest South American drug dealer and refusing to dispense any more money. It took a couple of days on the breadline and a couple of frantic phone calls to restore my access to funds and the money came too late for me to satisfy my long-suppressed urge to shop, but perhaps that is no bad thing after all.
In fact, the Inka taught me just how far you can get in Argentina without money with charm and a little bit of cheek. Our first freebie came on our second evening as we walked past one of the theatres near our hotel just as the audience was emerging for a sneaky fag during the interval of Dracula - The Musical. The Inka accosted two girls to ask them about the show on the grounds that we were contemplating buying tickets for the next evening´s performance. They were distinctly underwhelmed and said they were heading for home, so he asked if they could leave us their tickets and they did... We thoroughly enjoyed the slightly camp second half. It is clearly a bit of a cult musical as there was a solid bank of Goths sitting near us who sang along with all the songs and cheered rapturously every time Dracula flounced onto the stage.
Among our other successes we managed to snag some free licquor samples in a souvenir shop in San Telmo - the district of a thousand antique shops, then there was the free hot chocolate and biscuits we were rewarded with when we watched some Argentinian children saluting the flag on Argentina´s National Flag Day (yes, in keeping with tradition, the Argentinian leg of our trip also coincided with a fiesta). Believe me, the Argentinians take their flag seriously and the celebrations included a police band, a parade of vintage cars and a colourful craft fair.
The different quarters in Buenos Aires each have their own very distinct characters and we fell in love with one part in particular - La Boca - a poor neighbourhood with a reputation for being tough and best avoided at nights. At its heart is El Caminito ´a colourful street where all the buildings are painted in vibrant reds, blues, greens and yellows. It is down by the port and above it looms the stadium of the Boca Juniors football team - the team which nurtured the talents of Diego Maradona. In La Boca you cannot avoid reminders of the notorious "Hand of God" incident. Diego´s likeness is everywhere - he is part of the Holy Trinity of Argentina, along with Evita and the famous tango singer, Carlos Gardel. There is even a Maradona lookalike who loiters on the corner of El Caminito charging to have his picture taken with tourists.
We paid our respects to Evita at the cemetery in Recoleta. This "city of the dead" is imposing and the great and the good of Argentina attempt to outdo each other in death with their elaborate tombs. Evita´s grave is distinctly underwhelming compared to some of the other mausoleums, but it is the grave which every visitor gravitates towards.
As for the final member of the trinity, Senor Gardel, our finances meant that we couldn´t take in any of the highly priced tango shows, complete with dinner, but we did enjoy some spirited street performances. My favourite was when a dapper gentleman of about 80 swept a young woman off her feet outside one cafe and his sprightly performance put the professionals to shame.
Now, Argentinians have a reputation among other South Americans of being rather stuck-up and viewing themselves as superior to all comers. Walking the streets of the city and watching the well-dressed portenos going about their business, I could see where this idea comes from, but we made our first new friends of the trip in Argentina and it was all thanks to the Inka´s musical talent. One afternoon we were enjoying a glass of wine outside a cafe in La Boca when two musicians started to play - an accordeon player with very impressive dreadlocks and a lanky violinist. They played well and soon the Inka could not resist the urge to take out his Andean flute and join in. They attracted quite a crowd and the waitress from the cafe rewarded us with free wine. We went on to spend that evening and the next enjoying the company of our new friends from La Boca.
Although El Caminito is an unashamed tourist trp, it has managed to preserve a certain integrity and the natural friendly exuberance of its locals is a lot warmer and more inviting than the atmosphere in some of the more upmarket neighbourhoods.
Although there were many highlights to our stay in Buenos Aires, I was looking forward to the next leg of our trip - a visit to the heart of Argentina´s wine country - Mendoza. All the wine we sampled in Argentina had been excellent and I couldn´t wait to visit some of the wineries and perhaps buy a bottle for my birthday, but then all our plans were upset by snow in the mountains.
When we arrived in Mendoza, we learnt that no buses had been travelling to Chile via the route we planned to take for several days because of snow and there was no way of knowing when this situation would change. This left us with the uninviting prospect of waiting around indefinitely/entering Chile by the southern route which was prohibitively expensive and would treble our journey or returning to Peru via Bolivia. Given that I had to get back to Peru in time to continue my journey on to New Zealand, I´m afraid Bolivia it had to be, and the prospect of this made me lose all my enthusiasm for doing anything other than getting back to Peru as quickly as possible. The Inka also decided that he wanted to be in Cusco for Inti Raymi - Cusco´s big festival of the sun, so we cancelled our Mendoza plans, girded our loins and headed for the north of Argentina and the Bolivian border for "Bolivia - The Nightmare, Part II".
