Hola!
I have come to the conclusion that my Spanish is still Very Poor! And soon I have to switch to Portugese. Oh dear.
Well, Buenos Airies... the bus ride was great. 20ish hours of comfort, a three course meal... a working toilet and a great view (I was up front and up top so peered out the windscreen all night long when not dozing that is!). It was the most comfortable bus ride yet and I had the best sleep I had in a long time, which says something about my room mates and my light sleeping and wakeability! Come to think of it, my English is getting pretty poor also!
Right. Well, in Argentina they like their beer, beef and soccer... but I managed to find some good vegie food and many of the handcraft markets are wonderful. There are soooo many people in Buenos Airies, someone tole me that about 20 million people live in the Greater Buenos Airies area... that´s almost the population of Australia, no? But I didn´t hide under my bed in this city, though I didn´t attempt the metro either!
The old part of the city has many great tree-lined cobble stone streets with old disuese rail tracks running through here and there. There are many amazing buildings and wonderful cafes... piano acordians and tango dancing... we went to a very touristy but nonetheless entertaining tango performance on the first evening. Dinner was provided also and the dancing was in the form of a story depicting the history of tango in Argentina.
The next day I ventured out to sample some cafe food (good, oh and people watching is a must here, some many great characters!) and to explore the cemetary... Eva Perron (Evita) thus visited (she has a very modest grave, unlike many others) I explored some of the malls. McDonalds and Burger King are fighting it out on every block in Buenos Airies, it´s disturbing! Leather is another big attraction here, but alas, not for me.
I sample some of the clubs also... unfortunately Hugo, our sweet tour Leader took us to a regge club (urgh). How to dance to that, I do not know. Most people were stoned and seemed to think that the man singing was really good (he sounded like a cat being strangled). I did my best to look disapproving as I wanted us all to move on to bigger and better things. After all, waiting until 2 am to go dancing, there had better be some good dancing! We made it to another club which was ok... better music but bottles and broke cups and squashed cans littered the dance floor making it impossible to dance well. We stayed out until 6 am and had a lovely discussion with the taxi driver comparing driving in Australia to Argentina. He was most amused.
Driving in South America is mostly terrifying... Chile was the one country where people actually seem to drive with any sanity and care for road rules. Argentina is a little less... controlled.
Buenos Airies is also well known for its war memorabilia and antiques... which since the economy crash have become a bit more affordable. Unfortunately the bronze candelebra were a little heavy to send home.
Not much sleep was had in Buenos Airies due to dancing and loud traffic. All in all though it seems a great city, what I saw of it. It still has its extremes, children begging next to rich department stores... that kind of thing. But it does have a lovely atmosphere... for a city!
My cough is almost gone and I think I´m on the mend.
Ciao...
Mez
