Hola from Argentina!
Here we are back in the Southern Hemisphere and the heat.
After the past three months of winter weather with not a day over 15 degrees it
was a bit of a shock to the system to arrive in hot and humid Buenos Aires. But
after a few days of having your clothes stick to you with sweat within 30
seconds of walking out of your door we got kind of used to it. I still wouldn’t
say I enjoy it but hey, it felt a little more like being home in Melbourne than
the cold winter of New York.
As we have mentioned in earlier posts South America is the
only continent on this trip that we have never previously travelled to so
everything was new and we really knew nothing about what we wanted to do once
we arrived. The extent of our plans when we got off that plane in Buenos Aires
was that we had booked an apartment for the first week of our stay and had
Spanish classes each afternoon for two hours. We thought it wise to do our best
to learn the basics as quickly as possible and we were right. One thing we have
quickly realised is that South America has the biggest language barrier we have
come across. Even when travelling in Asia and not knowing a word of the local
language it is still easier than here. I’m not exactly sure why that is, maybe
it’s that I have been travelling in Asia for years and am just used to it or
maybe it’s the fact that almost every country down here speaks one language
that I don’t understand and that is daunting or maybe it’s a combination of a
lot of different factors. Either way, it came down to the fact that it took
less than a day for Tegan & I to realise that we wanted to learn as much
Spanish as we could whilst we were here. So like I said we had two hours of
Spanish courses each day. It was basically a crash course to teach us basic
phrases handy to travellers rather than actually starting at the beginning with
grammar lessons as you would when usually learning a new language. We quickly
learnt how to read and order from a menu, how to ask for directions, phrases
needed when shopping, how to express how we are feeling and basic personal
introductions. This at least set us on the right track. We still of course find
it almost impossible to understand what someone is saying to us unless it is a
direct answer or question we have learnt during our lessons but with time I’m
sure we’ll understand more, plus we have been told repeatedly by other
travellers that Argentinians have the most difficult accent to understand of
all the Spanish speaking South American countries. So we have taken comfort in
the fact that “it will get easier.” (We hope!)
Before our lessons each day we spent some time exploring the
city. Buenos Aires has a distinctly European feel to the city. It is a bustling
metropolis with a real blend of old and new architecture throughout. We quickly
acquired a taste for the local foods such as delicious meat Empanadas and
amazing Argentinian steaks called ‘Bife de Lomo’ and ‘Bife de Chorizo’. In fact
Tegan & I both agree that some of the best steaks we have ever had we have
eaten in Argentina. Argentinian's just love their meat. They eat basically EVERY part of a cow. They love it all. We also discovered an amazing condiment to meats the Argentinians
love called ‘Chimi Churi’, a mixture of peppers, spices, oils and vinegars that
is just heavenly. During that first week we also enjoyed a Tango show. We went
to a show recommended by my sister, Erica who travelled to Argentina two years
ago. The dancers were brilliant as were the musicians and singer/MC. Definitely
a worthwhile 100 pesos spent. We also got to celebrate Chinese New Year in the
tiny Buenos Aires Chinatown region with some music, markets & performances.
For that first week of our stay we were staying fairly close
to the central city area so it was easy to walk pretty much everywhere we
wanted to get to such as our Spanish classes, dinner at a local steak
restaurant, supermarkets, the new harbour area, the famous plaza area and
beautiful government building and of course some inner-city shopping. For the
few places that were too far to walk we caught the “Subte” subway system or the
local buses. These were neighbourhoods like the coloured houses of La Boca, the
Antiques market, shops and cobblestone streets of San Telmo and the cemetery and
craft market of Recoleta. We found it really easy to use the local public
transport system once we learnt a few simple phrases of Spanish. The only issue
with the buses was that they only accept coins and Argentinian coins are
ridiculously hard to come by. In fact Argentinians pretty much have a generally
fairly screwed up currency system. Their largest note is 100 pesos about the
equivalent of $25 but try and pay with 100 pesos and most places will give you
a devil stare! Even if what you are buying is more than 50 pesos. Also if you
need coins as part of your change they just won’t give it to you and much of
the time will just round up or down to the nearest note available and give you
that instead. Therefore making it extremely difficult to gather coins for the
buses! Apparently there is even a black market here for coins. Where people
actually offer for you to buy bags of coins at 10% more than what the coins are
worth just so you have change. There are conspiracy theories rolling around
that this black market is actually run by the very transport companies that provide
the buses for which you need the coins in the first place! Ridiculous system if
you ask me.
After a week in the busy hot city we decided a beach break
was in order. An easy 1 hour ferry ride away from Buenos Aires and you can
visit the gorgeous old Uruguayan town of Colonia. A cute old town with
cobblestone streets, lovely old buildings including the still standing fort
walls and some great beaches. We really enjoyed a couple of days chilling out
in this town. But it’s not the place for great nightlife so it was back to
Buenos Aires and on to neighbourhood of Palermo for us. We had heard this was
the place to be to enjoy some Argentine nightlife and they were right. We stayed
in a particularly social hostel and made some great friends who we spent some
time eating and drinking with in the evenings. We also had one of the best
steak meals we’d ever eaten thanks again to a great recommendation from my
sister. Whilst we were in Palermo we also took some time out of the city with
an hour train ride to the riverside town of Tigre for a relaxing walk along the
riverbanks in this lovely Argentine summer haven.
Something we were not so pleasantly surprised by in Buenos
Aires were the prices. We had heard that South America was cheap but really
from what we found Buenos Aires was definitely not what we would call cheap. We
spoke to quite a few travellers who indeed confirmed that even in the last two
years prices in Argentina have risen quite dramatically. It’s quickly becoming
an unaffordable destination for budget backpackers in South America which is
really quite sad as it is such a beautiful city with so much to offer the
international backpacker. Still we managed to find some affordable food with a
little searching and were told once we left the capital things would become
considerably cheaper. We were looking forward to that after the rather large
chunk of our budget Buenos Aires ate in to.
After numerous recommendations from different people on what
to do with our three weeks before we were due to arrive in Brazil we eventually
decided to head north and purchased a couple of bus tickets on to our first
northern destination of Cordoba.
