AWESOME Buenos Aries.
Before I start banging on about Buenos Aries (BA) I forgot to note our one bit of hostility we faced from an Argentinian because of the Falklands and I don’t think it was because he read my last blog. We were driving up to BA when on one of our long drive days we pulled up at a little service station and started preparing lunch as we usually do. Well, as soon as our Belgium passenger started responding to a local guy in English he decided that we were all English and we are nasty people so holding two big dogs on a lead he got all crazy like and we decided to leave. Apparently we killed his brother in the war but the guy was only in his mid thirties and so the math doesn’t really add up but who are we to know. My final note on this subject is that due to the Argentinians loosing the Falklands war, their military government who made 30,000 people ‘dissapear’ during their rule finally collapsed, ushering in a new democratic government. Completely unintentinal on our behalf but certainly a positive consequence.
So, Buenos Aries. I was quietly dreading it but, it has most definitely become one of my favourate cities in the world and I had some of the best days travelling here than anywhere. From the moment we arrived it was awesome. The currency here is collapsing and on the black market we could get over seven pesos to the dollar as opposed to the official 4.8 pesos. So eight of us went in search for illegal money which was very easy but quite scarey. We found a guy who lead us through some streets and into a building where, on the third floor we got locked in while our money man Harry negotiated a price. This is one of those things that can go terribly wrong and we had heard horror stories but we walked out with an excellent exchange rate without getting murdered, robbed or worse, arrested. I celebrated by having the best steak of the trip so far that night.
The following day, after a night out we went on a walking tour around the central part of the city which was lovely and informative and made me feel all culturally minded. I decided to really indulge myself in their culture and took a two hour siesta by which time it was ready to start drinking again. Now this ended up being no ordinary Thursday night as our hostel had arranged as their after party a trip to Club 69 which, on Thursday night is Gay cabaret night. It was epic! We arrived around 2.30am and the last of us left around 5am. It was incredibly gay, the show that is. But it wasn’t really a show it was just a load of gay dancers in mega outfits taring up the stage to awesome club music. It was as far from Stiflers gay bar scene as you can imagine. As it was obviously my first time at this kind of club I found it all very amusing and because I love club music, combined I had a fantastic night. It was blanketed in a proper party atmosphere, something bars and clubs can lack. And there were plenty of women to look at, well I think they were women, they looked like it!
When I finally got up on Friday I did some culture stuff by heading to Evitas cemtetry which is in a huge extravagant cemetry for rich people. It was splendid. You can actually buy the spot next to Evita if you have a few million spare. I then stuck to my routine and went for a siesta. Friday evening was tango. Again it was awesome. We had a one hour dance lesson which actually turned out to be pretty good fun and I wasn’t quite as useless with my legs as I expected. After that and our three course meal with unlimited wine we were treated to a proper tango show which went through the history of the dance. What I learnt is that tango is incredibly sexy and is more or less porn for posh people but, for dancing it was excellent as I’m not really a dancey musical person. As for the after party only a few of us stayed out and through a string of events we ended up in a small underground hard house club. It was awesome! I have always had a soft spot for hard house but have never been to a hard house club so I was loving it and happily danced away untill 4.30am.
The next day, Saturday was awesome! I was up at 6am (true story) to catch a bus which would drive us five hours out of town. After a nap and, on our arrival to the place that I have forgotten we parked up at a bar next to a beach and drank beer all afternoon in the sun. At 6.30pm we headed off to a football stadium to see a ‘friendly’ football match between Boca Juniors and River Plate. It was only 30,000 capacity but it was rammed and the stadium was buzzing for the entire game. When the players came out at 10pm the place erupted with flares, bands, banners and, umbrellas! The atmosphere was electric and we were sitting with the winning team, River 2 – Boca 0. Getting out and getting to the bus took a bit of work as everyone went out the same exit but that was just part of the experience. We got back to BA around 6am.
Our last day in BA was awesome! I slept till midday and was in such a deep sleep that no one could wake me, with sound at least. I spent the afternoon in Boca which is a district that has Boca’s stadium, a few coloufull streets and a lot of rough areas. The touristy area is beautiful, full of cafes and people dancing the tango in the street however when we went further a field a police car pulled up and made it clear we should go no further so we didn’t and made our way to the newly developed docklands which was all very shiney and lardy dar. Our final eveneing started with a steak and red wine and we then later headed off to a club. One of the guys couldn’t get in because of his trousers so one of the other guys stood in the toilet with no trousers as we smuggled them outside so that the reject guy could put them on and get in. It took twenty minutes but worked! There were a whole load of us out and we danced with glow sticks (true story) till 5.30am. We got back to the hostel at 5.45am had a shower and headed straight for the truck as we were to leave BA around 6.30am.
So to sum up, Buenos Aries was AWESOME! If you can remember what I said about Peru, BA is the complete opposite. It is full of charm, character, charisma, colour, passion and sexyness. I got to do so much without even putting too much effort in. I partied every night but also saw the city and some of it’s culture. It’s a place that makes you want to be out and about. Believe everything you hear about the place and go! I love the place.
Trig Tales 