Buenos Aires

Our 19 hour journey to Buenos Aires would roughly now take us up to a brain numbing 200 hours worth of bus rides since arriving in South America. That is ruddy impressive seeing as we have only been here just over a month now and with regular annoyances aside we have got the the point where we are actually starting to enjoy them. Not only do we get the time to listen through hundreds of long forgotten albums, watch an entire shops worth of DVD´s, get fed some decent free food (veggie´s excluded) but we also get a moment to switch off and feel like we´re back at home again.

We had spent so many weeks in the thrilling and quiet mountainous countryside that arriving half asleep at the overflowing Buenos Aires bus station crammed full of tourists rushing to find which of the 80 plus platforms their bus left from alongside eager taxi drivers and people trying to sell us tacky (yet admittedly quite cool) laser pens made our welcome to the city slightly overwhelming. We had already decided that we wanted to find accommodation in San Telmo, which is the true heart of BA´s famous Tango culture, so we made a quick exit and jumped into the nearest yellow cab.

Driving around the beautiful cobbled streets passed stunning stone carved 19th century European buildings we found a perfect and cheap hotel right in front of the main plaza. As the door to Hotel Carly opened we were greeted by a shy little girl who invited us into a seemingly endless open hallway with a ceiling almost 10 times her height. She led us to her Mum, the owner and we secured a room with some brilliantly dreadful 80´s artwork.

The weather was seriously hot and muggy so we got out some skimpy clothes and as we began to undress ourselves we noticed that our recent lengthy bus ride had given us old ladies fat ankle syndrome. It was like a small goblin like creature had secretly poked a few bags of marshmallows under our skin whilst we slept last night. Anyway we walked back outside to look for a place to have dinner and didn´t have to search far as the romantic setting of the plaza opposite us was not only offering a free Tango performace, but also buy-one-get-one-free on beer which certainly ticked all the right boxes! To make matters even greater I ordered a Bife de Chorizo, the mouth watering Argentinian slab of steak- good times! I have to say that my first taste of Tango wasn´t anywhere near as juicy, more on the cringe worthy side. I´ve not watched it before but even I could tell that the young female dancer wasn´t up to much with her bent legged kicks and poor flirting skills. The male performer had all of the moves but he was so short and serious in the face that I almost choked on my meat. Eitherways it was a lovely way to end the day and a terrific start to this new city.

There was no way on earth that the first half of this new day was going to be stress free, as at 12pm Laura had her interview for the Masters course in London which would change both of our lives entirely whether it was a yes or no. So much of our future, particularly the next year, depends on this one simple answer. After a peaceful breakfast with Laura looking relatively calm on the outside but bricking it on the inside it was time to make the call. Around half an hour later Laura stepped out of the small newagent´s cabin in more of a gibbering, confused state then before she went in. For the most part it seemed as if the interviewer was highly impressed with her and dished out plenty of compliments, but Laura´s nerves had overcome her like never before. We didn´t get an answer either and we won´t find out for days now.

We went back to the plaza to sit down and talk over every detail of the interview. Laura clearly had her head in the clouds and it was going to take something truly extraordinary to bring her back to me. After realising that is wasn´t going to be my chicken sandwich that did the trick we soon stumbled across such an obvious solution- a shop full of gorgeous vintage wedding dresses! Within minutes Laura´s eyes were beaming dollar signs at one dress in particular. Whilst I went off to look around another part of the shop Laura snuck into a changing room and thankfully for our cashflow, the dress was too small.

The rest of the day was spent going in and out some of the most interesting antique shops on the planet. My parents would sweat money and excitement out of every pore nosing around these streets and not just them but pretty much everyone I know would find something irresistible here. There was all sorts of items ranging from rusty bajo´s, frail rocking horses, extremely tempting gramophones, ridiculously shaped sun glasses, overly loved teddy bears with body parts hanging by a few threads, beautifully decored furniture, toys that haven´t been around since my Granny was in her nappy, clothes for any fancy dress party imaginable and shelves upon shelves of old dolls in which many looked like prime candidates for the next Chucky horror. At times it was hard to tell what was a genuine antique and I am still trying to decide about the perverse collection of matchboxes covered in various members of The Simpsons doing indescribable acts of sexual pleasure to each other like the one with Bart, Lisa and Marge.

Since arriving here we had only seen one neighborhood in this charming metropolis so the next day we planned to visit the area of Recoleta- however we got a little side tracked. After a morning belly full of toast, jam and coffee we called home as it was Laura´s Dad´s 50th birthday and I had also promised my Mother the sound of her son´s voice. Walking back up to our hotel we found yet more fascinating shops that required a peek in. By the time we had finished hunting for treasures we were hungry again so we ended up in another inviting cafe and after some tremendous pasta it was now coming up to 5pm already. That wasn´t going to stop our plans for the day so we zoomed off in a taxi to the main bus station to quickly sort out transport for tomorrow to Iguazu and then on to Rio which ended up costing us a wapping 300 pounds and then finally we arrived in Ricoleta.

We wondered up to a lush green park which had hundreds of interesting stalls set up and a hord of sweaty Argentinian musicians with their tops off slapping djuembe´s and dancing to the ladies that walked past like some kind of mating call. One of the main attractions here is the cemetary where Evita´s grave can be found but when we went up to the entrance it had been taped off with Police scouting about inside so we didn´t get to see anything about from the tall walls that surround the entire site. We did get to stroll around the cultural centre and see some graffic contemporary art, and the church which overlooks the park had us snapping away at it´s amazing illuminated structure.

Our afternoon rather abruptly ended though as Laura spotted a large clump of dog poo on her flip flop and bare heal which led me to notice it was also all over one cheek of her trousers which had smeared into her T-shirt and rubbed on to her swinging hand bag. No amount of Laura rolling around in the grass was going to sort this out so we jumped into a taxi back to our hotel for some fresh non dog smelling clothes.

Almost nearing our street and our taxi driver pulled his car over to one side and said that he could take us no further. Thankfully it wasn´t because Laura smelt so bad, it was actually that the road ahead was closed fort the San Telmo street carnival. What a lovely surprise that was! We got out and rushed up the road towards the sound of a tribal army stampeding through the city. We excitedly looked on to a mass percussion of around 20 bass drums, ear splitting cymbols, tight picolo snares and hundres of performers from various different ages in glittery costumes pulling off all kinds of airborne dance manoevers. Everyone spectating was getting squirted in the face with what smelt like furniture polish by giggly kids which most of whom were completely covered from head to toe in the white foam and clearly loving it.

We quickly ran back to get changed and feel slightly less hobo like and about 20 minutes later we rejoined the carnival which had also changed in style. Along to the sound of an Argentinian version of the ´Addams Family´, two very confident and very busty Transvestites wearing knee high boots and not much else, paraded in the middle of another colouful group of dancers twisting umbrella´s and giant dice around. With all the naked felsh on display I was starting to get hungry for some meat so I ordered up a burger whilst Laura got a mouth full from a group of young boys and their spray cans. The parade came to a close soon after and we both left in a complete buzzing state and begab to wonder how we would feel in just under a week when the real carnival in Rio kicks off.

I awoke the next morning to a low grumbling rumble shaking the floor as if the drummers from last night were right outside of the hotel demanding me to get out of bed. Laura was already up and returned from the bathroom and told me it was absolutely heaving it down outside with rain and impressive thunder bellowing the sky. It appeared that our last day in Buenos Aires was going to be a quiet sit down in an Internet cafe. However, the moment we stepped out of the door to find a place for breakfast our eyes fixed upon the plaza which had been transformed into a bustling antiques fair. Every market stall had it´s rain coat on and no-one was going to let the weather spoil their sales. It looked terrific but we first found ourselves some food in preparation for hours worth of digging around this dream jumble sale. With breakfast finished we dived straight into the collection of goodies and by the time we had done a lengthy loop of the plaza, a whole load more stalls had been set up leading us to happily start all over again.

The sunshine was starting to break through and with it came a host of delightful residents that I´m sure come here every Sunday. Among our favourite characters of the day were the loving old couple Pochi and Oslvaldo who performed brilliantly entertaining Tango, a Danny DeVito look alike who stood in the same place for the entire afternoon with his belly flopped out and another elderly man who pulled fantastic faces everytime he choked his chicken.

There was also dozens of talented musicians on every corner all adding to the flaovour and magic of this place. After we put a couple of dollars in a very smart suited old chap´s busker pot he serenaded Laura with his classical guitar and sang to her besutiful lyrics of love. I think after about 20 seconds worth of him staring deep into her eyes with the people on the street also watching on she was feeling a little uncomfortable- it lasted 2 minutes haha!

As we walked further away from the plaza we came across streets upon streets of further markets and our time right up to the last hour before our bus left was spent endlessly roaming all of the different variety on offer. We really didn´t have any money to buy anything but were having such an amazing and enjoyable day just being there.

We left Buenos Aires knowing for a fact that one day we would return as this city has honestly been our favourite so far and we´ve not even seen half of it yet. We had totally fallen in love, but with Iguazu Falls being our next destination, it made leaving here a little easier.