Buenos Aires, Argentina

What´s not to love about Buenos Aires, Argentina? Tango (awesome). Ice cream (um... my favorite). Beef (yeah I´d like some beef). All seriously good stuff. Plus Buenos Aires, just like Santiago and Montevideo, is the misplaced offspring of Europe (Spain and Italy to be exact) so it´s super comfortable and relatively clean (a.k.a. no stray dogs running around everywhere). All in all Buenos Aires = Good Times.

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Friday October 30, 2009

So after all of my travels I´ve developed somewhat of a routine. Day one is always a walking tour of the city. I try to get my bearings. Sadly though, Chile and Uruguay left me exhausted so I wasn´t able to give Buenos Aires the love she deserved. I didn´t tour a single museum or historical landmark. Instead, I walked past what seemed to be a hundred different landmarks, thought to myself ¨oh isn´t that nice,¨ took a picture and moved on. Sad but true. So enjoy the pictures and find comfort in the fact that you´re not seeing anything less than what I saw during my trip to Argentina.

First stop on my walking tour was Plaza Libertador General San Martin (above photo), which used to be the site of past slave trade, a military fort and a bullring. It is now a lovely park and in the early 1900´s some Brits donated the Torre de los Ingleses (Big Ben replica) that can be seen in the background.


I then continued on my walking tour, peeked at Museo de Armas (who needs to see cannons and guns anyway?) and then rushed onto Galerias Pacifico, the fancy-pants mall in Buenos Aires. Oh it was beautiful. Kind of like the 900 Shops on Michigan Avenue. Anyway the mall was way too expensive for me but of all the historical sites in Buenos Aires I probably spent most my time at this mall (pathetic, I know). Anyway, I got to see Christian Dior, Hugo Boss and Lacoste. Definitely worth seeing. Above is a photo of the ceiling in the mall. See, super fancy.

So, I did buy one thing at the mall - Adidas shoes. Stupid me only brought flip flops, ballet flats, and heels on my vacation. People dress really nice in Chile, Uruguay and Argentina and I didn´t want to go around looking like some poorly dressed Gringo... so I figured sneakers could be skipped. Anyway, somewhere along the line my feet swelled to gargantuan proportions and I couldn´t wear any of the shoes that I brought. It was the weirdest/grossest thing ever. I still don´t understand it. How can a person run a marathon and only get a few blisters but then walk around for a couple days and have fat pregnant lady feet? The Adidas shoes were a lifesaver AND they´re the color of Argentina´s flag. Perfect!

Eventually I pulled myself away from the mall and began walking down Calle Florida where I ran into these rasta street performers. I´m such a sucker for stuff like this.

After watching the street performers for a while I kept marching on, passed a few museums, theaters and churches and came upon Bueno Aires´ Obelisco that was built in 1936. It only took one month to build (how is that possible!?!) and I guess it´s now where sports fans congregate to celebrate victories.

And so I made some porteños take a picture of me in front of the Obelisco.

Next stop was the Casa Rosada (Pink House), Argentina´s version of the White House, whose balconies have been occupied by both Eva Perón and Madonna. The palace´s pinkish color is rumored to have either come from a past president´s attempt to make peace between two political parties (red of the Federalists and the white of the Unitarists) or from painting with bovine (cow) blood, which was apparently common in the late 19th century.

After Casa Rosada I checked out Plaza de Mayo and Palacio del Congreso, blah, blah, blah and then found myself at Heladería Cadore. Yum ice cream! I gulped it down before heading back to my hostel to rest up a bit for my tango lesson/show later that night.

Alright! Tango! Here we go! I now know about five steps of tango but I can´t say I know them well. Watch as everyone kind of stumbles around in the video above. Too funny. Yep, that´s how my lesson went but I promise it was a ton of fun. After our lesson we were off to dinner and to watch the professionals show us how it´s really done. Below are a couple clips from the show. Unfortunately, I wasn´t able to catch the dancers while they were doing the really fancy stuff but you get the idea...

Something seems a little Michael Jackson-y, don´t you think? Maybe it´s just the outfits.

And then the women came out. Absolutely gorgeous!

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Saturday October 31, 2009

Happy Halloween! The weather changed drastically after my first day in Buenos Aires going from about 95 degrees on Friday to cold and rainy on Saturday. Anyway, I tried to suck it up and couldn´t think of a better way to spend Halloween than to go to Cementerio de la Recoleta where Evita is buried.

Some of the tombs are adorned with absolutely gorgeous/somewhat strange statues. For example, I think this angel is putting a person in a bag but the person seems more than willing to go. Hmmm... interesting.

...and Eva Perón´s tomb.

By the time I left the cemetery it was pouring outside. I really wanted to go see Buenos Aires´ Japanese garden located a couple miles south east of the cementery so despite the rain I jumped on the wonderfully efficient metro and headed towards an area of the city that has tons of parks.

I made it to just one park... and not even the Japanese park I wanted to go see. So sad! I think I was the only tourist out that day. I was trying to be tough (you kinda have to be when you only have two days to see a city and one of the days is crappy) but eventually the rain did me in. I never got to see the Japanese garden, the colorful houses in La Boca neighborhood or Santiago Calatrava´s crazy bridge in Puerto Madero. Instead, my stay in Buenos Aires ended sharing pizza with a bunch of Canadians in my hostel. Could be worse, I guess, but still I´ll have to go back one day.

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And now I am back in Huancayo... Not gonna lie, my last day in Buenos Aires was a bit sad knowing that I had to go back. But I keep reminding myself that this is the best place for me to be for my job... and only 21 days until my girls, Amy and Michele, come to visit for almost two weeks of Perú fabulousness. So, I am counting down the days. Nazca Lines, Lake Titicaca, Machu Picchu - here we come! LOVE this travel thing!