Buenos Aires

We ended up staying 9 nights in Buenos Aires, another huge metropolis, but once again one that has millions of cool bars and restaurants, although like Santiago they tend to be quite spread out across a number of little ´villages´, a bit like maybe Rathmines or Ranelagh at home, kinda! We would have left a couple of days earlier, but we ran into a long weekend, and it might have proved difficult to get accommodation in our next port of call, Colonia in Uruguay, as apparently it's very popular with Argentinian tourists at the weekends. I didn't mind at all though really, as I really like Buenos Aires, or BsAs as it's often abbreviated.

But staying longer in Buenos Aires meant more time to see the huge number of sights around the city, and of course to sample more of the great restaurants and bars. Most of the cool bars could be straight from Paris or Spain I suppose, but the atmosphere everywhere is great, as socialising seems to be a big part of life here.

It also meant that we could meet up again with a local guy we met one night in an Irish bar, Sebastian (he was wearing a Rangers soccer jersey, so of course I had to set him straight!). The locals tend to head out on the town very late, so the Irish bar actually had the most life and buzz to it when we were strolling about early in the night, i.e. about 10pm. After meeting Sebastian, the night turned into a bit of a bender, getting back to our hotel (Hotel Espana) eventually at about 7am.

A couple of days later when we returned to the hotel there was a package waiting for us. At first I just thought it was fresh towels or bed sheets or something, but when I checked properly it turned out to be a freshly baked cake. Obviously we thought there was some mistake so Sarah checked with the guy on reception, but it was definitely for us, and after a bit of broken Spanish and sign language it turned out to be from Sebastian (although there was no note). It turned out that he had gone to a party the night before and had baked 2 cakes, 1 for the party and 1 for us - now how friendly is that!?


We arranged to meet up with Sebastian a few days later and he took us on a bit of a walking tour of the city, showing us a couple of cool places not even mentioned in either of our guidebooks. He also brought mate (pronounced mah-tay), which is the national drink of quite a few South American countries and you see people drinking it all over the place, especially in Uruguay, although weirdly you can´t order it in any of the cafes or bars. It´s basically a kind of bitter tea, but was really cool for us to try it with Sebastian, as it´s such an important part of South American culture, but you really need to hook up with a local to try it. I thought it was nice straight away, although Sarah didn´t take to it really (even with lots of sweetner added).


The next time we met Sebastian he brought us out of the centre on a local bus to his favorite local restaurant, a parrilla, which is one of the national styles of Argentine cooking - basically a big BBQ or wood fired grill with lots and lots of meat. It was great food of course and the atmosphere was great (although Sebastian thought it was kinda quite). He also snook off and paid the whole bill before we were even presented with it, which was rather cheeky, but was warmly appreciated of course.


We returned the favour a few days later in a nice restaurant in San Telmo (recommended by Enda´s Tracy in fact). We´d spent that Sunday morning visiting the San Telmo street market, which was more impressive, and bigger, than I was expecting, and then we hired bikes for a few hours. We met up with Sebastian again after a bit of a logistical mix up and toured around the parklands that buffer the city from the sea front, and then he took us on a bit of a cycle tour around the city (including popping into a cool art musuem for a quick look, although I got to introduce Sebastian to the Philippe Stark designed hotel, the Faena Hotel, that I'd read about somewhere. It is really impressive, although the bar is ridiculously expensive - A$33 for a small local beer that is normally A$5 (that's like paying over Euro 30 for a Guinness in Dublin)).

We finally said goodbye to Sebastian later that day. He´d been incredibly generous every time we met him, but saying goodbye he actually gave us his mate cup and the silver straw, a cool Reservoir Dogs postcard (Sebastian is a huge movie buff) and a mad photo of the huge tattoo across his whole back! Hopefully we´ll get the chance to return all his great hospitality if he ever gets to Ireland.

A city the size of Buenos Aires has lots of great restaurants of course, but Casa Cruz on Uriarte, in the posh Palermo district of the city, was probably the best meal I've had on the entire trip so far. The place had a brilliant atmosphere, and although it was very upper class it wasn't too snooty or anything (waiters were all wearing smart uniforms, but most of them were wearing sneakers and jeans under their formal aprons). We had cocktails at the bar before being seated, a starter to share, I ordered lobster (not a whole one, but still plenty), while Sarah had the rabbit and a bottle of lovely Argentine wine, all top-notch grub and all for about Euro80 - amazing!

Earlier that same day we'd checked out one of the fanciest hotels in the city (Palacio Duhau Park Hyatt), and it was extremely stuck-up - Sarah felt very annoyed when we left, as all the staff seemed to be looking her up and down (we did look quite out of place in our backpacker touristy clothes), but she was made to feel very uncomfortable indeed. It was weird actually, as I felt quite uncomfortable too, which was probably the first time that's ever happened - I think it's the first time I've encountered a place that is completely over the top in terms of it's snobby-ness, and I didn´t think the hotel was particularly amazing in any regard either.

So anyway, most of our time in Buenos Aires was spent strolling around the city (or getting the odd local bus or metro), and exploring the many museums, gallerys, churches, plazas, etc. We saw a couple of tango demonstrations on the streets of the more touristy places (like Caminito and San Telmo), and did a cool tour of the Boca Junior soccer stadium. The stadium was a bit rundown really, but it's such a famous club (mostly because of Maradona, whose image is all over the area, but also Gabriel Batistuta), and it was quite cool to get a tour of the pitch, press room, changing rooms, etc.

So when we finally left the city it was a quick taxi ride to the swish new ferry port and a short 3 hour boat trip across the Rio de la Plata to the lovely old town of Colonia in Uruguay.