Friday, March 24, 2006

Buenos Aires

Simply put - this city is nuts!

It's dusty, well noisy, really busy in traffic and people, vibrant and fantastic!


We spent the first 3 nights staying at a hostel in San Telmo, which is the old side of town and is associated with being the Tango quarter. The streets are all old looking, cool antique / junk shops, mini art galleries, local cafes, restobars...you get the gist. It's a cool place to walk about, go for dinner (no earlier than 11pm though!) or check out some bars. I really like the area but our hostel is also a restobar downstairs and is unbelievably noisy. The rooms have shutter style high doors, really high ceilings and feature almost nothing more than two beds pushed together and a sink. There are areas where you can see directly down to the bar from the landing with only some netting between you and the people eating, drinking and talking (the locals' version of drunken talking here is pretty much as loud as I can shout). It was fine for midweek as we went out until fairly late anyway but we were warned not to expect to sleep before 7 or 8 am during the weekend and last night (Thurs) was a good taster of that (it quietened down about 6ish).

So, we've moved on to a place in the more northern side of town, partly to give us the option of sleep in case we don't stay out as late as we plan tonight and tomorrow but also to see a new side of the city. This city is huge with loads of areas with their own characters.

What have we been doing? Right, we spent hours going around La Boca Tues looking for ways of getting a ticket for Sunday's match - Boca Vs River. No luck. Members only! By the way, I quote from the Lonely Planet about the area (barrio) of Boca "The worst neighbourhoods you, as a tourist, will encounter are La Boca (stick to those few tourist streets like glue, even in daylight)...". We got lost twice and trekked most of the area and it wasn't all that bad. Don't 'always' believe the hype. More details will follow about Boca next week but I HAVE GOT A TICKET.

Like good tourists, we also checked out the main squares and stuff on the first day and joined the masses for the ritual of lunch. A real big deal here. We've had some good meals and some average. A Uruguayan restobar had good food - one was thin chicken wrapped around ricotta and other good fillings which I couldn't work out and the other was close to a big fry-up style bap. Tasty. Plus the beer was good and cheap - 1.20 pounds for 1 litre.

That reminds me, Buenos Aires is very very cheap. That meal I mentioned was 5 pound for 2 main meals plus 2 litres of beer.

We also sampled a few big bifes (various types of steak). Most have tasted awesome, perfect texture but they also tend to have too many fatty bits for my liking. Especially one I picked up from an asado on the street by the river. There are loads along this big stretch, little stalls with a tent style roof, painted sign and huge BBQ with monster slabs of beef cooking on them. By the time I had dissected my way through that one I was covered in grease and sauce. The sauces, however, have been consistently quality. Chimichurri is my favourite so far - fresh herbs, garlic, chilli and oil. Works a treat.

Best wrap this up. The meals have been mostly really good, the bars great, the weather real good but real hot and humid even though around only 27C temperature.

The new hostel is more intimate and we can use the kitchen and the roof terrace which is sweet as! I'm gusselling a bottle of red wine right now, we splashed out on a more expensive bottle at 1.20 (pounds) and are going to cook for the first time and enjoy it on the roof. Then off out to check a new area of bars we've ben told about...