Buenos Aires

Wed 5th December 2001

At 11am (half an hour late), we took off from Sydney. We had a short stopover in Auckland, then finally after a total of 15 hours, we landed at Buenos Aires at midday the same day we left.

There's a nice little hostel we're staying at which has a great advertsing technique. Whilst we were waiting (with some fellow Australians) in the queue to change money, someone came up to us handing out flyers and maps, and explaining (in English) all the benefits and how to get there. They get some more free advertising here. The Hostel Inn is cheap, clean, quite a good location, and has.... (drumroll please)... free high speed internet access. Only 2 computers however, and there's about 100 people staying here, which is why I woke up at 5am to get at the computer to type this. From the balcony on the roof, near our room, you have a nice view down the street.

We had dinner at a nice little restaurant looking out over Plaza Domingo, and learned an important lesson: Most people here don't speak English.

Thu 6th December 2001

Today we walked to the cemetery, visiting the Congresso and a few parks and plazas on the way. The Lonely Planet tells us that there is a saying that it's cheaper to live your entire life extravagently than to be buried in the Cementerio de la Recoleta. Apparently it's not too far from being the truth. The tombs here are amazing. Although it seems that of domesticated animals, dogs reign most of Buenos Aires (you can often see proffesional dog walkers walking up to 10 dogs), the cats rule the cemetery. Eva Peron (Evita)'s tomb can be found here, but there we'd been walking a long while, and didn't find it before our stomachs called us off to lunch.

Nearby in Recoleta there are many restaurants and cafes. Quite a few had waiters who spoke English, which was a nice change, and we stopped at one and had a very nice lunch, the main course of which was a traditional Argentinian dish consisting of chicken, stuffed with ham, cheese and herbs. YUMMY!

Fri 7th December 2001

Buenos Aires is distinctly divided into several barrios (suburbs). La Boca is one of the rougher ones (some people from our hostel got robbed at knife point here yesterday), but we had to go to see the colourful street of Caminito (carefully avoiding the most dangerous part of La Boca, near the stadium). The brightly painted buildings were fantastic.

We went to a nearby art gallery. Some of the sculptures were displayed on the roof, which enabled us to have a look across the suburb, and the (heavily polluted) waters nearby. Of interest within the gallery were a section containing paintings by children, some as young as 3 years old, and a collection of the prows of boats!

Sat 8th December 2001

Rather than wandering about the city on our own today, we ventured out with Kenny and Annette, a couple staying in our room in the hostel. A ride on the subway (noisy, but clean and with nicely decorated stations) took us to Palermo, one of the wealthier barrios, where we went for a stroll through the parks and found a beautiful rose garden.

On the way back, we walked down the Av. Florida, a pedestrian shopping strip where we encountered some people doing the tango, and also some rather persistant beggars. We stopped by the cathedral and presidential palace on our way home

Sun 9th December 2001

It seemed we'd almost run out of things to do in Buenos Aires by now, so we spent a lazy Sunday strolling around the markets in the Plaza Dorriego nearby our hostel. Again we saw people demonstrating the tango, and several groups of people dressed up pretending to be statues of various kinds. This (and tango) seem to be the most common forms of busking in Buenos Aires.

Mon 10th December 2001

This evening we leave Buenos Aires. I'm typing this before we start the day. I don't know how much chance I will have to update the diary or photos whilst in Peru. We intend to take today easy again, maybe going on a guided tour of the theatre.

We thought about going to see Harry Potter today, but the cinemas don't open till after 1pm, and that might have left us a bit close for time to get to the airport (the Buenos Aires traffic can be more than just a bit hectic). So we just pottered around instead.

The flight to Lima via Santiago went well, though it was interesting hearing all the announcements in Spanish first and trying to work out what they were saying before they were repeated in English. As we crossed the Andes, it seemed that we were skimming across the tops of a few scattered clouds, and looking straight out at the peaks of some of the mountains. The bare brown rocks were about half covered in pure white snow, and it was just breathtakingly beautiful. Shame about the horriffic smog we flew down through into Santiago.