Buenos Aires

Musetta, our local 

First day in Buenos Aires

We woke up at 4.30am becuase of the time difference. Around 5am, after listening to music and reading our phones, we fell back asleep until 10am, nearly missing the breakfast that was remarkably late anyway from 9-10.45am. It was served in a courtyard downstairs, fresh orange juice you squeezed yourself, filter coffee and an omelette with baguette.

It then started pouring with rain. All day. Around 1pm we ventured out to find a real coffee shop, it was several blocks down our street by a mall and supermarket. It was a chain, Cafe Madurez, but they made good coffee and it came with a dulce du leche biscuit. Yum.

We checked out the mall and tried to buy several phone chargers for Susie in Spanish. I know a new phrase -  cuantos son los cargadores? It was in an old market building, so it was beautiful. We visited the supermarket and had some trouble weighing our fruit – they surprisingly didn’t have many options. The rain back at our apartment was flooding the stairwells and open courtyard downstairs. We spent from about 4-9pm in our room planning the trip ahead through Uruguay and Brazil.

At 9pm, we went downstairs to have a chef cook us dinner. He was Slovakian and the orther guests didn’t turn up, so we got to talk to him and his Argentian boyfriend a lot over the evening. The food was delivious but mainly bread based – handmade rolls with hummus, chickpea (or chicken pea as he called it) soup in a bread bowl, beef bolgnon and celeriac mash, and a Slovakian donut for dessert. He started a business that came to people houses to cook for them and he was also a trained singer, so he performed three songs to us on the microphone while we sat alone in this room. It was quite funny but also very sweet. His boyfriend was a LBGT activist and told us about that movement in the country, Argentina is very liberal in that way. Then he moved into politics and economics. It was interesting to learn from him.
We stayed until after midnight because we weren’t sleepy. It’s still pouring with rain, I hope it stops tomorrow so we can actually see the city!

Friday 11 May

The jetlag kicked in and I only had a broken four hours sleep from 4-5.30am and 7.30-9.30am. We had another nice breakfast with fresh orange at 10.30am.
We went to the suburb of Ricoleta, because we arrived we were so disorientated our first stop was  Starbucks. Unfortunately they didn’t have good WIFI and it started raining and we didn’t have coats.

We visited different art galleries along a massive road bordering parks. It felt kind of unsafe in areas because there weren’t many people around. At MALBA we saw a poncho exhibition, a weird spiritual South American one, at the Fine Art gallery, Renaissance and South American contemporary artists. My favourite piece was a still life with ducks and watermelon.

In the late afternoon we went to Cemetery. We had lunch at 4pm at a pink cafe that served desserts. It was right next to the cemetery in a nice garden area and it was sunny. We wandered around the city of the dead, saw Eva Peron’s grave at the last minute as the closing bell was ringing. The guard ushering us out pointed to it after we had walked in circles trying to find it for an hour.

We walked home as the sun was setting. We tried to have steak for dinner but couldn’t find the spot after several circles so went back to Musetta for Malbec, pasta and tiramisu. Back at the hostel more people had arrived. We talked to midnight to an Australian couple who had just finished their eight month trip in Buenos Aires. They gave us lots of good tips for Cuba, Peru and Chile.

Saturday 12 May

Today was a good day. I slept through the night and woke to hear people talking in the breakfast area downstairs around 9.20am. We had breakfast with the freshly squeezed orange juice.

After that, we set out to find LAB coffee shop just south of Palermo. The sun was shining and there were lots of people out and about because it was a Saturday. It felt more lively and nice. The area had clothes shops and looked a bit nicer than where we are staying. LAB was just past an slightly quieter underpass that opened to a flash suburb. It was in a modern white building with a feature brick wall. I had an espresso.

Next we walked into Palermo. The streets had huge trees lining the roads and street art on lots of the buildings. There were lots of restaurants around the park, so we went to have a smoothie and use the wifi to locate Don Julio steak house. I learnt how to ask for a photo from the Aussie tourists, so we got our first picture together at this pink cafe with great street art, but unfortunately the waiter took it facing the street.

We found Don Julio on Guatemala Street just after 12 and they even had one table left! I had learnt to ask for a table in Spanish now, but hadn’t thought through that I wouldn’t be able to understand the answer if it was more complex that si or no.
We sat upstairs in the loft, surrounded by walls of wine bottles. People had written messages on them after enjoying it. We got a glass of Sparkling wine when we entered and the bread rolls were delicious. Between us we order a butterfly ribeye steak and a fig and rocket salad. The food was amazing – the first non-bread based meal we’d had!

After this we bought a subway ticket and went into the city centre to meet a free walking tour at 3pm. We popped around the corner to see the bookshop inside a theatre, only to miss the tour by 15 minutes. We had sore feet so it was probably a good thing. We walked up the main road through parks into a street that looked like Paris and ended up at all the main city landmarks.

It was nearing 5pm and we tried walking into an Telmo, only to find all the tourists disappeared and dodgy characters on the street, so we swiftly turned a corner and went back to the main area.
On the way home via the subway we stopped by the supermarket for Empanadas and bottled water. There was a slightly stressful moment trying to top up the subte card, but we got through it. We ate dinner on the rooftop and planning our trip to Uruguay tomorrow.

Sunday 13th May

At midnight last night we realised that the 12 noon ferry we were planning to take to Uruguay didn’t run on Sundays. Our two options were a 10am one which meant we’d have to get up at 7.30, order a taxi ourselves in Spanish and we didn’t know where it’s terminal was. Or there was a 6pm one in a more obvious location but we weren’t sure if it could store our bags. After debating it until 1.30am we decided on the 6pm because we hadn’t woken up once before 8am this entire trip. It was probably a good thing too because I didn’t get to sleep in our noisy hostel until 6.30am.

We had breakfast at 10.30 and checked out by 11am. We caught the subte to the city centre and walked an extra 10 minutes to the ferry. Our ticket to Colonia was US$77 and a one hour ferry ride. We repacked our bags slightly and stored them in a cage in the basement carpark.

Then we went to see the San Telmo street market. It was called an antiques market, and there were a few, but mostly it was a tourist market. It went for miles and miles, honestly it felt like 5km. We saw the Australians from our hostel, and there were a few tango shows on the street. After that, we were hungry and caught the subway to Palermo again. It took a long time! We walked back to the same cafe after a bit of trek to find an ATM. There were none and a surprising amount of diaries were closed. One man told us it was cinco lineas down the street, but five blocks down we couldn’t see one. I had a salad and coke for lunch, because it felt a bit late for coffee.

We caught the subway back at what we thought was 4.45pm, but actually turned out to be 5.45pm because the old phone Susie was using hadn’t adjusted to daylight savings.

At the ferry terminal we could have just made it if we ran, but the lady didn’t understand English and told me we could drop our bags in 30 minutes, I think she meant the bag drop ended 30 minutes ago. So we watched the ferry go, it was a pretty pink sunset and there were two sail boats out in the marina next to an old church. Now we are sitting in the terminal waiting for the 8.30pm. It’s been a bit of a logistical disaster but luckily we have lots of time up our sleeves for this trip.