Buenos Aires Te Amo - Argentina

It took only 3 weeks and I am in love. We set up home in the old arty barrio of San Telmo, once affluent (before some nasty fever cleared the neighbourhood), swanky now resides in designer-clad Recoleta and Palermo instead. But crumbling San Telmo is a special place, with it's antique parades, coffee shop corners, cobbled streets and Sunday Feria (quite possibly my favourite place in the world). With Linda and Tony with us, we sure worked our way around BA's culinary offerings and did all the things a good tourist should do and discovered lots of jems that were not in the guide book.

We had two little roof top apartments at the top of funky Ostinatto - a great hostel but with a self-bought alcohol ban that got us into trouble! Christmas day itself was spent supping champagne or 'contraban' as we ended up calling it, opening little gifts and tucking into an Asado, as only good Argentinians would! Being a family day, the whole city was in lock down but we did invite ourselves to PAX's bar for a beer and to say hi to Franziska who was working. Christmas Eve however was seen in with a roof top party and fireworks and poppers being unleashed from every balcony and roof top in sight. We'd never seen anything like it, it was so lovely to look out over the roof tops of the city and see in Christmas day with such a bang (excuse the pun)! Linda went to town with Christmas morning, wrapping sweet little gifts, popping open the bubbles and she even bought a mini Christmas tree and pud from home. Drinking from our 50's champagne glasses bought at San Telmo market, we were a little tipsy on the 'pink' before 10am! Pete cooked up a storm on the grill and we caught some sunshine on the roof top. January being sweltering, it took some will power not to run back into the aircon. Derek on the other hand, the resident roof top tortoise, was a dedictaed sunbather.

New Years Eve was again a family occassion, no wild parties thrown like in London or NYC. It was actually hard to find a restuarant that was going to be open and that didn't quadruple its prices. Again, Linda and Tony came up trumps with an old-school Argentinian canteen type restuarant near Avenida Julio. It was a set menu where you could select your starter, main and pud. It was only after the lovely waitress cleared our starter plates and asked if we wanted anymore, did we realise it was pretty much 'all you could eat'... and drink. I think I probably got a bit over excited with the icecream sundee desert, I only ate one but by normal sized standards, it was probably 4! We saw in the new year toasting a glass of cider (don't ask!) and champagne to follow. Pan Dulce (sweet bread) is the traditional toasting accompaniment, and so we had to eat more pudding!!! We left feeling pretty full and pretty happy. We set off home to join the party on the roof at the hostel for a couple of rums and a dance. 1st of Jan was spent the usual way, as it is world over, recovering from the night before. BA was hosting the start of the Dakar Rally - BA to Chile - so we joined the rest of the families down near the Obilisco to catch some of the action.

We packed so much in to our time in BA, that I couldn't possibly write about it all. You'll have to wait until we are home and I go on, and on, and on, about how much I want to live in BA. In all seriousness, with an apartment in San  Telmo setting you back a tenth of a flat in London, we're thinking Winters in BA might not be such a bad idea!

If we were asked to recommend the top things to do in BA to a friend we would say you shouldn't miss the following:
GraffitiMundo - BA has such a unique street art scene, walls (any wall!) are your canvas. After wondering who was behind this beautiful art that we constantly photographed, we took this brilliant tour to find out more!
Evita Museum - You can't understand BA until you know about Eva Peron. Madonna is still a contencious topic.
Day at the races - Palermo race track, join the cheering crowds down by the track and make a bet. The polo season had just finished, so that'll have to wait until the next trip!
Tigre - Only an hour from BA on the train (and only 0.30$) Tigre feels a million miles away. We took a beautiful boat trip through the delta and had lunch at one of the old rowing club houses.
Bomba del Tiempo - The most amazing percussion group. They play at an outdoor venue that feels a bit like the Trumen Brewary in East London, and it's absolutely packed with people dancing to the beat. It felt like we were at a mini festival, plastic beer cups in hand and finding a spot to dance. We met up with Franziska and friends and also Andrea, an Argentinian girl we knew from Columbia - small continent!
San Telmo Ferria - I went 4 times to this Sunday market. Yes 4! You could never tire of it, its just full of so many cool and beautiful things. I actually couldn't be happier than wondering along Avenida Defensa and through the plazas on market day. Full of street performers and tango dancing, it's just so happy. I also made some Christmas purchases of some 1950's French frames which I am going to get lenses put into when I am home, some handpainted signs for our house (where ever that is!), the mini Tango shoes for Linda were adorable and some unique old original ads I got for Pete for Christmas (from 50's Pan American Airlines 'fabulouso' ad to Toddy hot cholocate which we'd lived off in Patagonia). There's a pattern emerging, this market is stuck in the 50's and it's brilliant.
Club 69 - The Christmas party was wild, the only night club we frequented in BA with Franziska and co, this camp show is one of a kind. We had a fab night.
Shopping - The shopping is brilliant in BA. I found a favourite shop, Rhapsodia, a beautiful boho shop with everything made in Argentina. I even bought a little white number for a certain future wedding!
Tango lessons - I am excited, I actually can dance. Having convinced myself I have 2 right feet (me and arobics, no no no!) I found that I could tango, sort of. Joining in the tango lessons run at the hostel, I learnt the basics of tango. Unfortunately Pete had decided a siesta time was more important, so I was left to learn this lovers dance with a random, and not entirely beautiful man from Belgium. But seeing as I picked him up at the bar one minute before the class, it was very very nice of him to be my partner at all. Learning a bit of tango definately gave me appreciation for the incredible dancers you see all over BA.
Parque Ecologica - Down near the docks, the park is set next to the Rio Plata and was perfect for my morning runs. With distance marked running tracks and maps, I wish London had one. One time I did manage to go 'off course' and got encouraged along by another runner, this guy ran for Argentina and I ended up running 8 miles that morning... whilst trying to speak espanol!
La Boca - Home to Boca Juniours, La Boca is the dock area also famed for it's colourful houses that migrant workers painted with the leftovers from the boat yards. To be honest, nice to see but way too touristy. We all thought it was a bit of a wierd place, still quite poor, still on the edge of BA but with lots of tacky tourist offerings.

MAMBA - Like in the rest of BA, the modern art museum wasn't run of the mill, it was really impressive. There was no 'hmmm, line on a blank canvas... interesting' art. Loved it.

Tango at Tortoni - The oldest cafe in Buenos Aires, Tortoni on Avenida de Mayo is something of an institution. Some would say avoid it as it is too touristy, but being a lover of cafes, I was keen to go see it. In doing so, I discovered their small little theatre at the back and this is how we ended up watching a tango show all together on our last night together in BA. The music was beautiful and the dancing very showy, it was a smooth operation but we loved it. Especially me and Linda, we even got the CD! Eek! It was a brilliant end to our time in BA, one last tango and all that!

Seeing as a lot of our time in BA revolved around food, I feel I should talk about all the incredible meals that Tony and Linda treated us too (those hotpants might need to retire for a while!) but we just had too many to even start. With 15 days together in BA, that'd make 30 amazing meals out. On a couple of occasions, we had old travelling buddies to join us too which was lovely. We had a lot of steak of course but the restuarant scene in BA is vast so all meals were different, all delicious. With restuarants not really getting going until 10pm, a siesta became the norm. As Tony said, it shows you are sympathetic with the culture, a perfect excuse. I was head of breakfasts, being cheif fruit chopper and juice squeezer. Whilst Linda got up hours before me, to buy the fruit. With so many bakeries on every street in BA, it was hard not to get into the crossant 'media luna' (half moon) craze too.

Leaving BA and the parents was sad, we had been utterly spoilt and life was soon to return to tents, the bus and cooking!!! Still, we had a lovely time with Linda and Tony, found a city loved and were heading beach-bound on the ferry to Uruguay. As they say in BA as a response to everything... Dale (Lets do it/cool!)