Neihbourhoods of Buenos Aires, Part 2

La Boca

South of San Telmo is colourful La Boca. It’s walking distance, but I’d only do it during the day as even then, it’s the only time I ever felt on edge in Buenos Aires. La Boca sits on the wharfs and despite being separated from the city by poor and neglected neighbourhoods, it’s the city’s most touristy place. We visited after about a month in Buenos Aires and had wondered where all the tourists were! The amount of them came as a bit of a shock, and so did the prices!

When I say colourful I mean literally! Brightly painted houses and restaurants line the streets and a small plaza. Guitarists and dancers perform and rope tourists into joining a tango (not us!). Most restaurants have a small stage for dancers, but avoid the crowds, prices and souveneir sellers and grab a table at a quieter tango bar around the plaza in San Telmo. La Boca is fun though and definitely worth an afternoon visit.

Once
Other than being the place to buy cheap electronics and other items from the dozens of street sellers, Once is Buenos Aires’ Jewish neighbourhood. Our visit was motivated by our desire for different food and we weren’t disappointed. There are many kosher delis and stores and, the world’s only kosher McDonalds! We didn’t partake.

Once is also home to Teatro Ciego; the Blind Theatre. We missed out on a show, but I think it would be a cool experience and it’s pretty cheap. It would help to have a fairly good grasp of Spanish though, as the theatre is 100% aural. I read that the room is pitch black and you eat your meal from shared plates with your hands. I think all the performers are blind too.

Chinatown

I was excited to visit Chinatown for a few reasons. Buenos Aires, like Argentina enerally, isn’t very multicultural (at least in the way I’m used to in Melbourne). There are Spanish and Indigenous Argentines, people from South America and a strong Italian influence (if not community), but not many other significant groups breaking through what is a mostly homogenous culture. So when we visited Chinatown I was looking forward to a different side of the city that at the same time, was familiar. More importantly, I went for the spices. Food in Argentina isn’t spicy even when it says so and having grown up and lived in Mebourne’s most Asian suburbs (Springvale and Footscray), I was in need of something hot!

If Chinatown was easier to get to, I would have gone more often to try more restuarants and shop at their markets. As it was, we went just the one time and had a slightly disappointing Chinese meal. Chinatown is not officially a barrio like the others, but the residents are campaigning for it and I think they’re pretty close. If you’ve been to Melbourne’s Chinatown or maybe San Francisco’s, Buenos Aires’ Chinatown will be a bit of a let down. If you’re from Canberra however, you’ll love it.

Near San Telmo…
Heading east from San Telmo one afternoon, beyond where the Sunday market ends, we felt a little like we were crossing to the other side of the tracks. There’s western style restaurants and a modern cinema complex where movies are cheap and usually dubbed. Melbournians will know what I mean when I call the area ‘Docklandsesque’. I got that same sterile, souless feeling as if I’d arrived in a ghost town or one that had never quite fulfilled the hopes of its developers and was now unlikely to. It turns out my instincts were accurate; my Spanish teacher confirmed that the area used to be industrial wharfs and that people only really like it for roller-blading and jogging et cetera.

The Forgotten Buenos Aires Files!

Thinking about my recent posts, it dawned on me that there was so much more to Buenos Aires than I wrote about and that surely I hadn’t been so lax. I hadn’t! I’d merely sequestered a file in a strange place. So here it is…

Neighbourhoods of Buenos Aires, Part 1

Buenos Aires is made up of many small neighbourhoods known as ‘barrios’, each with its own history and characteristics. I wrote about San Telmo earlier, but here’s a little about some of the other barriors.

Recoleta.
The fanciest and wealthiest barrio, Evita once declared that Recoleta should be bombed, which is ironic given it’s where she’s now burried. Home to a large cemetery that is the last home of many well known people, Recoleta is Buenos Aires’ cultural centre. Here you will find the opera house, art galleries and theatres, along with brew houses, Western style restaurants and a mega-cinema complex. It looks very European.

Evita’s final resting place.

It’s a bit of a walk from the nearest subway so compared to other barrios it’s not that easy to get to. We saw Fuerza Bruta in one of Recoleta’s theatre spaces; quite honestly the most unique and entertaining show I’ve ever been to. It’s touring, so check out their website if you like drums, acrobatics, aerial, dj’s, water and dancing.

Palermo.
Palermo is split into two barrios, Hollywood and SoHo. Unsurprisingly, it’s where many American ex-pats live and is probably the second wealthiest area. A give away is all the dog walkers! There are American themed bars, an Irish pub, some great Argentinian restuarants and funky clothes stores. Our spanish class was in Palermo, a short walk from the subway and past delicious looking bakeries.

Class was was also close to the nicest, tiniest bar/ cafe I found in Buenos Aires. I really enjoyed working on Spanish homework or my bog there while I waited for Tristan to finish his class (we took them separately as he’s at a much higher level than me). As well as a cafe, it’s a deli that serves food on wooden plates and red wine in (full) Stella Artois glasses. It could be a challenge to finish in an hour though, especially when I was busy writing.

At $7 for a glass and a large baguette with proscuito, smoked mushrooms and two kinds of cheese, I was set. I’m not sure that drinking wine immediately after class was conducive to retaining the Spanish learnt in the previous hour though… Sadly I never quite found out the name. It’s ‘Nueva’ something and on a corner of Calle Ministerio Carranza, a few blocks up from the main street the subway is on.

Florida
Buenos Aires’ main commercial strip is in Florida. It’s pedestrian road worth a short visit on your way to something else. Stop by Galleria Pacifico for artwork that’s more befitting a church than a shopping centre, and browse the stores for generic clothes and souveneirs. I walked through part of Florida on the way to work for Family #2 and we went a couple of times to exchange money.

Everywhere we went before Argentina, people were telling us to exchange US dollars at unofficial places as the rate is much higher. The problem was that in January, the government put a stop to withdrawing US dollars from ATMs as it was screwing over workers and the economy. This meant that after exchanging a couple hundred dollars when we arrived, we had nothing left to exchange and couldn’t take advantage of the much better rate of 10 pesos for $1 rather than 7.5 for $1.

It was a shame, especially as dividing by 10 is much easier than dividing by 7.5! When we exchanged the US dollars we withdrew in Uruguay we even got 11 pesos for $1. It was annoying as many places assume gringos or even slightly well-off people could magically obtain US dollars and get the good rate, so prices were high. Even my yoga place charged accordingly. How people got hold of dollars remains a mystery, and one the postal service may want to look into…

Patagonia in June

Patagonina is the region shared by southern Argentina and Chile known best for its glaciers, trekking, southern Andes mountain range and being ‘the end of the world’. While our income in Buenos Aires wasn’t near what we’d hoped and we were at risk of diverting from our original travel plans, we still visited expensive and far-off world of Patagonia. We’d decided to see what we could while we were in the area. Afterall, when would we be so close again? Probably never. If we ran out of money and didn’t make it to Central America, we would just hang out in cheap Bolivia and travel Central America another time.

Being winter, there were few tours. Usually I prefer independent travel anyway, but when I started researching how to get to Patagonia from Buenos Aires it became clear that a tour was probably easiest. Winter also meant that there were less bus services, and confirming which were running was near impossible. A bus from Buenos Aires to Patagonia took at least 44 hours and to get to the attractions, we’d need ferries that may or may not be running. So a tour it was, and we found a five night package online with 01 Argentina for $900 including flights, accommodation, breakfasts and tours. It still hurts to think of spending so much in such a short time, but it was better than the local travel agencies and the company had good reviews. Also, we were meeting Tristan’s mum in Peru on June 23rd so we only had three weeks and a tour was well worth the logistical comfort.

Farewell Buenos Aires!

Punta del Diablo, Uruguay

On the afternoon of our second day in Uruguay, we left Montevideo and took a bus and ferry to Punta del Diablo on the country’s north-east coast near Brazil. We arrived in darkness and were a little uneasy as our hosts said they’d meet us at the bus stop but didn’t show up. Nor did we have a working phone or were persuasive enough for a store to let us use theirs. We headed towards the lights of the busiest part of town we could see where a cafe owner happened to know our hosts. After some phone calls, we were finally picked up and dropped off at our very cute and well heated free-standing cabin.

It was almost winter and we were on the coast, so it was chilly and not ideal beach-going weather but it was nice nonetheless. The small, surf town would be even better in summer. We enjoyed the fresh air and walked along the beach accompanied by a dog we’d met not far from our cabin, and who waited for us when we stopped at a beach-front cafe for a coffee.

I lost my photos from this trip but had to show one, thanks google images!

Armed with a not-so-accurate map, we began walking to Santa Teresa National Park and its fort. For a couple of hours, along the beach and coast and dunes we went, wondering when we’d get to the park. Along the way, we saw one or two teenagers on bikes but other than that we were all alone. While that was peaceful, it was also a little scary. Especially as the landscape looked like the island in Lost.

After finally getting to the park and walking through it for around two hours, we arrived at a few colonial buildings and greenhouses. Sadly they were closed but it was nice to rest before continuing our journey to the fort. Eventually, after the landscape turned more agricultural and tourists more plentiful, the fort loomed ahead of us on a hill. These tourists were wise though; they were all in cars. It was cold and we were exhausted!

The fort itself is pretty cool. For a small entrance fee we could go inside buildings and wonder the grounds that in the recent past were used to host medieval, reenactment type events. After an hour or two, we were accutely aware of the encroaching clouds, impending darkness and at least a four hour walk back through a deserted park and beach that may or may not now be covered in water. Hrm…

The fort guides said there was probably a bus going along a main road, but it sounded unikely. We began asking people in the car park if they were going to Punta del Diablo and after about 20 minutes it worked out. A family didn’t have space in their car, but offered us a ride in the back of their ute. Not being in a position to decline, we accepted and it was a windy but fun half an hour ride back into town. Yay!

We had a late lunch at one of the beach-side restaurants and retreated to our cabin for a cosy night in. For our last morning in Uruguay we got up before dawn, walked to the sand dunes and watched the very pretty sunrise. After this calm morning, we began to worry about leaving on time for our bus and ferry back to Buenos Aires.

Our host had left very basic instructions for where he lived, but we couldn’t find his house nor call to confirm our pick-up time (the cabin was too far from the bus stop to walk with our bags). Luckily, his son arrived just in time and by evening we were back in our flat in Buenos Aires.

Before leaving Uruguay, we were sure to withdraw US dollars from an ATM (they’re not available in Argentina but can be exchanged at a high rate). The notes were so pristine and like Monopoly money, that in my distraction I walked off without taking my card. The ATM swallowed it back again, ironically to stop others taking it. No! The bank was helpless and no-one could be called to open the machine. It wasn’t the end of the world though. It was one of three cards I carried from different banks and Tristan had its twin, so we could still access the same, no-international-transaction-fee account (GE Money’s 28 degrees mastercard; both it and the bank were good to deal with; at least compared to others!).

Montevideo, Uruguay

Hello again! Well, it’s February 17th and I haven’t published in far too long. I’ve done a lot of writing though, so now that I’m back home in Melbourne and don’t need to spend my time applying for jobs anymore (hooray!) there’s no excuse. Sadly, for some reason I have zero photos of Uruguay other then those on my ‘good’ camera that I’m yet to access (still house sitting and not truly settled), so apologies for the lack of visual entertainment.

Just across the bay from Buenos Aires is a whole other country; Uruguay! For Australians this is a big deal. It’s really cool to be able to travel for a couple of hours and arrive in another country. Other than taking a flight to New Zealand, Australians can’t really travel internationally that easily. So, a visit to Uruguay was a must.

In mid-May 2014, I took a Monday and Friday off work and we headed to the port for an early morning, one hour ferry to Colonia. From there it was a four hour bus ride to Montevideo, Uruguay’s capital. Using AirBnB, we stayed in a flat in the centre of town with a good view from a rooftop garden. Our host, Edilson lived there with his partner Humberto. Both were lovely and spent time telling us about the city and how to get around. We could do most of it walking, so we headed off to spend the afternoon exploring.

Our first stop was a state government department building, as it’s roof has the best views and entrance is free. Montevideo a sprawling metropolis, broken by parks, churches and many small plazas. We walked along the Rambla; a mainly industrial an disappointing waterfront, strolled through some plazas and went into a small Anglican church perched on a hill. For dinner, we took some bread, salami and cheese back to the apartment. We’d heard Uruguay was expensive, but it didn’t really hit home until we bought the groceries, and earlier in the day we were charged $6 for one small coffee.

Edilson’s AirBnB ad said they accommodate two people, but it turns out this was an error. Tristan gallantly let me sleep on the pull-out couch, while he slept on its cushions on the floor. We had to ask for pillows and bedding and only a thin sheet wall seperated us from the kitchen / dining area. The flat was tiny and they really shouldn’t be offering space on AirBnB. Or, they should make it clear that there’s only a single couch practically in the kitchen, and charge less than $15 a night each. There was also no hot water. We were only there for one night though, and in the morning we gently spoke to Edilson about it. He gave us half our money back and changed the ad. So overall, I wasn’t too annoyed. On the other hand, we left some bananas there, which I really wanted. Sometimes when you’re backpacking, it really is the small things!

The next day we visited the Legislative Palace (from the outside), more plazas and had lunch in a barbeque smoke filled and delicious smelling market; a nice reprieve from the drizzly day. We browsed vintage market stalls and went to the Metropolitan Museum and a theatre. I’d been looking forward to seeing Montevideo’s Statue to Sexual Diversity, even though I’d heard it wasn’t that exciting. Turns out it’s elusive too; we never found it!

Maybe I didn’t give Montevideo a long enough chance or find the right places, but I wasn’t that impressed. It’s a very European city and very expensive, but reflecting Uruguay’s awesome President, it’s also very contemporary and open. For example, everyone gets free university education and work rights.