The hostel is staffed by a group of locals, who at first seem incredibly sleepy and not so warm. then you realise that they`re sleepy because they enjoy going out with us and showing us the `cool`places to go till 7am and then start work at 8... so we forgive them : ) Jenny took us out on maybe my 3rd night, to a local open air venue called konex, with huge stairs inside that serve as the stage for the percussion band that blows everybodys minds every monday night. It`s not just that they are excellent, spontaneous and surprising, but the crowd they attract is almost as good. It`s a pretty hippy vibe, everyone sharing round joints (1 joint for 10 pesos, bargain!) and sharing tumblers of fernet and beer bigger than my face! amazing. After the samba of brazil, which is excellent for the first 20 minutes until you realise they plan to play the same song for the next 4 hours, this band (El Bomba de Tiempo) rule the school. You´re never bored and i was sober for at leaaast the first 30 minutes, and they sounded just as good before the fernet kicked in, if not better!
I only intended to stay in BA for 2 weeks, but i got sucked in, just like in rio and was there for nearly 5. I was sick with flu for about 10 days of it, but apart from that, i refer you back to the blur... i did do a lot! Remember Roberto who i met in Rio and travelled around with for a while, the travel agent who never travels ; ) he`s from BA state, and lives in a pleasant breezy suburb in the north called san isidro, about a 25 minute drive from the city. I stayed with him one weekend and went with him and his friends to his holiday house in Tigre. (He has a cat, a kitten really, who just did not get that i was allergic to her. I kept pushing her off me and my stuff and yelling at her poor thing, but i think she thought it was some fun new game, yey. I slept on a mattress and despite barricading myself with pillows, when i woke up, she was fast asleep on my face...aaaargh).
A lot of residents from San Isidro and Tigre have a holiday house on the Delta River in Tigre. Its a long winding river that surrounds an island, the water`s a caramel brown, as the whole river bed is made of a deliciously schelchy brown mud. ( huge aside: met a french guy a few weeks ago, when we were trekking through mud, and he looooved the word squelch. He said it fit perfectly and would say it with relish whenever we encountered a particularly squlechy part of our trail through the woods, and frankly, you haven`t lived till you`ve heard a frenchman say ´squelch´)
When i worked at Starbucks, we had a huge metal tub of chocolate mocha mix for the hot chocolate we made. We would pump out the appropraite number of pumps for each size of drink, until the pump started squirting air, because it couldn`t quite reach the bottom of the tub. I would always volunteer to clean it, because there is nothing quite as gratifying as delving into that chocolatey goo at the bottom of the tub. Ìf it`s been a busy shift, we`ve gone throiugh the tuib quickly and the dregs are still warm and thick, and cling to your fingers. I`d have to wash it eventually, but for those few moments, i got to forget about my back breaking day. Standing in the delta river, the soft mud pushing through your toes, was just like that...except i was in a bikini drinking cuba libres : )
Thos were unfortunately the beginning days of my gross flu, so i slept a lot that weekend, but we also made asado, which is basically a combo of amazing barbequed beef and chorizo sausage, and had hamburgers, and drank and smoked and swam. His house has a pier where we spent most of our time...perfect. His friends were great, and federico, a graphic designer, tells the best stories, He jumps around and does kung fu actions to acompany all his stories. he say`s `fraaaa` a lot, his equivalent of pow, smack, or dishum (for all my indian homies out there),he`ll even smack himself in the face if he has to, he`s committed ; )
Apart from delta, there was a lot of going out, since BA is famous for it`s night life. Personally i think it tries too hard to be european. It`s built a new harbour that frankly could be anywhere in the world, how boring. And there`s a lot of electronic, house, dance etc. But i went anyway, when in BA and all that jazz. One of the clubbs, the museum, is just full of travellers and drunk argey men who bear hug u from behind and carry u off...not appropraite. I was with aurora when it happened, who`s tiny and was attempting to pull me down. I think I finally swatted him off and ran away, sticking to our boys for the rest of the night. Real meat market, where if you actually convince them you`re not interested, they just move onto the next girl. One guy silently grabbed my face with both his hands, slurred ¨Slumdog Millionaire¨, and slunk off...what? That was pretty much my breaking point for hearing people ask me about slumdog just cos i`m indian... And as for the music there, it`s basically stuff from your now 25 album you thought you`d never hear again, oh dear. The saddest part is that the building is beautiful inside, incredibly grand, with wrought iron balconies, designed by Pierre Eiffel, and is now decked with glitter balls and drunk western european girls.
I walked plenty around the city too, saw all the art museums and parks, went to a million flea markets and fairs, and generally had a fab time. The cemetery in recoleta is quite a sight, especially at sunset. It``s full of decadent tombs and not creepy at all...except of course if, like me, u stick your head in through a door that clearly should be locked, realise it`s full of cobwebby sinsiter broken coffins and peg it before you pee yourself. All the tourists are obssessed with Evita`s tomb, but there were much more interesting and curious graves to be found hidden away down the little alleys in the grounds. Some overly opulent, and some neglected and decrepid, as their remaining descendants have faded away...
The cemetery itself is embedded in a city that had grown around it, not forgetting it, but the blocks of flats throw a sharp contrast to the grandeur to be found within the cemetery grounds...
As for the rest of the city, it`s full of large open spaces, grandiose statues, all manner of styles of architecture, as well as narrow badly cobbled streets full of small markets and houses. The parks are beautiful and never empty, jugglers and artists, always some band playing, or a fair going on, and inevitably, full of lovey dovey adoring couples. South america for me so far has certainly not been a continent to be shy about romance. You know when a couple is a couple here, because inevitabley they`re either inhaling each other in a bus queue (rio) or caressing each other in that dreamy carefree way that couples do. You do not stay single here for long, and why would you. The whole city is weeping love.
(My brazilian friend Livia spent time in London and asked me honestly what is wrong in England, that people are so undemonstrative; ¨ how are u supposed to know if two people are together?¨ )
The plazas in BA tend to be more mellow during the day, but they come alive at night, full of street artists and buskers. There`s one guy puts on a song and then dances around throwing paint at a huge canvas swinging around huge squeegee bottles of colours, schmearing the canvas with his hands occasionally, and then suddenly, it`s a painting of the singer he`s dancing to. Incredible.
Couples dancing tango, the sound of that incredibly rounded italian-accented spanish spoken in argentina all around you, and light shining out of the shop windows open into the night. It`s such a warm atmosphere And I mosty felt safe in BA, though i`ve heard stories. At the most, i`ve had cars low down and windows rolled down. (and lets be honest, the little black and indian b-boys do that to me at home, so no sweat) But my god, the men in argentina are not shy. They lean in close and whisper waht i can quite safely assume, are not sweet nothings. And louder, nonchalantly, ¨aye querida, mamasita, bonita...¨ bluuuuurgh. Some of these men are clearly older than my father, and yet it`s part and parcel of the culture. What do they honestly think is gonna happen? Your older than my dad, mate. Seriously.
I really thought with my dark skin etc, i`d escape comment in european- loving argentina, but no. And there is a clear divide between the european descendants and the indigenous population. Like most societies, there`s a monetary link. I liked staying in san telmo because u tended to get an even mix of locals and gringos, which is the best u can hope for in a gringo central city like BA. I mean i realise now how ridiculous it was of me to see my trip as an adventure. There are travellers eeeevrywhere. I even bumped into someone who i used to get the school bus with about 6 years ago. He lives about 2 miles from my house at home, and i`ve never seen him. I had to come to BA to bump into David Siddall...the universe moves in mysterious ways. We were both in shock for a fair while, and didn`t even say hi at first, because it seemed too ridunculous to be true. Clearly not.
Staying in the hostel were a few `permanent` members comme moi, and then a rotating group of randoms, coming and going. Among them, werre murray and fraser. As we got to talking one day, it turns out they were walking behind me and my scandi group the very moment we got mugged in rio 2 months earlier. I was clearly too dazed to have even seen them, but they knew me from that night...what?!? Then there was Livia, lovely girl from Brazil who just couldn`t understand why everyone can`t dance the samba as easily as she did ; ) and Taylor from Tulsa Oklahoma, always sipping on the Mate (argentinian tea so full of stimulants, i didn`t know how argentinians drink it all day long, then again, they do stay out clubbing till 7am, so that probably does the trick.) My system can`t really take caffeine, but i chugged it back anyway, cos it`s the only way i can handle staying out so late. My routine was, nap from around 8 till 11, shower, coffee and off we go...to dinner! At home i`d be done by 2am, but in argy, they`re just wrapping up dinner and getting ready to head out...what! And the girls, they`re beautiful. Not in the Brazilian way, where they`re dark and enticingm slim and curvaceous and there`s a gym on every corner and workout bars on the beaches. Ot seems incredibly healthy. In BA however, they`re pencil thin, and aesthetically their faces are just right, and they`re well dressed, and i suspect they smoke more than they eat, and english guys go nuts for them. I`ve heard it`s the country with the world`s highest anorexia figures and i`m inclined to believe it.
And if you`re under the impression that the english are terrible binge drinkers that go on holiday to just drink and shag as many locals as possible, well... Not all of us by any means, but a lot. And lets not forget the irish, who have such immense staying power, i think there`s something in the water. Probably Guinness. No naming names, but let`s just say lifts were punched up, beds were wetted (?) and a girl and a couch was peed on. Saying that, one of the dutch guys was sick in Wim`s rucksack and we`re not sure, but we think he drunkenly ran it under the shower in panic. So Wim woke up to a wet dripping bag full of water vomit. And was incredibly calm about it all. He`s a brilliant guy, so good humoured, i love it...Someone was sick in his bag, man!
I was both relieved and bummed to leave BA. It definitely has something, I could easily live there, the locals are lovely, and don`t seem to mind at all as i butcher their language right in front of them. It`s not as pricey as Brazil and just a great city all round really. But was so excited about Ushuaia, i think leaving BA was only half as sad as it should have been. That`s one fantastic aspect of this travelling bit, even when i`m sad to leave somewhere, i know i have something unknowen to move onto, so even leaving great people behind is tempered with a bitter sweet flavour, instead of the heavy sadness of saying goodbye.
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