Steak Country Continued

Next stop on our journey through Argentina was four hours northwest of Buenos Aires on the western shore of the Parana River to the city of Rosario. Rosario is the largest city in the province of Santa Fe and the third-largest city by population in Argentina. For me the city itself is very metropolitan  and the neoclassical architecture which is visible in hundreds of buildings throughout gives Rosario a very European feel.

It was here that our good friend Facundo lived with his sister and cousin and he had kindly offered to let us stay. We gladly took him up on this offer, what with us being poor/stingy travellers. We had met Facundo and his two friends when we were in Florianopolis so it was cool to have a familiar face in the city and a friendly Argentine to put a roof over our head.  After the bus journey and a jolly taxi driver with a severe case of verbal diarrhea we arrived at Facundo's and made ourselves at home. In true Argentine style a meal of steak and salad was served up to us which went down extremely well before going for a little night walk around the city. Facundo lives in the central part of Rosario and just a short walk from The National Flag Memorial of Rosario. The statuesque memorial is a monumental complex made up of several parts built near the shore of the Parana River. It opened on June 20 1957, the anniversary of the death of Manuel Belgrano - the creator of the Argentine flag. Each year on June 20 they celebrate National Flag day. This was a pretty impressive statue by night all lit up in the patriotic blue and white lights and I was keen to see how it looked by daylight. 

The next day as Facundo went to work we headed out for yet another tourist day around the city - armed with a map and a camera we were ready. After walking along the river accompanied by our side kick for the day in the shape of a chubby, old, black street dog we headed for Casa Natal Che Guevara. The big man himself was born in Rosario on June 14, 1928 and this was one of my main interests when visiting the city. Considering Che was such a prominent figure in Argentinean history I would have expected his birthplace to be a little more impressive or been made more of a feature of in the city. Instead it was simply a block of flats with a relatively small post outside with a sign highlighting that this was his birthplace. However what particular flat was his wasn't so clear and it took several questions to several strangers to work out which one it actually was - the one with the small Argentinean flag in the window. We stayed another night in Rosario and the next day with a few hours to spare before the bus to Salta and a very sweet tooth calling Facundo recommended what he considered to be the best Ice cream parlour in the city so we were off yet again. Argentina in my opinion do two things extremely well.....Meat and Ice Cream!(however I would not be inclined to mix the two). After walking five blocks we saw heaven on the horizon. It was well worth the walk. I treated myself to an enormous Dulce de Leche con bom bon flavour and I think it would be fair to say it was quite possibly the best ice cream of my life...... I thank you Rosario (and Facundo).

Another long old bus ride later (over 11 hours) and we arrived at our next destination, Salta which was further northwest Argentina. Nicknamed Salta la Linda (Salta the beautiful) it has become popular with tourists due to its old colonial architecture, stunning Argentine countryside and of course its empanadas which are said to be the best in the country.

 When we came to South America three years ago we stayed in the Loki hostel in La Paz, Bolivia and made friends with some of the staff there so this time (thanks to the wonderful online community that is Facebook) we were told by my friend Osgur that a new Loki hostel was in the process of being built in Salta and we could go and stay there for a while.....for free! Rude not to really. The main house which was serving as the staff quarters was built so we stayed here with the four staff that were working and setting the hostel up for the opening. The site was massive and the building was coming along with future plans showing that there would be a massive bar, swimming pool and hopefully a small ranch in the future with horses - definitely one to remember for next time.

Whilst in Salta we got familiar with the locals which considering we were about 40 minutes out of the city consisted mainly of the street dogs which decided to accompany me on my daily runs in the countryside. Bless them for trying but they were definitely more of a hinderence than a help. We visited the main city and walked around the beautiful 9 de Julio plaza in the centre and enjoyed a couple of nights out - one of which was to a rather strange 'Rock' concert in the city but by far my highlight of Salta has to be the horse riding. Emma who was working at the hostel recommended a ranch to go to so early one morning we headed out. The ranch itself was about an hour away in a beautiful quiet part of the Argentinean countryside and after meeting our friendly Gaucho guide for the day who went by the name of 'River Footsteps' (bit of a mouthful) it was time to saddle up. I feel that now would be a good time to mention that when I was a youngster I fell off a horse and broke my arm, this horse just so happened to be an evil white horse named Milo and this is the reason why I will not ride a stupid white horse again. So I hear you cry what horse did they try and partner me up with ........ YES a bloody white horse! After flatly refusing to hop on I was instead given the biggest, craziest horse of all but in their defense he was brown. There was only 6 of us in the group so it was a really fun day galloping through the countryside and enjoying the views whilst trying my best to stay upright on my horse. The difficulty of this task increased some what after a lunch where Enrique (the owner of the ranch) poured as much red wine down our throats as he could manage so its fair to say the afternoon ride was a little wobblier but a lot more fun.

I have absolutely loved my time in Argentina and really appreciate everything about the country from the extremely warm people, to the laid back culture and the interesting history and it goes without saying that the steak and wine are a bit of a bonus too. I will definitely be returning but for the time being its Hasta Luego Argentina. Don't cry for me.

The Argentinean Flag - Thank you Manuel Belgrano

National Flag Memorial of Rosario

The rather brown Parana River

Mascot for the day

Enjoying tourist day in Rosario

This definitely helped when looking for his old gaff

Che Guevara's birthplace in Rosario

Interesting name for a cafe?

The infamous ice cream

our home for the next 11 hours on the bus

Catedral Basilica in 9 de Julio Plaza, Salta

Hanging out in 9 de Julio Plaza

Loki hostel, Argentina.....coming soon

An extremely bizarre rock concert

Waiting for the very 'local' bus to town

Our Salta mates for the week who go by the names of Scooby, Skippy and Wolfy

The famous empanadas from Salta

Limbering up for horse riding

Horsing around

out in the beautiful Argentine countryside

Mr River Footsteps and me

Don't cry for me Argentina

Buenos Aires.....I love this city. and the Spanglish begins.

After an amazing 2 and a half months in Brazil I was ecstatic to be in Argentina and to start practising/torturing the locals with my Spanish and Buenos Aires seemed like the perfect place to start. I had been here once three years ago with Hannah also and a few other friends but it was a bit of a flying visit which included copious amounts of red wine, a shower of urine and a bad bout of horrendous bed bugs for one of my buddies so this time we planned to stay a bit longer and see what else it had to offer. Things can only get better.

Buenos Aires meaning 'fair winds' is the capital and largest city in Argentina and the second largest metropolitan area in South America after Greater Sao Paoilo. For me it is one of my favourite cities in the continent with its European style architecture and intriguing culture. This may be a long visit. Our hostel was perfectly situated on a busy street in Palermo which is one of the nicer and posher parts of the city filled with beautiful shops, bars and restaurants, so needless to say we fit in perfectly. The hostel itself was pretty bizarre with some; interesting characters, crazily drug-infused explicit artwork and a resident Alsatian but most importantly the price was right (less than a fiver a night which was a bargain for BA) so we made ourselves comfortable. As luck would have it on one of our first nights out In Palermo we learnt that it was actually National Ladies Day and manage to blag many a free drink and even got given a beautiful rose, purely on the basis of being a lady. The rose unfortunately did not survive the night but was a welcome gesture all the same. Extremely funny night with Hannah and our new friend Carla who invited along her 'conversation exchange' partner. However I think there was a severe case of miscommunication here as the aforementioned 'conversation exchange' partner seemed to interpret this as full-on date night with silly gringo and proceeded to try and initiate some over ambitious tonsil tennis with our dear Carla at every given moment. Poor girl. The rest of the night proceeded in a classically random and hilarious string of events including a motorbike 'backie' through the city, attempting a terrible Irish accent in return for free drinks in the Irish bar and crawling over the very plush leather sofa's in the club to enter the VIP section which luckily for us worked but not so lucky for our new Argentinean friends who tried to follow suit. We did make it home but not until 9am.

As with any big city it is essential to don your sunglasses, hang your camera round your neck, have your guide book to hand, cake yourself in sun cream and head out for a full on tourist day. We headed to some of the biggest plaza's in the city - Plaza del Mayo and Plaza de la Republica. Our first point of interest to tick off the list was the 'Obelisco de Buenos Aires' which is a national monument and icon of Buenos Aires and was built to commemorate the fourth centenary of the first foundation of the city.Perhaps not the most beautiful or interesting structure in my opinion so we moved on to the Casa Rosada. The Pink House (as it is translated in English)is the official executive mansion and office of the President of Argentina but perhaps most famously was where Eva Peron addressed the crowd of thousands following her husband Juan Perons release. It is a beautiful architectural building and the characteristic baby pink helps to make it one of the most emblematic buildings in Buenos Aires and has been declared as a National Historic Monument of Argentina. So after a few pictures outside and more than enough time being harassed by some lunatic locals to buy peach juice and pots of jelly we escaped inside and had a look around. Inside was pretty impressive with artwork and images from some prominent characters in Argentinean history including the big man himself...Mr Che Guevara. Outside in the Plaza de Mayo in front of the Casa Rosada is the visible protests and banners from a unique organization of Argentine women who have become human rights activists and for over three decades have fought for the right to be re-united with their abducted children. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo was formed by women who met each other in the course of trying to find their children who had 'dissapeared'/ abducted by agents of the Argentine government during the years known known as the Dirty War (1976-1983). An extremely sad and moving site to experience.

The next day was Sunday which is a big day in Buenos Aires especially where the local markets and tango is concerned. We were instructed to head down to San Telmo for the main market and it was bloody brilliant. This is no dodgy boring British market selling manky old lettuces, hideous granny pants or AA batteries instead San Telmo was like a festival in itself. The stalls themselves sold everything you could ever want - clothes, bags, artwork, jewellery and even had a whole antique market section but along side this there was lots of loud music, singing, dancing and street performers.....a particular favourite of mine being the invisible man. After loading up on some random Argentinean treats and a couple of empanadas it was time to head home. That night we went for yet another funny drunken night out in Palermo which included an extremely long happy 'hour' courtesy of a favourite little bar and jiggling along to an extremely bizarre Ricky Martin-esque karaoke singer. Good on him for giving it a go. Buenos Aires has an amazing nightlife and social scene and during our two weeks in the city we took full advantage of this. Aside from the Ricky Martin karaoke singer who we obviously enjoyed immensely we also found ourselves very merry on St Patricks Day where surprisingly enough it is reported that Buenos Aires is one of the top 5 cities to celebrate because apparently 500,000 Irish descendants live in the capital. We also found ourselves attending a very posh 'Beer Festival at the hippodrome which bore absolutely no resemblance to the British style beer festival we are more familiar with (think less muddy field with dirty old pints and more posh club, white surfaces and cocktail dresses) and we also got invited to watch one of our good Argentinean friends - Esteban (whom we met in Rio) perform with his band Boiero in a club in the city! Good times.

During our time in Buenos Aires we decided to visit Recoletta and in particular the graveyard which is home to Evita's grave, as this was something we had not done three years before when we came to the city. After being given our rather useless hand drawn map/scrawl on the back of an Aids leaflet we went in search of Mrs Eva Peron. It was not difficult to find her grave which was surrounded by lots of tourists and had by far the most flowers covering it.....beautiful. I just have to add at this point that this was no ordinary graveyard, some of these were enormous and extremely ornate in their architecture and design, in fact I think it would be fair to say a good proportion of them were bigger than most houses back home.

Now it is impossible to visit Argentina without giving Tango a go so that evening after Recoletta we had a few drinks and made our way to a place called Tango Cathedral which we were told on good authority was one of the best and most authentic Tango schools to visit in the city. It did not fail to impress, the main room was packed with tourists and locals alike some which could dance tango, some which could not  - needless to say we were the latter. Nevertheless everyone was having a really good time dancing and singing along. Whilst the wine itself did not manage to hit the spot (possibly one of the most hideous red wines I have ever tasted - something I didn't think was possible in Argentina) the Tango lesson and dancing itself was a lot of fun especially getting asked to dance with all the old Argentinean men. Note to self.... a dapper dancing old man is definitely the way forward and an extra point if he has an impressive moustache.

Boca is an area in Buenos Aires where I particularly enjoy visiting with its quirky character and charm, beautiful brightly coloured buildings (in particularly Caminito street, which means 'little path' in Spanish and is a street museum and traditional alley) crazy artwork and markets but also it's rather 'unique' locals. As our taxi driver vehemently instructed us on the way over to keep our eyes open we were fully aware that whilst some of the aforementioned locals just wanted to chat with an 'exotic gringo' others definitely just wanted to nick your handbag!!! After a few more touristy days like these we decided to escape the city and booked ourselves on to an impressively named 'Gaucho Fiesta Day'. For future reference should anyone be entertaining the idea of heading out on one of these days it is NOT a good idea to get silly drunk the night before which may result (certainly did in my case) in a desperate run off the bus on the way there to the nearest hotel toilet for a rather unglamorous repeat of the previous nights alcoholic beverage concoctions. Luckily the rest of the day proceeded in a much more positive fashion. We got taken out to an Estancia which is basically a Spanish term to describe a ranch. It was located on the outskirts of the city and we had an amazingly fun filled day of horse riding, music, singing, dancing, drinking, eating and a pretty impressive horse show as the finale where we saw the gaucho's doing what they do best (showing off) along with help of the very well trained horses performing tricks and stunts out on the ranch. Whilst I failed on the task of being whisked off my feet by a crazy, beautiful gaucho the loony old drunk Venezuelan ladies on our table at lunch more than made up for it. Although the average age of their group would have been 70+ they succeeded in drinking the bar dry, flirting with the waiters (young enough to be their great grandsons) and dancing a pretty impressive, if not slightly wobbly tango.

Our last night in Buenos Aires as a special treat we went to one of the nicest steak houses in the city called La Cabrera because after all to come here and not treat ourselves to a massive 'bigger-than-our-own-head' sized steak would be absolutely criminal so for one night only we ignored the 'traveller budget'. On arrival we were greeted with a glass of champagne whilst waiting for our table as the restaurant was packed due to its notoriety. The very friendly bouncers informed us that tonight was a particularly special night at La Cabrera as the United Arab Emirates ambassador and his entourage were dining there. After a little wave to the ambassador himself from our table the steak arrived. This was no ordinary steak - although we were sharing (luckily) we were presented with the best part of a great big bloody cow which was definitely on the verge of still 'mooing'. Absolutely delicious. This amazing hunk of meat, a tasty bottle of Malbec and a handful of lollies from the lolly tree (the free dessert at La Cabrera) ended up costing less than £40 between us so didn't exactly break the bank either. However the meat sweats were in full force so no more meat after this for at least a week was what we decided for the best............and then it was time to bid a fond Farewell to Buenos Aires.

Ladies Day Treats

The awkward 'conversation exchange'

Obelisco de Buenos Aires

Casa Rosada

The Big Man Che

Banners from the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo

Music at the San Telmo Sunday market

Cute old singing chap at San Telmo

My fave.....The Invisible Man

Sills

Beautiful Recoleta graveyard

Evita's grave in Recoleta

Getting ready for the infamous Tango

Inside Tango Cathedral

Caminito Street in Boca

Mara-bloody-donna

Hanging out in Boca

Boca Boca Boca

Friendly locals

Steak Night at La Cabrera

Beer festival?

at the very posh beer festival in Buenos Aires hippodrome

Our friend Esteban playing with his band Boiero

Hungover at the Ranch on Gaucho Fiesta Day 

Tango.....how it is meant to be done

 and Tango.....how we did it

The Gaucho crew

Crazy Gauchos

St Patricks Day fun

Obscure artwork at our hostel