Life in Buenos Aires

Shoe shopping, parillas (bbq cow - all of it including the muscle around the heart, testicles, tongues - why o why did I ask?), drinking cheap wine, shoe shopping, coffee, clothes shopping, towers of ice-cream, trying to salsa to spanish instructions, trying to tango in wobbly heels, coffee and unfortunately frequent skedaddles with doggy poop - the only yucky part. Living in Buenos Aires has been lots of fun so far and a major change in the pace of our travels. We too have slowed down, no volcanoes, camping or river rapids in sight, hence the big gap in blogs, sorry to our devoted fans. (We´ll send you both a postcard).

Given the many sights, sounds and other sensations of Buenos Aires to experience, decided to rest our weary travelling bods and stay put in BA for a month (plus the idea of renting an apartment, having our own phone and not having to queue in the morning for the bathroom tipped the scales). Pooled all the knowledge we could gather from Lonely Planet, friends in the know and a quick apraisal of the local cafe scene and settled on an apartment in Palermo, BA´s answer to the hip and cool young things of Prahan. Surrounded by restaurants, cafes and designer boutiques all in a backpacker´s price range - not a bad choice.


Week one disappeared in a blur of trawling markets, the boutiques of Palermo and shopping strips of Ave Florida and Santa Fe in search of anything to replace the same clothes we have been wearing for the last 3 months. Two pairs of Tango shoes (complete with free tango lesson) and a pair of leather boots later we were set to join the well heeled masses of Palermo, although not sure what we will wear in the backstreets of Paraguay. Checked out the famous antique market of San Telmo (see pic left). The old gramaphones were funky but no way of fitting in our rucksacks or of being all that useful either come to think of it. Tried to spend our pennies on a sit down tastey parilla lunch instead, but as much chorizo (sausage), steak and vino tinto we consumed it was tough to break the bank.

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Broadening our cultural experiences of BA we payed respects to a few of the city´s landmarks including the famous Obelisk bang smack in the middle of the world´s widest road 9 De Julio (its a challenge crossing 20 lanes of traffic in one go-not in pic). The pink building is called Casa Rosada (literal translation) as it used to be painted in Ox blood and is home of the Argentinian Government although these days only the front is painted a bright pink due to budget contraints. Next stop on the tourist trail was the elegant Teatro Colon, BA's gradiose old opera house. The building itself was imported almost entirely from Europe. Tour included the basement workshops where 90,000 costumes and 200,000 shoes are stored. Sat in one of the boxes and watched the rehearsal of the current Ballet, La Sylphide. Tune in next week for a review (any ballet buffs care to prep us by emailing the plot?!).

Decided if we're going to live in BA we'd join the Portenos (locals) by walking around the huge gardens and checking out the beautiful crowd, their version of the Tan. Shook our heads in amazement at the duffa-duffa music coming from a nearby nightclub still in full swing at lunchtime Sunday, don't these kids have homes to go to! Wandered around Puerto Madero, BA's hip docklands to check out probably the only cows in town not destined for the Parilla grill. Think some of the artists have had one too many Chorizos! One photo is of Stu, not the cows.

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Keen to build on our Santiago dancing success we braved a salsa lesson in spanish only to be caught out by the fact that things dont get going here until the wee small hours, it was more like salsa asleep on our feet. Think we're going to have to revive the disco-nap! Never mind, our funky new feet did the job and we've hooked up some Tango lessons for next week.

After our Gaucho/gringo experiences in Chile we thought we'd see how the locals do it by checking out a big Horse/gaucho fair near us. Our limited riding skills were put to shame by the wee kids careening around the arena at high speed in some bizzare test of horse agility, riding skills and how well you could hold on to your hat while spinning around a barrel. Witnessed a bizarre version of polo called Horse Ball where the players on horse back throw a ball to each other 3 times before attempting to score a goal through a huge net.

Rounding off a hectic week or two, we caught up with Mariella's friends Josephina, Diego and wee Santiago in another meat eating competion. Hats off to little Santiago who was still going strong at 1:30am, giggling through his ice-cream feast while pulling off a fair impression of a baby seagull...Ask Zeza for expert tips on how to pull this off.

Two weeks here have sped past and no doubt the next fortnight will too. Still a lot to be explored including spanish and tango lessons and a Copa de Liberatores footy match next week. Leave you with greetings from the Evil Easter Bunny and hope you all enjoy the long weekend and don´t have too big a chocolate hangover come Monday.

Love Kaz & Stu xox

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Bargain of the week: top seats at the national opera $AUS 42

Arse of the week: dog poo on da shoe!

Sight of the week: watching the poor dog walkers struggling with their charges although "arse of the week" deleted pretty much all of that sympathy.