Goodbye Brazil, hello Argentina!

January 31, 2019

Goodbye Brazil, hello Argentina!

After a farewell lunch with Gabi and Marcelo in São Paulo, it was time for me to leave Brazil and embark on my next adventure. That evening, I boarded my (very comfortable) flight to Buenos Aires, and left behind my beloved São Paulo – for now, at least. I arrived in Argentina quite late, and after a bit of a faff trying to get an Uber from the airport, I managed to make it to América del Sur hostel in one piece, which is where I would be staying for my time in Buenos Aires.

My first day in BA started with a free walking tour of the La Boca neighbourhood, which was offered by the hostel. The hostel was great for offering free activities during the day, although its location doesn’t lend particularly well to those looking for a good nightlife, as I soon discovered. The walking tour was great, taking us around Caminito, which is a part of La Boca famous for its colourful buildings and for being home to the Boca Juniors football stadium, which we also had the chance to see. The tour guide was very informative, explaining the historical significance of the important figures, buildings and murals which decorate the Caminito area.

La Boca

After spending the morning wandering around this colourful neighbourhood, we had the option of continuing with the tour to visit the Monserrat and San Telmo neighbourhoods, for a charge of 500 pesos (~£10). As the morning tour had been so enjoyable, myself and my newly-found travel buddy Jen decided to continue with the tour. Along the way we came across a Che Guevara graffiti in which he is depicted with a number of important Argentinian symbols, a church which is home to Belgrano’s tomb (Belgrano created the Argentinian flag, so is very important in Argentine history), the Casa Mínima (http://www.elzanjon.com.ar), which is the smallest house in Buenos Aires and has a history linked to slavery, and the Ezeiza mansion, which is one of the mansions in the area in which tango is said to have originated. Upon finishing the walking tour, we all sat down in a small bar in San Telmo and enjoyed some homemade empanadas and cold beer – the perfect end to what had been a great day.

Casa Mínima

On my first night in Argentina, there was only one choice for dinner – steak and wine. After a scroll through Vicky’s food Instagram, @fatvicks (it became my food bible in BA, thanks Vicky!), we settled on a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant called Don Niceto. For about £5 each, we had a chorizo each, steak, chips and a bottle of red wine, and it was delicious. Absolute bargain, and so good we went back again a week later. After dinner, we decided to go on a night out, and after going to Bad Toro and Antares for some drinks, both of which were great bars, we stumbled across a club with a rooftop terrace, and spent the night there. All in all, my first day in BA was a huge success.

Before the steak arrived at Don Niceto

The next day was filled with a trip to the beautiful Recoleta cemetery. I thought it was a bit odd that a cemetery was a tourist attraction, but upon arrival it was clear why it is. The tombs are all intricately decorated and are absolutely enormous. Many people flock to see Evita’s tomb, as she is a hero in Argentina, but I actually thought there were many other tombs that were far more striking and interesting. There are tours available, but we chose to wander round by ourselves, which is definitely doable and saves you a few quid. The following day we mooched around San Telmo market for a bit, which has a lot of weird and wonderful stuff for sale, and then we had lunch at Gibraltar Pub. Now, having been away from the UK since July, it’s fair to say I’ve been missing pubs and English food. This pub almost perfectly replicated any pub you’d find in the UK, and I had a amazing steak and ale pie which filled the English-food-shaped hole in my stomach. That evening we went to a fantastic pizza restaurant called Siamo nel Forno, where I was also able to satisfy my craving for a decent pizza after many disappointing pizzas in Brazil (with the exception of a few excellent ones of course, as mentioned in previous blogs).

Recoleta cemetery

On my final day in BA before a short trip to Córdoba, we did another walking tour with the hostel, this one far less interesting. It was architecture-based, and involved a lot of walking with not as much explanation, although to be fair to the guide he didn’t have much to work with. The main points on this tour were the Congress building and Avenida 9 de Julio, which is the widest avenue in the world, from which we saw the Obelisk and some famous portraits of Evita speaking to the people of Argentina. That night we flew to Córdoba, and spent the next day strolling around the city. Although Córdoba has some nice sights, the main ones can be seen in about 3 hours, and none of them involve actually going inside a building, it was purely visual. The one thing that could have made it more interesting as a city was their fine arts museum, but this closed for 5 hours in the afternoon for a siesta, so we missed out on that. Possibly the best thing we saw here was a man pushing a dog dressed in jeans and sunglasses in a wheelbarrow, with the dog’s front legs perched on the edge as if posing. That should say a lot about the kind of place Córdoba is.

Plaza San Martín, Córdoba

My plan after Córdoba was to go back to BA for a night to see Tilly when she arrived, then go to Iguazu Falls for the weekend, followed by a trip to Mendoza with Tilly and Jen the following week. Sadly, Iguazu turned out to be too big an expense so early on in my travels, and so I spent the next few days in BA with Tilly and Jen before going to Mendoza. On Tilly’s first night, we went to La Hormiga in Palermo, and had a gorgeous steak and wine dinner. The following day we watched live tango in Plaza Dorrego, where non-professional couples come and dance for free, although tipping is expected. It was amazing to watch live tango, and you couldn’t tell they weren’t professionals, in my opinion. On the Saturday, Jen and I caught the train to Tigre, a small town near BA where you can spend a day and hire a kayak or take a boat tour down the river, which was a nice way to get out of the city for a few hours. For our final meal in BA, we paid our second visit to Al Rawshe, an amazing Lebanese restaurant. The following day we headed to Mendoza which you’ll hear about in my next blog!