Following the Dream

Christian February 5th, 2008

Buenos Aires - The Paris of South America

So far this has been a city filled with cheap steaks, beer, and wine, narrow sidewalks dotted with dog poop, and passion.

This post is about what we actually did last week, before the weekend in Buenos Aires. 

We did a lot of walking.  We saw the famous balcony where Evita gave her speeches to the masses and the rest of the Plaza de Mayo.  It is a pretty plaza surrounded by many historical buildings.  There are many people just relaxing in the sun during siesta time or feeding one of the many group of birds that are always vying for some food.  

  We also visited the zoo last week.  It was nice to see animals, however not so nice to see thier habitats that they were in.  The animals at the zoos in the states definitely have it better.  Many of thier enclosures were either too small or had bits of trash (plastic bottles, etc.) in thier habitats.  Minus that, it was a nice trip.  There were a lot more animals just roaming the grounds than what we are used to.  There are little things that look like a mix between rabbits and deer, really strange.  I will have to post pictures when we can.  Also, there were these rat like creatures that could swim and would come out of the lagoon for a bite to eat.  The little kids at the park kept trying to touch these things which are rats the size of cats.  I did not want to go that far.  It was a hot day, but a good one.  We saw all of the normal as well, elephants, giraffes, tiger, bears, and monkeys.  Although the monkeys there seem to have anal problems.  Some of them seemed to have hemeroids the size of bowling balls.  I have never seen this before.  I don´t know if it stems from not getting medical care or what.  I felt bad for the one monkey, his hemeroids were so big he could not sit on the ground.  He had to sit on a step and hang his butt off the end.

   The Japanese Gardens were very nice and quiet.  It was on the other side of the city, near the zoo.  It was a great place to get away from the hustle and bustle of the capital.  It was very quiet and tranquil.  Although, it seems that we went on the photo shoot day.  As there were models there getting all glamed out by a make up artist and having thier photos taken by a professional photographer.

  After the Japanese Gardens, we went to the botanical gardens of the city, which are free to enter (SCORE!!).  They were nice as well.  It isn´t like a longwood gardens, it is more like a Winterthur, where everything is more natural.  It was pretty though.  We thought we were going to get poured on, but we lucked out.

     We had dinner at a place named Desnivel, which was reccomended by the guidebook for it´s cheap steaks.  We got there it was great.  It felt like a local hangout more so than a tourist trap.  The cook is also the butcher and is cutting the meat on the spot at the front of the restaurant.  We both ate and had wine and it cost $12.  The steaks were good, but all I had was filet medallions.  We are going back to splurge on large filets for $7.50 each.  Can´t beat that, they looked like at least 10 ounces.  The waiters were crazy, yelling to the bar for thier drink orders, and tables squished where ever possible.  The butcher/ broiler was of course wearing an apron with blood on it, holding a huge sharp knife.  It was a good meal and a good introduction to Argentina´s cheap steaks and wine.

   We also visited Recoleta.  This is an area of town that the wealthy used to live in until the 1860s or so when an epidemic of the yellow fever struck this part of the city and wiped out many people.  Since then this has become the place where the rich are laid to rest.  It a huge area, probably a couple of city blocks at least of mosuleums.  It is very erie there, especially since the day that we visited it it was cloudy out and spitting rain.  It takes a long time to walk through, looking inside the mosuliums, which many times contain the coffins of the deceased.  There are creepy statues, and stray cats all over the place.  The cats are strange, since they are many times known as keepers or guardians of the dead.  We also visited the resting place of Evita, which was of course crowded by 10 people or so. 

  Our first week in the city was good.  We enjoyed it but were pretty much ready to move on.  This past weekend we spent the time at Puerto Iguazu.  Which is home to beautiful waterfalls.  We will write about this today or tomorrow.  We have a soccer match to go to (the run for the South American Cup).  Then tomorrow we may do a Tango show, and then head to Uraguay for a couple of days.  We will try to post as often as we can.  However, uploaded pics and video has proved to be problematic.  We are hoping to have this all worked out shortly.  We are working on maybe adding a surprise destination onto our trip this month, keep checking in ………..

• Argentina
• Comments(3)