¡Hola Buenos Aires!

Buenos Aires; the start of our South American adventure. We were immediately stuck by the vibrant atmosphere of the city…  lively people, vivid colours, tango and history. A completely different city experience to Cape Town, Buenos Aires is much bigger, older and almost entirely flat. It feels a lot more like a european city, with a mix of old buildings and ultra modern architecture, and being built on a grid system.  It also soon became apparent that the residents of Buenos Aires are very proud and passionate about their city and country. We flew in just days after former president Nestor Kircher had died, and the city was full of posters and graffiti mourning him and supporting his wife Christina. It’s hard to image similar scenes if a British political figure were to pass away.

On arrival we were told that Sunday was market day in Palermo, the chic and stylish area of BA filled with small boutique shops. On market day many of cafe’s and bars are also converted into make-do stalls where independant designers and traders sell their goods. Needless to say I made Chris drop the bags immediately and head straight there for the remainder of the day. We returned several hours later with more clothes to fit into our already full luggage.

We spent the following day in San Telmo, the oldest part of the city which has tons of character with piqturesque cobbled streets and plazas lined with dusty antique shops and cafe’s. Chris found much excitement in the ornate hand-painted signs on everything from shops to buses. After a gruelling 2hr Spanish lesson we head to Puerto  Madero , a modern harbour deveopment (not dissimilar to London’s South Bank) for an evening walk and dinner. Dinner consisted of a large steak and a nice bottle of wine – this was to become a consistent theme in Argentina…

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