Buenos Aires

24/04/13 to 29/04/13 - Around a year ago we hosted Sebastian and Jimena while they were travelling around Europe. This time we were staying with Sebastian at his flat in Buenos Aires, but we arrived late due to our bus being late yet again. Seb was kind enough to wait for us and picked us up at the Retiro bus station. We took a short bus ride to his place in San Telmo, passing the Tower of the English on the way. He made us some pasta and we caught up over a beer before going to bed.

Seb suggested some itineraries for us and we saw some nice buildings on our way around the downtown area and Recoletta (posh district), taking in a tour of the cemetery on the way. We also visited, you’ve guessed it, Mercado Central, which was an antiques market. This was pretty interesting with some real gems, including antique ham slicing machines and 70s toy robots amongst other things. We had a look in an artesanal market and found another gem, a 88 year old lady who was selling her own drawings, reciting poetry in 3 languages and answering the phone when required too. She spoke Spanish, French and English and had just started learning Italian by herself about a year ago.

The next day we visited La Boca, home of a rather stinky old dock, but more importantly home of Boca Juniors. The main street was pretty touristy, with small restaurants serving Parrilla and putting on cheap Tango dancing (sometimes without music), and inviting customers to be photographed in Tango poses in period dress. There were however, so nice colorful old tin houses, which apparently is what a lot of Buenos Aires districts used to look like. We even saw Maradona buying some fags at a small shop there.

That afternoon, after booking our ferry tickets to Uruguay for a couple of days time, we went to visit the church San Francisco near the Plaza de Mayo, but it was closed for refurbishment. We were walking under some scaffolding, when we felt like some mud on our neck like if it was bird poo. Just at that moment a man bumped into Dave and said “Permiso, Permiso” (which means ‘excuse me’). A couple we had just walked past offered us a tissue and said to Dave, “Mister, Mister” and the lady said to me “where you come from?”. At this point we realised it was a scam and quickly walked off, as we’d read and heard about this scam (the ”bird poo scam”), but were not expecting it until we got to Peru. The “bird poo” was a mix of french mustard and vinegar and washed off easily, but it was just designed to distract us while the thieves are supposed to pinch your wallets. Luckily, we knew the trick and they didn’t get anything off us (and we got a free tissue each). They quickly got in their car which was parked on the street and then drove away. We went back to Seb’s to wash our clothes and showered as we smelt of vinegar and as we were invited that night to go out to a gig by Seb.


The gig was at his friend and ex-bandmate’s house for a birthday, and the band played some jazz/rock songs, some written by Seb, his friend and also some covers. It was a good gig, a good venue and a good time with some pizza and some wine afterwards.

The following day was Sunday, at on Sunday it is traditional to do an Asado in Argentina. Seb was the perfect host again and invited us to his brother’s house for a rooftop Asado, a barbeque with various cuts of beef (including steak and ribs), blood sausage and chorizo sausage. It was lovely, and we followed it with….. you got it, a communal maté.

We just had time to stroll around the hipster district, La Paloma, and then we went back to a square near Seb’s house, to watch a ‘molinga’. On Sunday nights this is a traditional free dance in a public space, where people come together to dance Tango. We thought we might be able to try and have a go, but we quickly noticed that the standard was out of our league and we didn’t even know the steps (besides following the guide that we found on a couple of pavements in the city).

We went back and got a good night’s sleep before it was time to say goodbye and a huge thankyou to Seb for showing us the real Buenos Aires life. We went to the ferry terminal to catch our ferry across the River Plate to Uruguay.