Still in Buenos Aires...

We decided to extend our stay in Buenos Aires a few days longer as there was so much to see and do. 

We headed out to Recoleta Cemetery which is huge and filled with the graves of Argentina's rich and famous. It wasn't like a cemetary that either of us had been to before as the graves were more like tombs and churches and contained generations of familes and friends. Most of them were made of marble with gold trimmings and were the size of a small house! However, some of the graves had been completely abandoned and were becoming derelict - so much so that some of the coffins were open or close to falling apart. One of the main 'attractions' was the Evita's grave and in the process of trying to find it we became separted, meaning that we spent 45 minutes trying to find each other amid the maze of graves!

San Telmo is famous for its Sunday market and we had extended our stay to ensure that we could go to it. They shut down a huge road across the city so that market sellers can sell their homemade goods, antiques and pirate DVDs. In the main sqaure retired people would tango dance whilst others would try to haggle with locals. Jo had mixed success haggling and on one occasion felt too embarassed to go back and pay the full price for a hat she wanted, so Sam had to go buy it! She did have more success like buying a numberplate from La Paz, knocking the price down from 85 to 50 pesos.

 

Fresh from our haggling we headed to La Boca. We had heard mixed things about La Boca and its dangers in guidebooks, but everyone in the hostel kept banging on about how amazing and friendly it was, so we headed down to see for ourselves. The area was buzzing with more market sellers and tango dancers under a backdrop of brightly painted houses and resturants. Most of the buildings were painted in the blue and yellow, the colours of the local football team, Boca Juniors. There was even a Diego Maradona impersonator, although we weren't sure if he also had the drug addictions or was equally as mental, so we kept our distance... 

 

On Friday night we decided to head out to a few of the local bars with a group from the hostel. We were all ready to go at about 10.30 when a local told us that none of the bars open or get busy until about 2am, which meant a lot of drinking in the hostel beforehand! Our Spanish greatly improved after several beers and we tried holding converations with the locals, although we were probably making no sense at all... The next day was an absolute write-off and we only just managed to make it outside the hostel to find the greasiest food we could lay our hands on!

Jo the morning after the night before

On our final night we went to a tango show in San Telmo. Neither of us had a clue what the story was (although we´re certain it was full of sorrow!) but it didn't matter a bit as we were engrossed by the dancers. Jo (confident from drinking two bottles of wine) even managed to grab a dance with one of the performers, although it's unlikely she'll be on stage in Buenos Aires anytime soon as she was just told to sway rather than try anything fancy!

We were really sad to leave Buenos Aires as we both had an amazing time there and made some good friends. Next stop, Montevideo, Uraguay.