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| National Congress Building, Buenos Aires |
I started my South American journey at Buenos Aires, also affectionately known as BA. First of all, Buenos Aires is a beautiful city, during its hey day it was known as the Paris of the South.The city has many grand building in French renaissance style, although many of them are quite run down and desperately needed a face lift, those located in the posh suburb of Recoletta are truly grand.
Secondly, it was cheap! Comparing to my first visit in July 1999 when the Argentinian Peso was pegged to the US Dollars, I could afford to do so much more this time. How cheap? Well, a good quality bottle of Malbec in a fancy restaurant cost 60 pesos, about USD20; a piece of big juicy sirloin steak cost 20 pesos, about USD7, and I love steak!
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| Caminito, La Boca |
To really embrace what BA life is all about, I went to a Boca Juniors home game at the La Bombonera stadium (The Chocolate Box) in the suburb of La Boca. The atmosphere was amazing at the Boca Juniors v. Gimnasia de Jujuy game. What impressed me most was the
12th player, Boca Juniors fans who occupy one end of the stand and decorated the stand with yellow and navy colours of the club, they waved their flag (no.12) around and sang non-stop throughout the game. There was also drumming and trumpets from the stand.
Boca Juniors beat the visitor 3 - 1, it was no contest, Gimnasia de Jujuy was mediocre and played too defensively, there were some good shots but all were saved by Boca's keeper.
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| The 12th Player Stand at La Bombonera Stadium |
The crowds were surprisingly orderly, although there were riot police about, there were no incidents from the 12th player stand; maybe it's because the visitor came from outside Buenos Aires and the rivalry is not as great comparing to another Buenos Aires' team - River Plate.
For those of you who are into football, Boca Juniors most famous player was Diego Maradona, and yes he is almost God here, the current most well known player is Juan Roman Riquelme (no.10), he used to play for Barçelona FC in Spain and recently returned to Argentina.
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| Buenos Aires street on May Revolution Day |
I also took a bike tour around the city on Saturday, which took me to the middle class suburb of Palermo and posh Recoletta. We rode through some nice parks, there were the Porteños - people of Buenos Aires, city dwellers - everywhere, there were people dancing the tango, roller blading, rowing boats, or simply sat on the grass enjoying their mate (some kind of herbal tea that taste like bitter coffee).
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| Cemetario de la Recoletta, Buenos Aires |
There were dogs everywhere too, you will often see professional dog walkers around the parks, sometimes taking up to 10 dogs in all kind of shapes for their walk. Unfortunately with the amount of dogs there is also a lot of doggies
left overs, making walking on the street, particularly in the suburbs, potentially hazardous. Despite this slight drawback, BA has so much to offer I was willing to turn a blind eye and focus on its wonderful architecture and beautiful people instead!
Next: Part 2 - Córdoba