Buenos Aires

It's a little hard to sum up our experience of Buenos Aires. We did like it and are glad we went, but it didn't live up to our expectations. That may well partly be due to circumstances beyond BA's control.

As I said before, Argentina feels like a West European country or South Africa (without any of the underlying threat of crime I felt in SA).

We'd decided to splash out on a pretty expensive little hotel to treat ourselves around my birthday. The hotel was very nice, though possibly not worth all that they were asking for it. It was in the area of Palermo Soho, where there is a good sprinkling of bars and eateries.

Most of the other buildings are apartment blocks, though very few are "glossy". Combined with some building (sites) mid-renovate and graffiti, this didn't make the area feel as good as it probably was, and Clare took some time to feel comfortable out after dark.

On the first night we went to an excellent steak house; Argentina has a great reputation for steak. However, Clare decided she would stick to chicken throughout her time in the country, feeling beef might be less tummy-safe.

On our first full day we set off with the intention of heading to town. We only reached the Evita Museum, which we really enjoyed and learned a lot more about her, her work, and why she became such a popular figure.

In summary, she was a famous actress who met the President in 1944 whilst doing earthquake relief. They married within a year and, although never having a formal government position, went on a successful world tour, meeting heads of state, and even signing treaties. She founded a women's political party and was nominated for vice-president beside her husband, which she declined. She founded welfare organisations and was a prime mover behind the 1949 Argentine constitution, a radical bill of rights. She got cancer and died in 1952 at the age of just 33.

By the time we had lunch, whilst reading up on 20th Century Argentine political history on Wikipedia, it was too late to go into town.

On the second day we made it into town. The metro costs 2.5 Pesos (36p) for a single journey of any distance. We started in Plaza de Mayo (May Square), in front of the Casa Rosada (Pink House), the presidential palace with the famous balcony used by Evita.

Outside Casa Rosada was a large exhibition of unposed photos of the current President and her predecessor / husband. Definitely signs of a confident modern democracy. Similarly, people were allowed into a few rooms within the building, and we could have joined a deeper tour if we'd been more patient (and better at Spanish).

We grabbed a quick coffee in a backstreet, and puzzled over some graffiti saying "Belgrano estas muertas" (Belgrano you are dead). I finally deduced it was about football, opposing River Plate, whose stadium is in the Buenos Aires district of Belgrano (General Belgrano was the creator of the national flag).

Back on the square, we visited the Metropolitan Cathedral. Just as I stepped out to leave, the sound of feet stamping made me jump out of the way. A squad of five soldiers in ceremonial dress was marching into the cathedral to the tomb of General San Martin, the greatest national hero, where two of them were then left as guards.

We walked down Avenida Florida, the main shopping street, where we saw about five separate branches of McDonalds. Resisting easily, we lunched in a local restaurant with the shields of Argentine provinces on the walls.

Unfortunately, Clare felt unwell so we had to cut our day short, having just enough time to see the Washington-Monument-style obelisk in the middle of wide, busy Avenida 9th de Julio.

This premature end was particularly unfortunate, because this was Sunday, the big day for street markets and Tango in one of the public squares, and which we therefore missed.

Feeling that we hadn't given Buenos Aires a fair chance to impress us, on our third and last day we boarded the city tour bus. Normally open-topped, a canvas roof was fitted for this rainy day.

The tour lasted over three hours, stretching from the big blue-and-yellow Boca Juniors stadium at one end of town to near the River Plate stadium at the other. We found it pretty boring, deciding that we had already seen the best of BA the previous day.