Arriving from Lima Peru by plane my first impressions of Buenos Aires were that it was way different to all the other South American countries I had been to. Walking around the city, I could have been in any other major city around the world. The people were modern, very ethnically diverse and the city itself was like a slightly run down version of any large European city. To my pleasure I also found that the prices of everything there reflected those you would find in a first world country.
My first three nights here saw me transitioning from one hostel to another because of a weird system they have of prebooking and prepaying for everything. I was not used to this and hence got caught out as my rooms were systematically booked out from under me. But the upside of this was that I found my way into a very nice and very sociable hostel called The Milhouse.
In the Milhouse I immediately made a group of friends with whom I began to see the sites. Together we did a tour of La Boca, a suburb famous for the soccer ground where Diego Maradonna first played. It was also very famous for a little known Latin dance called the tango. We also did a tour of the cities street art hotspots where I discovered a hidden interest I have in this kind of stuff.
To give you a little idea of what I saw: Street art around Buenos Aires is not viewed as graffiti or vandalism. It is actually publically accepted as art and is usually performed by actual artists, many with commercial interests. People commission these artists to paint their premises and the local council allows them to paint select areas upon request. A few days before I arrived, a graffiti art festival was held where artists, some musicians and the general public all came together to party and paint a whole city block. Pretty cool. This is a concept quite foreign to me being from Australia.
A cool rocket ship....
Two of my fellow graffiti art tourists, Tess from Australia and Mike from Ireland, hatched a plan to go and visit Uruguay for a few days the following morning. To me this seemed like a good idea since Uruguay is only a quick one hour ferry ride across the bay from Buenos Aires. So the decision was made and we were off. We travelled to Uruguay to escape the expense on Buenos Aires and were expecting to find a pretty poor and backwards country. What we found was a very modern one that ended up being the most expensive in South America.... This is why you should research what you are doing before you do it people. Seriously. Apparently Uruguay is the Switzerland of South America. How about that.....
Settling in Montevideo, the countries capital, we made the collective decision just to have a bunch of fun and stuff the expense. The country itself is really pretty but mind numbingly quite. Nothing much seems to really happen here except for in the peak of the tourist season, which was not now. We did manage to find some pretty good nightlife though and took full advantage of this. One of the nights we found ourselves at a party being held in an abandoned supermarket. Playing were some local live bands making use of a variety of weird props and instruments. Some were seriously entertaining and dressed using costumes the like you wouldn´t expect to see this side of Berlin.
But it wasn´t the parties we wanted though, it was the beaches. Now I think it is time for me to lay down some wisdom to all the Aussies around there travelling the world looking for nice beaches. Simply don´t, you will be disappointed. Australians are very hard to impress when it comes to beaches and it is basically because our beaches are some of the best in the world. FACT. All others try, but just don´t really cut it. So go find other amusements.
Handstand competition in the beach. Pick the winner....
The standard leaping dude pose. One day I´ll give a backflip.....
We did however find some amazing food in Uruguay. At the beach we forayed into a local greasy diner to try a local speciality called a Chovita. This Frankenstein’s baby is basically a Uruguayan burger on some serious steroids. See the photos, enough said. Afterwards we decided it was time to get our barbeque on. Donning my barbeque face, it was time to make some meat sweat. The hostel we were staying at had a massive wood fired parilla on the roof top terrace which was going to get some serious using. Noticing our intentions and a crazy look in my eyes, the local staff tentatively enquired if we knew what the hell I was doing. Taking the opportunity to delve deep into Uruguayan culture I graciously stepped aside and watched them demonstrate their way of the barbeque. The force was strong with these ones and with five blokes there directing the show, I learnt off the “Asado King” (asado meaning barbeque in Spanish) how to barbeque the hell out of my meat Uruguayan style. Wickedly awesome!
Chavita baby!
So, basically, a Uruguayan barbeque goes a little like this. Everyone (man women and child) is budgeted 500g of steak each which is cooked in one piece (not cut up into individual steaks). The cutting is done afterwards. The barbeque is always done by the men and they all take turns in poking the fire, because it is a primal thing. The group collective sits around the fire and drinks a bunch of beer while singing songs and occasionally dancing. Some tapas are brought out and everyone gets to munch along while the steaks slowly sear. The steaks here take a long time to cook and hence a fair bit of beer is drunk. When all is done, the women bring out some salady stuff that they have prepared elsewhere and everyone sits down to an epic meal. So based on my experience, I love these guys! Plus they fed me free beer during the lesson. I really LOVE these guys!
But unfortunately I did had to leave at some point. This was hard to do because after the barbeque, I was right in with the locals who all seemed ridiculously friendly. But waiting back in Buenos Aires for me were my two friends from Australia, Sam and Dave. So it was a quick ferry ride back to meet up with them.
This is where everything becomes a little blurry. Back in Buenos Aires, Sam, Dave, two of their travelling companions Julie and Emily and I all had a massive time touring and seeing the sites. Now when I say touring, I generally mean mucking around and being retarded. One night we travelled to a music club called La Bomba where we rocked out to a Latin American drumming troop with some one thousand other people. Another day we went rollerblading around the local parklands where we learnt Sam is the world´s most retarded blader. This was funny stuff for us but serious stuff for good old competitive Sam. And finally for Dave´s last night in South America we did a pub crawl. Well wasn´t that just the craziest night ever!
Group photo with the boys
Rocking out with the drumming troop
Dave had an ideal that he could balance a beer on his head without spilling a drop in the middle of our resturant. Worked well....
Our best steak meal ever. Might have ended up being a gay pub, but hell their steak rocked. Seriously good! The place was called Dada.
Roller blading Californian style. It was all the rage in Buenos Aires. Shirt off and jeans on...
Double stacker leap frog. Worked well....
The night began with the best of starts. Immediately as we left our hostel we saw a local walking down the road carrying a giant blow up banana. Sam and I knowing we had to have it asked the girls “how you ask to buy a guys giant banana in Spanish?” As they debated the proper language the guy slowly kept on walking away. Seizing the moment, Sam and I dashed off after him and I in my worst Spanish yelled something to the effect of “quanto questa para del plantain!?” He replied “10 pesos” (roughly $2.50). Sold! And then we had a banana. Jumping into two taxis with a few extra girls from our hostel we had a race to the starting point of the pub crawl. I can´t remember exactly who won......
At the pub, we named the banana Darwin and set about smashing down an hours worth of free beer and pizza. Well wasn´t Darwin a bit of a chick magnet. Everyone wanted a piece of the action..... Dave who had been joking the whole trip about a made up set of Japanese twins who had been following him around found himself face to face with an actual Asian duo from Melbourne Australia. Their names were Tiffany and Veronica (or something like that) but we named them Kiki and Sumi after Dave´s imaginary girls. And that is how they remained for the night. I´m not too sure if they realised our interest in them or even if we were calling them by other names, but hey......
Dave absolutely stoked about meeting Kiki and Sumi. Sam is pretty over the moon too.
So with a giant banana, a more than a few beers under our belts and a massive amount of people following us we kinda got retarded. The banana became a tool of mass abuse as many, many, MANY people found themselves being randomly “bammed”in the face with it as we raged. It didn´t take long for all to realise this Aussie crew was nuts and that we were here to party better than the rest. This is what we did, and I am not ashamed of that. Bystanders were getting hit with the banana, people were getting leapfrogged, thrown on our shoulders, carried off and a whole heap of other stuff you shouldn´t know mum J.
Triple stacker with Darwin and a local girl called April.
Banana love
The night ended at some ridiculous hour like 6am in the morning and as we travelled home in the daylight we realised that Darwin had been lost to us. At least the legend lives on in our hearts.
Has anyone seen my banana. This was the last photo we have.
The next morning, poor old Dave had to catch his flight back to Australia at 10am. That would have hurt! Sam remained in Buenos Aires with me until the next day when he too had to fly home to Tasmania. Now it is me on my own some again with just three weeks left before I go the way of my friends and return home. So time to make those three weeks count! So have a good one boys and I´m sure we will meet again. I´m off to Iguacu Falls.
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