Buenos Aires. Argentina

These series of events take place after the Captain and Admiral left La Paz Bolivia. It contains references to other adventures taken during the Captain’s and Admiral’s Argentinian occupation
The Captain and Admiral arrived in the metropolis city of Buenos Aires after what felt like escaping a series of witches and villains in leaving La Paz Bolivia. Upon their decent,  the size of the city was evident from the sparkling lights that littered the landscape. It had been a long journey to get there with the Captain and Admiral, waking up at 12.30am and leaving at 3am, they jumped across 2 taxis and 2 flights and 3 countries.

After a much more rigorous security and immigration procedure (one that contrasted La Paz like salt contrasts sugar) they got to the airport area in which they could buy SIM cards and withdraw Argentinian Pesos.
The sleep deprived duo needed some nourishment and in the airport shone two golden arches and what some travellers may call a cardinal sin, they gravitated towards them.

After experimenting with new and exotic McDonald’s flavours, they figured out how to get an uber and headed to their accommodation. They had severey underestimated the size of the city and the commute took 2 hours. On the way the lavish and massive buildings caught their eyes, the city architecture resembling sights that would be found in Italy, France and in Russia. The buildings decorated with pillars, facades covered with statues of angels and flowers. It was as if all the buildings from different European countries were placed in a cocktail mixer and sprinkled across Buenos Aires city. They were exhausted and broken as they checked into a beautiful self serviced apartment in the district of Palermo Soho. An area known for its bars and nightlife.

The Captain and Admiral had researced the city and found that the streets only came to life after 9 or 10 pm, in which people would have dinner and head to bars for drinks. It was 6pm and with a strategy in mind they took a stealthy nap agreeing to wake up at 8pm to explore the city.
The Captain did wake up at the agreed time, however the exhaustion got the better of him and despite the buzz that was happening outside the window he asked the Admiral if it was ok to sleep till the morning light. They agreed and even if it meant they lost a day of exploring it was very important to get a recharge.
18 hours later they arose. It was 10 am and the Captain and Admiral needed to make a wild dash to the  walking tour of Recolleta, which was the central district of Buenos Aires.

They took a taxi to the meeting point of the walking tour, only arriving minutes before it was scheduled to start.  On the way it was clear to see that almost everyone had a cup with a straw sticking out of it in their hands. From young to old they saw people drinking a mysterious liquid in a abnormal shaped glass, all with a straw present and a green herbaceous layer of what looked like kryptonite dust.It was when they joined the tour and the tour guide was also partaking in this act, did the Captain go to inquire what it was.  The tour guide kindly explained that they were drinking Matê, which was kind of like a matcha green tea. She offered a taste, but described the one she had made was not the ideal one since she had wet the krypton dust aka Matê powder. She also said that young and old consume many many cups of this a day, and this would be a common activity that they would see throughout their stay in Buenos Aires. With that the group segregated and they started the walking tour in which they learnt that Buenos Aires Province districts, constitutes the fourth-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas, with a population of around 15.6 million.
Unlike any other walking tour the Captain had been on the guide started the tour with the fact that the tour would not be a complete history lesson about the city and this was because the City’s history is very recent, with the key years being 1880 to 1930.

The guide, who’s name was Riccardo went on to explain that, like the other South American countries Argentina was another Spanish occupied colony however unlike the other countries such as Peru and Chile etc, there was not much importance placed on Argentina at the time of the colonisation. They had very unimpressive churches and the whole country was comprised of dirt roads with minimal infrastructure expenditure by the Spanish. The guide at that point showed them a very ordinary looking church and asked them to compare these to others throughout South America. It was honestly very unimpressive and basic.

The Spanish had eradicated the local population early In the occupation regime, with minimal resistance they left the country alone.
They walked past a giant statue which Riccardo explained was a statue of José de San Martín or El Libertador of Argentina, Chile and Peru. San Martin was a Spanish-Argentine general and the prime leader of the southern and central parts of South America’s successful struggle for independence from the Spanish Empire who served as the Protector of Peru.

Riccardo then went on to say the real history of the country started with the golden years of Argentina from 1880 to 1930. In this period all the districts united and formed a single country as well as a government.
In these golden years the economy and prosperity of Argentina skyrocketed. Riccardo even used his fingers to show an exponential graph, reflecting that the economy went from 0 to a 100 in those 50 years. He revisited how newly formed government combined with newly discovered exports in the agriculture industries as well as the invention of cold storage transport all contributed to a cocktail of success for the country.
With the new found prosperity the development of the country was in overdrive. The country’s leaders at that time had an obsession with Europe and believed that counties in Europe were the epitomie of class and success. The Argentinian government then started construction of buildings all around the city with and with that obsession in mind wanted them all to look like temples from greece, theatres from Vienna and palaces from Rome.

It was at that point the surroundings and the architecture that they had witnessed on their way to the city all made sense.
It was a mish mash of Europe’s finest, taking Roman, Italian and French building architecture seen in the midst of other less impressive buildings.

Riccardo then explained how immigration was massive in the golden years because not only did the leaders want European looking buildings, they wanted Europeans to build them. With a massive influx of Italian immigrants, the country changed forever, including the influence on language and cuisine. Immigration was so big that in the 1916 consensus, 50 percent of the country’s inhabitants were immigrants, predominantly Italians.
The showcase of grandeur continued with Riccardo showing lavish buildings and explaining how this was a home for 1 family and contained 140 rooms. He explained that most of the huge buildings you see were mostly houses for the aristocrats in the past highlighting the wealth and prosperity of the inhabitant. Now he said the families had sold these to embassies and other businesses as it was not viable for families to maintain 100 plus bedroom premises. The one we had visited was the defence head quarters in the past, but over time Riccardo explained the military funding had been cut, and half of the building was leased by independent businesses. When questioned why the funding had been cut, Riccardo said this was something that would discuss later in the tour.

The tour stopped for a quick break/ empanadas and coffee stop. Rcicardo took this moment to state that this was the end of the good part to the story of Argentina and the next half of the tour would be the story of Argentina’s fall from grace.
The political unrest was the catalyst to the exponential graph plateau. Riccardo explained how a military coup, transformed the golden years and the country fell into a dictatorship followed by a democracy and then dictatorship followed by democracy, it was not a while until they reached a steady government. This was the contributing factor to why the government had ultimately cut the military funding. The coups in the past had taken the country to the brink of destruction, the coups had been so detrimental that the democratic governments had stripped the powers of the army.

Riccardo even mentioned that being part of the army in Argentina was not considered a prestigious thing like many other countries, rather the opposite. In schools kids are taught how much harm the army has caused and not encouraged as a good career option.
The tour was then directed to a memorial wall and statue that had hundreds of names engraved and two guards standing by it.  Riccardo explained the story of Fawkner Island war. He said in 1982  the country was in bad shape the military dictator was losing popularity due to the terrible poverty and conditions in the country.  He had a brilliant idea, sitting across the Patagonian coast was a small island that had been occupied by England. This was a small island with less than 2000 inhabitants a place known as  Falkland island. To gain popularity the dictator decided to attack that island and win it back from the British for Argentina.  As Riccardo stated ‘It was the Stupidest war in History’. Not only were the soldiers outnumbered, they were malnourished, inexperienced and drafted from hot regions of the country, asked to go fight in freezing conditions. They did not even have proper gear.

Needless to say they lost tragically. Heaps of lives were lost. The only good be thing that came out of it was that the people lost all faith in the ruler and the following year he was overthrown.
Strangely Argentinian people still believe that the Fawkner islands was a part of their country lost. They believe it is unjustly owned by Britain and have romanticism associated with the loss of it. It has tragic poems and songs written about it, even appears on the Argentinan $50 note.

Riccardo then took them to the last place of interest. A garden which was created on the roof of the exhibition centre. Here he explained the future of Buenos Aires, with the garden representing the progressive mindset and the direction they wish to move in, creating more open spaces and placing a importance on community.

Riccardo finally showed them the slums, iterating how the reform of the slum area was the focus of the government. They were developing those areas with new buildings, new schools and even creating open spaces for community. In the past the streets did not even have enough room for ambulances to enter resulting in many deaths. They are working to uplift this.
With this and perfect timing a homeless person came and joined the group, the tour was over, they paid the voluntary fee and dispersed.

It was 2 pm and they needed to rush to the orher Side of town back to the bar district (Palermo), this time for the graffiti walking tour. They had made some American friends and were lucky enough to share a taxi and make it to the tour 30 mintues before it started. The Palermo district was buzzing. Cafes, bars as well as a street market going on, which the Captain and Admiral spent the remaining time buying useless things that they didn’t need, before the graffiti tour started.
There was not much to the graffiti tour, the Captain and Admiral walked the streets with a tour guide that explained the importance of all the street art that littered the laneways. The expressionalism in the prices and the importance of the art plastered on the walls. The Buenos Aires government was pro wall art, encouraging artists to fill up the grey skyscraper walls with their art.

Totally graffitied out the duo couldn’t wait for the tour to end, heading back home to rest before heading out into town for the Saturday night adventures.

First up the duo hit a bar which the Admiral had found with wine Cocktails happy hour, however much to thier disappointment it turned out to be fake news. They then hit up another pub and since it was before 10pm, it was happy hour. They smashed down the first round of drinks, only to discover for one mojito and one craft beer the bill came down to $5.65 AUD. They did the calculation several times before confirming that the price was indeed correct in their second round. Even after happy hour ended the price went up to $8 for a cocktail and beer. The area was starting to get more and more busy, from being the only people in the bar drinking, the Captain and Admiral now started having company.

The Captain and Admiral were now flying high, as they crawled to a few more bars before being slightly responsible and pretty drunk and calling it a night, they knew that tomorrow they headed off to a new country.
Drunk, they stumbled to an American BBQ place that they had read about online. They were about to get their first taste of Argentinian meat. The Captain got the Ribs and Admiral the brisket. The Captain could safely say (possibly due to his drunk state) that these were the best ribs he had ever had. Falling off the bone and juicy, they were great.

Drunk and disorderly, they headed home, knowing that the time was only 12 and that  the party had not even kicked off. They had to  rush home and catch a ferry to Uruguay the next day.
Very hungover, after only 4 hours sleep, the Captain and Admiral took their bags checked out of the Palermo hotel, and headed to the other hotel in the district of Retiro, where they would staying at for the rest of their Argentina Adventure. It was only 5 am and they needed to drop off their bags and head to the docks.
Refer to log “Montevideo. Uruguay” for the remainder of the  Uruguayan adventures.
They returned from Montevideo at 11.30pm and in a rush they walked back to the hotel. The Admiral was freaking out, that they wouldn’t get any food, she even at one point glared in hungry anger at the Captain.

Luckily within a few minutes they came across an Argentina stakehouse, the Cap got to live another day as a Freddy Mercury looking waiter came around with some super juicy and delicious Chicken.
The fourth day in Buenos Aires started with heavy rain. It was bucketing down and the forecast was  that the rain was going to continue all day.
This meant a few of the plans they had made for the day had to change.

The Captain and Admiral dropped off their laundry at a laundromat which had an Asian lady amongst thousands of clothes and dryers with a furnace powering it. Fire and Clothing everywhere, what could possibly go wrong.
To avoid the wetness they decided to stick to indoor activities and went to visit landmark The Teatro Colón
The Teatro Colón which was named after Christopher Columbus, is the main opera house in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is considered one of the ten best opera houses in the world by National Geographic, and is acoustically considered to be amongst the five best concert venues in the world.

All the top Opera singers and ballets have visited it’s stages in the past.

Sitting in the mezzanine cafe, they waited for 2 hours before the English tour. It was beautiful. The duo walked inside and the grandeur, the royalty and the class just oozed out of every corner of the building. It was stunning. Dazzled and at times blinded by the gold they walked around admiring and appreciating a time long gone. At the end of the tour, the guide told them an interesting fact about the theatre previously when Pavarotti came to do the Opera at the Colon he said there was a big problem with the acoustics of the auditorium.

Every one went into dismay ‘how could this be possible, they had some of the best accoustics in the world’. Pavarotti later said it is because the acoustic are so good that he wouldn’t be able to make a mistake and get away with it. Everyone on the tour let out a sigh of relief and the tour ended.

The rain outside continued. The Captain and Admiral took a taxi and headed to one of the most beautiful bookshops in the world, Library splendid. This was an old theatre, much smaller than the Colon, that had been transformed into a multilevel bookshop. Much like the Colon, the Admiral and Captain were in awe of its splendour, they took a few photos and headed to San Temlo district to visit the San Telmo Markets.

This Market was interesting, it resembled a mintiture Queen Victoria Market. Only half of the market was open. What made this market unique was that it only contained  antique shops. Some of these specialised in toys, camera, clothes etc. There even was a shop selling people’s family photos.

Despite this being an unsecussful shopping adventure, it was definitely a success in terms of food. Famous for its empanadas they found a little but busy Empanadas shop, here they shared a few of the most delicious Empanadas the Captain and Admiral had tasted in their entire South American adventure. After a few more stops along the market they headed back to the hotel, they had to get ready for dinner.

The Admiral had booked the ‘Argentina experience’ for dinner. Argentina experience is a unique restaurant in which they feed you as well as explained about the local cuisine, culture and life in Argentina.

A small and intimate group of people (20ish) are sat on a table together, the host then explains about the food and wine as well as the culture and traditions, then you get served. You also get chance to mingle with others on the table.

Instantly they made some friends with other Cadets who were also down for their honeymoon and were from London. They continued to chat as the dinner experience went on.

One of the first activities for the night was to create our own empanadas, they were taught how to make them, given stuffing and shown how to fold them. Some decent looking empanadas were made. After the first round, they were again given the ingredients and this time asked to make any shape or object with with empanadas ingredients. The brief was ‘the most creative and best looking empanada wins’. The Captain made a sunflower with a face on it, which in the end resembled the Admiral. The Admiral however took it to the next level and inspired by their visit to the Amazon made a toucan. It was mighty impressive, so impressive actually, that she won!! Creating the best and most creative Empanada, it was a proud moment for the Captain and Admiral.

The dinner continued, with delicious food, history and cultural lessons, fantastic banter and most important of all free flowing wine.

The dinner finished up with instructions on how to prepare and drink Yerba Mate, they were all passed a glass and drank the drink they had seen so many drink on the streets, in restaurants even in clubs and bars. The taste resembled a strong green tea. It was nice but at this point after one cup of the tea, the Captain was more interested in the wine before the time was up.

Dinner finished up and they said good-bye. But first they joined the London cadets for another round of drinks. They headed to a bar and socialised as they drank more, eventually calling it a night and heading home extremely drunk.

The previous night’s after party was causing many moments of regret. Both the Captain and Admiral woke up with headaches and feeling extremely hungover.

To fight the hangover and survive the day they went to a nice cafe and had some breakfast. This seemed to help slightly. Heads still aching they headed to the domestic airport and caught thier flight to Puerto Iguazu.

Refer to log “Puerto Iguazu. Argentina” for the remainder of the  WaterFallen logs.

Returning from Puerto Iguazu the Captain had a fanboy moment, earlier in their pub crawling expeditions the Captain had seen “Heisenburger burger laboratory” . A burger restaurant themed on the TV show Breaking Bad. With burgers like ‘The Walter’ and ‘Chessie Pinkman’ it was any fanboy’s wet dream. The burger did the trick. It was pretty good and would make Tuco proud (Breaking Bad reference).

The Captain and Admiral so far had absolutely loved Buenos Aires, everything about it made them feel like it was a great place to visit and live. This  was going to be the last full day they had to explore.

They started the day with breakfast and then headed to the Galileo Galilei conservatory.

On the way they experienced an environmental protest and a very angry uber driver, that was upset at the disruption and yelling to them about in Spanish.

The Captain wanted to channel his inner uber driver anger shortly after they arrived. It turned out that the conservatory was closed due to a IBM security summit. With the Admiral yanking him away, the Captain was visibly upset at the situation and was letting the security guard know by glaring at him.

Eventually being dragged away the Captain and Admiral explore the park life around them.

They crossed the road to see heaps of dogs running around. With a closer look they were not running, but rather tied to trees with long leashes, and a dog walker was looking out for them. As they walked along the saw many more of these and hundreds more dogs. The Captain went and played with some before walking away.

The parks were spectacular, super well manicured and looked after, they reminded them of botanical, located near the heart of the city, bustling with  people jogging or just relaxing.

They walked down to the Polo stadium, walking post a line of bars, restaurants and ice cream shops all lined up along the side of the park, all built under an overhead train track. The area reminded them of Docklands (if docklands actualy was visited by people) it was awesome.

They checked out the Polo stadium, which was open to the public but had no event going on. It too like everything they had seen on their walk was impressive.  The Admiral found a litter of cats and hung out with them as the Captain explored the grounds

To treat themselves they had booked in lunch at A restaurant/ Steakehouse called Don Julio. They wanted to book a dinner, but the restaurant was booked months in advance, they were extremely lucky to get a spot even for lunch. Rated the 21st best restaurant in Latin America, they arrived to be greeted with a complimentary glass of champagne.

They were given bread and seated, at this point the waiter popped over with the wine they had ordered. He poured a little and stared at the Captain. Not knowing what do in these situations, the Captain ran his memory bank to an Italian Mafia movie he had seen, he brought the wine up to his nose, smelt the wine and took a sip. Anticipating a response the waiter was frozen staring at him. Not knowing what to do the Captain just uttered ‘Si’ the waiter seemed satisfied, he started smiling and poured the rest and walked away. Phew.

The food came and it did not disappoint with the Admiral stating it was “The best steak she had ever had”  she had only gotten through 3/4 of it and was breathing heavily and sweating.

Feeling extreme gluttony and full beyond measure they rolled towards Recoleta Cemetery for the walking tour.

Recoleta Cemetery is classified as the best, most beautiful and most important cemetery in the world. It has graves and monuments for many many famous people. They say that Napoleon’s niece is buried there but due to the list old records, no one knows where. It has over 4000 graves with over 100,000 people buried within the grounds.  It is a very prestigious place to be buried. The spots in the graveyard are not open to public, however family members that have exsisting crypts can sell them on at exhuerant prices.

The tour took them to a few famous graves, including a monument designed by the same architect that designed central station. In New York.

The tour then took them to the grave of the “Lady in the White Dress” – Rufina Cambaceres  and told her story, Rufina was 19 years old, celebrating her birthday, the year was 1902. At her birthday party someone informed her that her mother was sleeping with her boyfriend. Like anyone would, she got very upset and went to her room and locked herself in crying. Later on the family all came, and from outside they convinced her to come to the theatre with them. She agreed and said she will freshen up and be down. Some time passed and she didn’t come down, they knocked again no answer, they finally broke the door to find her dead in her bed..  they called a doctor immediately and he agreed she was not breathing. Aduneral was held and she was  buried at Recoleta cemetary. That night the crypt keepers heard noises coming from her tomb and upon inspecting it saw that her casket had moved from its position somewhat. They assumed this may have been the work of burglars who intended to take jewellery from poor Rufina’s body. So they called the family to inform them and also since they were not allowed to disturb the tomb without the family there. Then family finally arrived and when they opened the tomb, there was scratch marks on the inside of the casket as well as all over rufinas face and neck with her finger nails bleeding, and a  look of fear and shock on Rufina’s face. As it turns out she had been buried alive. They realised Rufina suffered from a medical ailments that caused her to stop breathing and go into a comatose state. She had suffered from this all her life. She must have cried so much that she couldn’t cope and it triggered this state. When the doctor checked she was in  this state and they buried her. Since this horrific death they have changed the law, allowing for 48 hours, before they can close the casket.. just in case.

There was another story about Liliana Ceociati Szaszaki who died when an avalanche crushed her, skiing in Vienna, and on the same day her dog died, several thousands of kilometres away

Finally they visited the famous Eva Peron aka Evita. The tour guide explained that when she died 3 million people attended 2 week funeral and the country got 2 days off. Buenos Aires ran out of flowers for her grave. During the construction of her grave, which was to be a national monument there was a military coup. The new president stopped the project and got someone to ‘take care of’ (move out of the country) Evita’s body. Months later the President to follow up and ask what was done with her body, the guy said it’s right here in that box marked “communication equipment”, the guy put folded her body and put it a box that sat in the room.  The body was then moved a few times again before coming to rest in Recoleta, amongst the aristocrats whom she fought her whole life.

After finishing the tour the Captain and Admiral headed home stopping at a Shopping centre where they had a super light veggie filled dinner and spontaneously bought tickets to Senor Tango!

Despite the 3am flight to El Calafate looming on their heads, they headed to the Tango show which was scheduled to start at 10.30 pm.

Arriving and entering at the theatre they were shocked at the size of the production. It looked like they had been transported back in time. The props and the sets were extravagant, the size of the theatre enough to seat 1500 people

After waiting a while and ordering the cheapest wine, which when checked online was actually $30 a bottle in Australia and rate 4.3 stars, the show started.

Nothing had prepared them for what happened next. Horses, Fire, people dangling from the roof. The lighting and sound was amazing and this was only the first 5 minutes. The show then progressed to manic leg movement! Bodies being thrown around, singing, and the most sensual and sexual dancing ever. Passion was igniting the air like the flames had done earlier. The Captain and Admiral were mesmerised and remained that way until the show was over. Looking away from the amazing hypnotizing tango only for a few seconds to discuss what they thought was going on.

The show finished and they made a mad dash back to the hotel, on the way discussing what they had witnessed, at the hotel they gave the dance a try, which resulted in the Captain getting kicked in the shins approximately 3 seconds into attempting it.

Dreaming of tango they had a quick nap and headed to the airport for their  super early flight to El Calafate. Refer to log “El Calafate. Argentina” for the remainder of the Icy Cold logs.

They returned to Buenos Aires after a day of delays and constant waiting. Exhausted from the day of nothingness, as the universe’s way of messing with them, they were picked up by a very chatty cab driver. Once again they had no idea what they were talking about and the handy ‘Si’ at times attempting to shove thier mobile phone in his face with Google translate open. Turns out after 20 minutes of translating, he wanted the Captain and Admiral to visit his friend’s Venezuelan restaurant.

Hungry and not wanting to waste their last few hours in Buenos Aires they walked around grabbed some subway and Mostanza (a local food chain) for dinner and went hunting for the best ice cream in Buenos Aires. They arrived at Cadore. The shop did not look like much, but the skinny maroon storefront that  sits within ground centre of Buenos Aires’ theater district on the historic Avenida Corrientes and serve the best dulce de leche in the world.

Their accolades are printed in National Geographic and the BBC and they are number 1 in the Gold Book of Argentine Ice Creams.

They got coconut, pistachio, chocolate and the famous dulce de leche flavour.

The ice cream was like none other they have had before. Super creamy, it had a stretchy consistency and was the best tasting ice cream they had ever had hands down.

Ice cream in hand the Captain and Admiral walked back to the hotel room reminiscing and discussing how much fun they had in Buenos Aires. They both had a sweet taste in their mouths and a sweeter spot in their hearts, Buenos Aires had been their favourite city in South America so far.  They had loved every bit of the city, the shopping, the nightlife, the history, the parks and most of all the people.

Having seen the magnificence of the glaciers and thunder of waterfalls Argentina had stolen their hearts.

They vowed to return as they bid the country good-bye.