Viajar el mundo: Boca BA and a little bit of water

11 de Noviembre

Looks to me like a perfect waterside

On the road to Brazil, from Buenos Aires, you stop in a little town called Puerto Iguazu. Not much goes on here, except there is a little waterfall that many people like to go and have a look at. named Iguazu Falls. It’s also one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World

Gossip butterfly knows all the rumours

When you approach the Devils Throat, the most impressive part of the park, you are astounded and dumbfounded at what’s in front of you. Endless water, all gushing and thunderous, over rocks and cliffs, crashing into the surface eighty metres below. And all around it, more and more falls as far as the eye can see, capturing the awe on bottling the excitement of all those lucky enough to be here. And people, everywhere. Thousands upon thousands of tour groups, all over the place. Blocking views and exits, not realising that it perhaps isn’t necessary to have a tour guide of a waterfall. Look, there’s the water there. And that’s all.

Teach us for coming on a weekend.

As the Falls are located within a national park, there are of course many furry critters about. Most have sharp teeth and claws and will have no hesitation using them should you not comply with their request for food. One such is the Coatie, a badger looking fellow with a banded tail, but all too bad due to the constant supply of bread and chips from idiot tourists who ignore the signs warning not to feed. And they do bite, apparently

"Oi, you! The chips, and no one gets hurt!"

Backpacking generally means hostels, whether that’s a private room or sharing with others in a dorm. Rarely do you get any luxury unless you have the funds to support a five star stay in the city’s brand hotel. The only luxury we have experienced so far is the occasional fabric softened towel that some hostels provide. So we were presented with the opportunity to rent our own apartment in Buenos Aires for a week, and once we realised that it was actually more economical than staying in a hostel for the same time, we couldn’t say no.

And there was the added bonus of not sharing bathrooms or writing your name on your bag of food stored in the communal fridge.

We stayed in San Telmo, a cultural part of the city which houses many fine restaurants and bars, most of them historic, and home to the famous Sunday Market, which sees kilometres of cobbled stoned streets closed off to traffic and opened to vendors and their stalls. We liked this market; it was one of the best in South America, as they don’t seem to sell the same shit the person next to them is selling. It was one of those markets that you regret backpacking into, as the assortment of souvenirs would look great on our furniture at home, but the lack of space in an already ever-bulging backpack prevents any takings.

We got right into the Buenos Aires lifestyle, which was eating late, staying out late, and sleeping til late the next day. Waking up before noon was not a problem for us, mind you it allowed us to avoid the heat of the day and in the land of true siesta, there may not have been much open.
Days could be spent wandering her streets, watching hired help in the form of dog walkers battle a dozen canines at a time. It seemed the easy thing to do was leash the puppies up to the park fences and cool down with a beer. Lazy, but nice.

It was a giant leap to the couch, but she made it

The doggie carousel was a polar kids ride

Eva, and some other lady, zebra crossed

And then there was Tango, the passionate dance of Argentina. It is practiced with gusto in Buenos Aires, the home of the dance. We even took a lesson, to experience it some more.

I have been known as the man with two left feet, but in my personal opinion, and I’m sure Kylie would agree (*Yes Mark I agree, you are awesome at Tango dancing. Love KG. ), I am awesome at tango dancing. Or dancing the tango. Our skills and lessons learnt were further put to the test after the dinner show of professionals that we attended, when we were offered the opportunity to dance with one of them. I wasn’t asked back up.

The giant obelisk was covered in a giant condom recently for World Aids Day

Pre game footy drinks, rowdy

Football is a passion in Argentina, arguably more so than anywhere in the world, if you ask an Argentine of course. I have not checked with Brazil yet. One of things you must do when out and about in South America is to get to a local game, rather than an international, to experience the fervour. So we signed up to see Boca Juniors, the biggest team in Argentina’s premier league. They aren’t having an awesome season, and this match was against the bottom of the table San Lorenzo team, but this didn’t stop 50000 nutty fans turn out in blue and yellow to support their boys. The stadium shook from the constant noise from dancing, singing, shouting and jumping up and down. Drums were beating and brass instruments were echoing around La Bombonera, or the chocolate box. We had seats in the Populares area, which are basically cheap seats; in fact, there aren’t any seats at all. Its standing room only, and under our guide for the days instructions, (a diehard Boca fan), we had to make sure we stood under the roof of the top terrace. It didn’t take long to work out why this was necessary.

On the way in, security was at anti terror alert levels, which cops checking every part of spectators bodies and possessions, two or three times over. This is of course to prevent items being used as weapons. What they can’t check are opposition fans bladders (who incidentally, must arrive at the ground three hours before play starts and leave one hour before everyone else at the end of the match, to avoid fighting and all the ugly elements soccer is unfortunately all too famous for over time). Piss is their weapon, and from the top stand, opposition supporters, or mongrels would hang it out or hurl filled up cups and rain on the crowd below, forcing them to scatter to scarcely empty parts of the already packed stand. A fine example to all the children watching below.

Luckily, we had the precious shelter.

Boca won the game 3-1, and overall we had a brilliant day at the footy. We joined in the singing and dancing, and even had the obligatory pre match drinks in the local bar by the ground, where of course, San Lorenzo fans were banned. But they are still better than Collingwood supporters.

Just a reminder for the English after all these years

Fake ID's are not well done in Argentina

Eva Peron, affectionately known as Evita, is a woman very special in the hearts of Argentines, so we of course visited the Evita museum and her final resting place at the cemetery in Recoleta. This is of course a very popular tourist spot, but its only a small shrine to Evita, in a non descript crypt toward the back of the park. The biggest monument oddly enough is dedicated to a former boss of an insurance company.

Of course, no mention of Evita is complete without the trauma of getting the song stuck in your head. Now it will be in yours. “Don’t cry for me Argentina, the truth is I never left you, la la de da da, some other words etc…”

Argentina’s past is chequered with horror, notably from the Military Dictatorship which ruled the country from 1976-1983. Part of this regime saw the emanation of the Dirty War, where countless thousands were “disappeared”, those whom the Generals considered a threat to society, such as radicals, students, and even those with long hair. Their method of punishment was torture, followed by being drugged up and thrown out of an aeroplane over the ocean, feed bound together by concrete. Families do not know if their sons and daughters who had been taken are still alive, and have not had proper justice given.

A group of mothers, known as the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, march around the Plaza de Mayo square every Thursday, in the effort of hope and seeking of justice. They have been doing this for 35 years. Every Thursday at 3pm.

Some of the missing are still alive. For example, many generals in the army could not have children of their own, so simply kidnapped babies from parents, and more often than not, murdered the parents. Because of this, the Mothers raise awareness of the need for people, if they are unsure, to contact the group and perhaps take a DNA test.

A shocking result came to light within the last 12 months. On heeding the group’s advice, a girl found out that the family she was brought up with believing that whom she called Mama and Papa were not actually her natural parents. They had murdered her real parents, and stolen her.

Time is bringing some of those involved to justice. There is a hard to reach museum of the missing, with only the occasional tour within a month. It seemed to us that the country is still not ready to fully confront all the nastiness of the past.

That aside, we loved Argentina.

Eva and Juan Peron. Now in postage stamp size

At the footy, pre pissed on.

Argentina, not a place for cows.

Knights only were welcome in the church

Before we made it to BA, as we can know call it as we have been resident enough, we popped over to Uruguay. It’s just over the Rio Plata from BA. Montevideo isn’t awesome, unless you have an affinity with dog shit. Well you will because the odds of not stepping in it on one of the usually fine streets are dead against you. The city to us seemed like it was closed for business. There are many abandoned buildings that could be used better, especially seeing as they were all in the old historic centre. Turns out that when a business or local council runs out of money, then that’s it. Nothing gets fixed around here. Still, Montevideo had some interesting street art and a few classic looked after buildings, and also some pretty decorative and talented street art, and some heart stopping food. Chivito, which is essentially a sandwich, or even just a greasy plate of French fries, covered in steak, fried egg, ham, lettuce (for aesthetics only), tomato and anything else that is willing to block the odd artery, and drowned in litres of cheese. Delicious, but deadly.

Colonia del Sacramento is the jewel of the country, a beautiful old port town cobbled with history, and an excellent few days of relaxing. The streets are filled with old style cars which now double as flowerpots and gardens .We were even more impressed by the BBQ asado that the hostel had put on for us, for free, one night we were there. Not so impressed by the elderly couple getting it on at 5am and keeping us awake.

But now its goodbye to Argentina, and goodbye to Spanish. We head off to Brazil today, and into Portuguese, yet another language we have the opportunity to ruin.

Adios.