Steps, steps and more steps!

In fact, more than 17k steps!

Today we set off on a walking tour with a local after having 8 hours of sleep and a breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausage stew, french pastries, fruit, yoghurt, coffee, juice.....

Our tour guide, Agustina, picked us up from the hotel at 9am. We had only been waiting a few minutes when she arrived as we decided to cut our losses and ask to exchange money in the hotel. They took a 10% cut, but given the other options were exchanging US dollars, which we didnt have, or Western Union, we went with it! I ran upstairs with the thousands of pesos as we only needed the cash for tips and market stalls (if we saw anything!)

Agustina was a young Argetinian from the greater area, she was also an Independiente supporter. Our first stop was Plaza de Mayo (pronouced Masho!), and we had to take the subway to get there. This is also known as Revolution Square, which you can guess from the name is where all the important things in Argentina happen! The first place on the square we visited was Catedral Metropolitana de Buenos Aires where the mausoleum to General Jose de San Martin is situated; he is known as the liberator of Argentina, Peru and Chile. Although its a mausoleum, he has actually been interred diagonally with his head facing down towards hell as he was a mason. His mausoleam is guarded by soldiers and if you time it right, you get to see the changing of the guard.

Apologies for the terrible picture above, it was so busy!

After leaving the cathedral, we walked towards the Casa Rosado, or pink house. This is the presidents office building, but he wasnt working as the second flag on the pole was nowhere to be seen. The other good piece of news is that the building is no longer painted in cows blood, they have found other means of keeping the colour as-is. There is one super ugly building on the square, you`ll never believe what the building is used for, yep you guessed it, TAX collection! We were also lucky enough to see the changing of the guard, although we didn`t follow them into the cathedral.

Also on the square was the `Piramide de Mayo`, a 19metre tall obelisk built in 1811 in honour of the anniversary of Argentinas May revolution, and the Monument of General Manuel Belgrano. You can also see stones on the latter monument, all placed there by people who lost loved ones during covid; it was done as a reminder to the government who apparently had a party during lockdown (sound familiar?)

The next stop on our adventure was the oldest neighbourhood in Buenos Aires, its known as San Telmo, and there is a sunday market which spans almost 20 blocks. It is also the home of Tango! We walked passed some of the stalls, there were a huge variety of crafts, art and anything else you could think of. There is also a food market, which really looked amazing. We didnt have time to stop and sample anything, but we have said we are definitely going back! On our way to catch a bus to the next neighbourhood, we passed San Telmo church, one of the oldest in the city. It is much more understated, and I much preferred it to the huge cathedral on the square.

As I mentioned, we needed to take the bus to the next neighbourhood of La Boca. Its an area of the city famous for Maradona, Boca Juniors and a local artist called Benito Quinqela Martin. We walked through Caminito, a street museum, and admired the grafitti and all of the football related sculptures and characters on show. Im not a Boca fan, but the stadium was pretty cool! Interesting fact, the team were originally black and white but they wanted something different; Boca actually means mouth and this comes from the river which the area sits on, it was said that the team would take the colours of the first ship to come into port, it just so happened to be Swedish, and the blue and yelllow of Boca was born!

While in La Boca, we got to try Matte, the famous caffeine infused herbal drink. We shared with the guide, so if we both have covid tomorrow, we know why. Although, it was quite delicious if you like bitter green tea!

The next stop, also with the bus, was Puerto Madero. It is the newest neighbourhood in Buenos Aires and also the most expensive in the whole of Latin America! This is where you see yachts in the marina, Ferraris or weird looking BMWs which was the case for us. We walked across the Womans Bridge, a cantilever bridge, which depicts a womans leg while tango dancing. The streets of the district are also all named after famous Argentinian women, very feminist according to our guide!

After wandering along the river, it was time to take the subway to the Theatre Colon, and also to have a close up view of the obelisk which was built to commemorate the fourth centenary of the first founding of Buenos Aires. We wandered along the road to the Theatre, a venue for opera and ballet; its a beautuful Italien inspired building. Apparently, the building has the best acoustics in the world for opera; Luciano Pavarotti agreed, so Im not going to argue!

We waited for the bus to take us to our last stop in Recoleta; this is where the guide would leave us. She pointed out the cemetry, which ill explain later, then we walked up towards the Church of Our Lady, We paid a swift visit, before walking by the biggest rubber tree I have ever seen. I love how they have combined art and nature. Just beside the tree is a restaurant, it has an automobile association and there are pictures and statues of Fangio as welll as other famous faces including two Agentine writers. Our guide mentioned Franco Colapinto, lets see where he ends up in a few years time! We said our goodbyes to the guide, before swiftly ordering a large beer and empenada!

After our late lunch we decided to go to Recoleta Cemetery; its very like the famous cemeteries in New Orleans. We only wanted to see the Mausoleum where Eva Peron was buried, but it was quite fascinating to see some of the others, even those in a state of disrepair.

We didn`t spend too long wandering around, even though we had to pay a `tourist rate` which was about four times the price. Instead, I spotted a craft beer pub across the road and the sun was shining! A flight later, and we were a little merrier!

Again, uber was the best way to get back to the hotel even though it wasn`t particularly far away! After an hour or so recovering from all the walking, we decided to just stay at the hotel and have dinner in the restaurant. It just so happened, that they had one of the wines our tour guide recommended; i thought it was going to be really expensive as it was 53,000 ARS, turns out it was only 28 quid. We also shared a rib-eye as a `normal`steak in Argentina is 400g. We were both stuffed by the end of the meal as we also had a beef crostini, gazpacho and enough bread to feed an army!