Good Air

The capital of Argentina, the Paris of the Southern Hemisphere, the Steak Capital of the World. Buenos Aires! In all it´s glory! This place is pretty big. It can be smoggy with all the traffic and smoking that goes on, so in my opinion they should rename it Smoggy Aires or something to that effect.

The main road, only a measley 17 lanes wide.

Lots of sights to see in this place, so the first time we arrived (we´ve dropped by a total of 3 times over a couple of weeks) we took a bike tour of the city which was a hoot. Got the feel of the place and managed to stay on the bike (which was about as old as "the wheel" itself) despite the heavy traffic. There are lots of different areas, or suburbs if you will, each of which have their own attractions and things to do and see.

Spikey.

La Boca, home to the world famous Boca Juniors, Maradona´s club, is a colourful dock suburb where there´s lots of street tango going on with some good art markets to boot. Typically the lower classes reside here and as a result it had become a tradition to paint their houses with whatever paint they find lying around on the docks; the leftover paint from painting the boats and ships. So all the buildings are madly multi-coloured, bringing a very optimistic feel to the place.

Colourful La Boca.

Recoleta is described as a more aristocratic suburb and houses a few large and strange cemetary. Originally the first public cemetary to be opened in Buenos Aires, a lot of important figures from Buenos Aires and Argentina´s history are laid to rest here - Eva "Evita" Perón being the most famous. It´s a strange place as it feels like a town in itself, each of the tombs being very large, some almost as big as small churches. A sombre place.

The cemetry skyline.

Speaking of Evita, that famous balcony that Madonna did a gig from, with Antonio Banderas lurking in the background, is also a prominent Bs As building. Found on the Plaza de Mayo (no free mayonaise, to my distaste) this bright pink building carries a lot history with it. It was once the Presidents home, which had now moved across the street, and was the famous location where Evita addressed the masses. Girl Power all the way.

"Don't fry for me, Sergeant Tina" or words to that effect.

The view from the top of the hostel.

Only a couple of days before we had to depart, we had 2 things left to do. We had to fulfill our pact. I had to endure a tango show and in return got to watch some football.