Argentina: BA & La Plata

I left Rosario, in Uruguay, early on Thursday to get myself back to Buenos Aires. My flight home was on Sunday and I was looking forward to getting back to Argentina's capital for my final three nights on the continent.

The bus back to Colonia was easy enough, but when I arrived at the ferry terminal and tried to get through customs I was held back by the spotty 17 year-old at the desk.

He was asking for an 'embarkation card' - something I had apparently been given when I entered Uruguay just three days before.

By this stage I had crossed so many borders in and out of Argentina and Uruguay, I barely knew where I was - and what documentation related to what trip.

My passport had more stamps than a post office...

...and this embakation card was nowhere to be seen.

So I didn't have the paperwork and my catamaran was leaving in about 15 minutes. I asked to urgently see the customs manager and was greeted by a sharp-faced woman in an even sharper suit.

She explained what the boy had already explained: I needed this embarkation card to leave the country. Tell me something I don't know.

If I didn't have it I would have to stump up about £50. The boat itself had only cost £35 and - having spent six months on the road - I wasn't keen to start throwing away the little money I had left.

I pleaded sympathy with her and she barked something to me in Spanish before shrugging her shoulders and ordering the boy to stamp my boarding card. I fully expected to have to pay something once I reached the Argentinian side of the Rio Plata, but in the event I didn't. I got away with it.

So, drama averted and I was soon back in my old stamping ground of BA. I had enjoyed the city during my previous week's stay, but fancied a change of scene from the Milhouse. I booked myself into a hostel called America Del Sur in the San Telmo neighbourhood.

The America Del Sur was an impressive place. Five floors of immaculately designed rooms all hugging a central atrium:

It had good staff, clean bathrooms, nice mattresses and a comfy TV lounge. The only thing it didn't have was a lively atmosphere. I was entering the last weekend of my travels and was looking for a party, but I wouldn't be finding one at the hostel.

However, help was at hand just round the corner. Shaun, who I'd done the skydive with in Cordoba, was living in the city and he knew a guy (Clinton) that worked behind the bar in another hostel:

So each night we started there before doing the usual BA nightime activity: going clubbing in the early hours. I met various people in my last weekend, such as Daniel and Tiago from Brazil, and Martin from Germany:

On another night, Shaun and I went out for steaks down the road with a couple of girls we'd met at the hostel:

I loved that restaurant so much that I went back two nights in a row.

My one 'activity' that I had planned took place on Saturday. Now if you're already bored to tears of my posts about visiting the various Evertons in South America, you'd better go and find something better to do. Like watching paint dry.

After my visits to Vina del Mar and Rosario I had one more Everton to see, and they were based in La Plata - a city about an hour east of BA.

I had made contact with Everton La Plata after being given a contact from John, and found out that they would be playing a home match on Saturday at 3pm.

I stumbled out of bed at 11am, sleep-deprived and feeling like death, before jumping in a cab to Plaza Once to get a bus to La Plata. I got there just as one was about to leave, boarded and got my head down for an hour.

In La Plata it was approaching kick-off time, so I took a cab from the bus terminal in the direction of Everton's ground. The taxi driver (more of him later) warned me it was a fair way out of the city but I asked him to put his foot down and get me there asap.

We bombed it through the city streets towards the airport, near which Everton's ground was situated. City gave way to suburbia, suburbia gave way to fields. It was a long way and the meter kept on ticking over.

Eventually we got within a couple of blocks of the ground, and then we saw the ground, and then my heart sank. There was nobody there, it was 20 minutes until the supposed kick-off, and something was clearly up.

We pulled into the gravel drive and I got out and walked around the small changing room block. All the doors were closed and there was not a soul to be seen.

I tried to phone my contact, Marcelo, but had no signal. We were in the middle of nowhere and the game, if there was a game, was not happening here.

Damnit.

Not knowing what to do, I got back in the cab and asked the taxi driver to take me back to La Plata, to the HQ of Everton. On the way back I tried calling Marcelo several times - at one point stopping at a petrol station to use a payphone in case my mobile was playing up - but each time just got a broken dial tone.

The driver at this point seemed perplexed. What was this foreigner doing in La Plata, asking to be driven to far-flung places to see empty football pitches?

I started to explain to him in Spanish about how I was a hincha (fan) of Everton de Inglaterra and was visiting some of the other Evertons in South America. He immediately perked up and explained that he had once played in the Everton La Plata hockey team for seven years, and the club was close to his heart.

With a rapport building and no more deadlines to meet (I'd given up on the game at this point), he told me more about his life in La Plata. Halfway back to the city he surprised me by rifling through his bag and pulling out two cellophane-wrapped CDs.

It turned out he was Dany Osvald, a reasonably successful trumpet player (though not so successful that he could give up the taxi-driving day job...). He was - according to the blurb that came with the CD - El Trompetista:

He asked if I wanted to buy one, and of course I said yes. Buying a trumpet CD from an Argentinian taxi driver: there's a first time for everything.

We were soon back in central La Plata and he dropped me at Everton's headquarters:

I walked in to find a restaurant, a pilates class in full swing and various locked office doors. I asked a couple of people if they knew Marcelo, or anyone from the football side of the club, but had no joy.

But then I bumped into a woman who was managing the gym. I explained my visit and the non-event of the match. She phoned a couple of people, perhaps including Marcelo, and found out that the game had been suspended due to heavy overnight rain and a waterlogged pitch. Just my luck.

I was still glad I had made the journey to La Plata though. I spent a bit of time watching some men play a hybrid squash-type game in a massive hall out the back...

...and then headed off into the town centre.

It was the last game of the Argentinian league season and Gimnasia La Plata were playing Boca Juniors on the other side of the city. I'd missed kick-off because of my failed attempt to watch Everton, but caught a bit of it on TV and could hear the singing of the fans from the town centre.

I visited the disused ground of Estudiantes - one of Argentina's biggest clubs - and had a good walk round the city. Here are some pics:

 

I made it back to BA in the early evening and had one last, heavy night out with Shaun and the others. We started in Asia de Cuba down by the docks and ended up in a club in Palermo dancing to The Human League.

And that was my last night in South America. Sob.

I took a walk round the San Telmo antiques market on Sunday before getting a taxi to the airport. It felt very strange to be going home. Excited on the one hand, to see my family and friends, and sad on the other to be leaving such an incredible continent.

But home was calling me, and my sister's wedding in Italy. I checked in, had a bite to eat, got a final picture...

...and headed under a large sign that said Departures.

Argentina: Buenos Aires

Apologies for the brief posting hiatus. I arrived back from South America last Monday, had the Tuesday to run around shops buying stuff for my sister's wedding, and then flew out to Italy on Wednesday to watch her get married:

But this blog isn't finished yet. Oh no. There are still a couple of weeks to document, and document them I will - starting now.

So, Buenos Aires. Or 'Buenos Fucking Aires', as the T-shirts on sale in Avenida Florida said.

I arrived in BA, as I shall call it from now on, by catamaran from Uruguay and took a 15 minute walk down the Avenida to my hostel.

Florida is the commercial street that runs through the centre of downtown BA, a street full of shops, guys selling T-Shirts and mate pots, and people. Lots of people. After a week in the relative tranquility of Paraguay and Uruguay, the Avenida came as a bit of a shock to the system.

Thousands of busy people were out on the street, everyone seemed in a hurry to be somewhere, and by the time I turned off onto the road where my hostel was I had been shoved around more than a battered wife. Or a battered husband (as I've said before, I'm not sexist).

I had been really looking forward to BA. My route through South America had taken me from the north (Colombia) to the south (Argentina) and many of the people I'd met along the way had been travelling in the other direction, and had only good things to say about the Argentine capital.

Is it Argentine, or Argentinian? I've never been able to get my head around that one.

The city is famous for many things. Legendary football clubs, amazing steaks, attractive women, great nightlife. It sounded like my kind of place.

Whenever I'd spoken to people about BA, I'd made a point to ask them where they had stayed. The majority of people had spent at least a couple of nights in the infamous Milhouse Hostel - and that's where I headed.

The Milhouse is well-known on the South American gringo trail. It hosts parties every night of the week, has hundreds of beds and is run by knowledgable and friendly staff. I knew I wanted a week of sampling the famous BA nightlife, so it seemed like the obvious place to go.

There are, in fact, two Milhouse Hostels in BA - situated either side of the gigantic, 10-lane Avenida 9 Julio:

I stayed in the one that borders the Microcentro area and immediately made friends with a guy called James, from England, and a couple of others.

We crossed the Avenida and went to the other Milhouse, where we found a lively bar and more ready-made friends. A few drinks later and it was time for my bed.

The following morning there were seven of us snoozing off our hangovers in an 8-bed dorm. A high-pitched alarm went off inside one of the lockers beside the bunks and, as sod's law dictates, it belonged to the one person who had got up early and left the room.

So we had an alarm piercing our sleepy ears every 10 minutes and nothing we could do to stop it. After a few soundings of the alarm, an irate voice in the bed next to me screamed out, 'Seriously!!?'

That voice belonged to Philippa, a girl from Leeds who I ended up spending quite a bit of time with over the next week.

With no more sleep to be had, we decided to go on one of the activities that the Milhouse organises: a walking tour of the La Boca neighbourhood.

A large group, perhaps 30 of us, set off late morning with our energetic tour guide Amelia and got a bus to what is known as BA's roughest neighbourhood.

You might wonder why 30 backpackers would want to go on a tour of the roughest neighbourhood in BA, but La Boca is a special place with some special sights to see.

To start with, it is home to Boca Juniors football club and their fantastic stadium, the Bombonera. That was our first port of call on the tour:

We were taken into the new museum housed in the back of one of the stands and had a fun tour delivered by Amelia. She is a fan of Racing, another club based in BA, and hates Boca Juniors with a passion.

She made no secret of this as she took us round the museum, slagging off Boca whenever she could. It made me laugh.

One example she used, to show her disdain for the club we were visiting, was how Boca would not allow the colour red anywhere inside the Bombonera - as red is the colour of their arch rivals River Plate.

We found out that the Bombonera had been the only place in the world where the Coca Cola logo was not in red-and-white. The drinks giant had agreed to have a black-and-white logo advertised instead.

But last year Boca's management decided to sign a shirt sponsorship deal with electronics giant LG.

LG's logo incorporates the colour red, and so now the Boca players run around with the colour red on their shirts. 'And look at its position: close to their hearts', Amelia seethed. She really hates Boca Juniors.

In the museum we saw a wall lined with framed Boca shirts from down the ages:

And there were several other interesting artefacts, such as a shirt worn by Pele when he played against Boca...

...as well as some shiny trophies:

 

Two 'exhibits' elevated themselves above all others, though.

There are some things in life that you feel privileged to be in the same room as. Now please don't be envious as you look at this picture:

Yes, as the inscription says, I was lucky enough to set eyes on 'Flip flops worn by Guillermo Barros Schelotto in the Stadium dressing room, 2003'.

Brilliant.

The other exhibit that made me laugh was a picture of the current coach, his smile bordering on a gurn:

What an attractive man.

After the museum we were led out into the Bombonera itself. Bombonera in Spanish means Chocolate Box - and has been the nickname for the stadium for decades because it, erm, looks like a chocolate box:

On the way out of the ground there was a statue of Boca's most famous son, and England's nemesis at the 1986 World Cup. A certain Mr Diego Maradona:

I was going to do a 'comedy' pose of him punching the ball into the net, but there were lots of Boca fans around me and some burly members of staff. I chickened out.

With the tour over we took a short walk around the block to get some lunch. Amelia took us to a classic Argentinian steak house, where we stuffed ourselves with the assorted ingredients of a parilla:

It was a good lunch shared with Philippa, plus Eric and Sandra - a couple of Swedes:

We somehow managed to haul our fattened stomachs out of the restaurant and continue the tour, Amelia taking us on a short walk to the edge of La Boca's tourist centre. It is a stunning place, several cobbled streets of brightly coloured clapperboard houses:

There were artists' studios, cafes and impromptu tango dancers (plus dog) putting on a show:

Philippa and I spotted a couple of tango dancers (one male, one female) who were posing for pictures with tourists of the opposite sex, in return for a couple of quid.

I donned an Al Capone suit and hat and threw some shapes:

We do weddings, bar mitzvahs, etc.

Afterwards, I bumped into a guy who has been walking around La Boca for the last 20 years. He is the spitting image of Diego Maradona and, again, is paid a couple of quid by tourists like me to pose with him:

On his little photo montage were pics of him and the real Diego, when the two Diegos took part on a TV chat show in the '90s. Because of that, fake Diego has become a La Boca celebrity in his own right.

He was a really friendly bloke and I spent 10 minutes just watching the double-take on people's faces as they walked past him.

'Is that...?' 'No, it can't be...' 'But it must be...'

Fake Diego was loving it.

We had a bit of time left to wander round the five or six colourful streets that make up tourist La Boca. Amelia urged us to 'not walk where there are no tourists'.

Just outside the tourist-friendly streets lie large estates that are home to crack dealers, prostitutes and the customers that keep them in business.

But the streets we stayed on were great. There were some eye-catching murals, impromptu games of football, and more tributes to Mr Maradona:

After my brief tango introduction in the arms of the dancer in La Boca, I decided to take advantage of a free lesson laid on by the Milhouse that evening.

Myself, Philippa, Shaun (who I'd travelled with in Mendoza and Cordoba) and a few others took it in turns to dance with each other, following the instructions given to us by the sprightly couple of teachers. I'm no dancer, but it was a fun hour spent learning the basics of Argentina's famous pastime:

That night I got my first proper experience of BA's nightlife. The portenos - as BA's residents are called - like to start their nights late.

I knew this, and expected 'late' to be Madrid or Barcelona late. As in go for dinner at 10pm, head to a bar afterwards, and maybe to a club at midnight.

In BA I soon realised that Madrid or Barcelona are earlybirds compared to the portenos. In BA a lot of people will eat at 11pm, go to a bar for 1am, and will finally hit the clubs between 2-3am. It took a bit of getting used to.

Describing clubbing experiences in a blog is probably fairly dull so I'll keep this bit brief. We went out every night for a week, arriving back home at breakfast time, and enjoyed nights in places like Barhein (drum n bass), Kika (house/Lady Gaga), Crobar (superclub) and some gay club I forget the name of (Amnesia...?)

But the late finishes didn't mean late starts. I managed to get up each morning and went to see what the city had to offer.

One day I got up, took a map from reception and left the hostel without a plan. On the walk to the metro station I looked at the map, saw a big cemetery in the south of the city and decided to head there. I remembered reading that Eva Peron was buried in BA.

The metro ride took about 25 minutes to reach the stop nearest to the cemetery. I got out, walked about five blocks and eventually found the gate to the cemetery.

It was a huge place, almost like a small town but with tombs instead of houses lined up along the pavements. I took a photo on the way in...

...and was immediately collared by a security guard woman who told me that you weren't allowed to take any photos in the cemetery, except for famous graves. Good, I thought, I've only come to see Peron anyway.

I took a long walk around the eerily silent streets of the cemetery, past tomb after tomb of Argentina's dead, and eventually found another security guard.

I asked him where Eva Peron's tomb was and he explained that the former president was actually buried in another cemetery in the Recoleta neighbourhood of BA.

Doh.

So I walked round for a bit more, taking a few sly pics as I went, wandered back to the metro and headed back downtown. Not the most successful morning I've had.

On another day I was walking through town, running some errand or other (buying toothpaste, finding steak or something) and came across a huge protest. The socialist workers unions were out in force, angry at the lack of jobs in the country.

It was a largely peaceful march down to the government buildings near the docks, but some militant groups were there - including these balaclava-clad blokes carrying menacing sticks and chains:

I didn't hang around to see if they used them.

Towards the end of the week I went on my second walking tour - again with smiley guide Amelia. This time we ventured to one of BA's most well-renowned neighbourhoods: Palermo.

It was an attractive neighbourhood that borders a huge park, and I spent time after the tour wandering through the small streets. There were some fancy boutiques sitting side-by-side with some colourful street art.

I like.

There were two other expeditions I took on my own during my week in the capital. One was to San Telmo, the other to Puerto Madero.

San Telmo is the bohemian district of BA, just next to where I was staying, and home to artists, antique dealers, musicians and the odd mugger (apparently).

On Sundays the main street running through San Telmo is packed with locals and tourists all browsing the market stalls that set up for the day.

The sun was out, I had a great lunch and then spent hours just watching the people go by. My kind of Sunday.

Puerto Madero is the area down by the dockside that was once a seedy neighbourhood, but now houses a spangly collection of 5 star hotels and top-notch restaurants. I had a good walk along the quayside...

...and over the river:

I also ate there one night, at a place called Follow The Cow. It was an all-you-can-eat salad bar and parilla for a fixed price. I think I had about four helpings of each. When in BA, etc.

Talking of eating, that was one of the highlights of Buenos Aires. There are hundreds of incredible restaurants in the city, serving up some of the best food you'll find in South America.

This was the result of one fairly ordinary night out in a steak house:

 

Under the potatoes, the bacon and the portuguesa sauce were two massive slabs of steak. If I never eat another piece of red meat I will still die a contented man (unless I die of a red meat-induced coronary, in which case I probably should've eaten less steak).

One of the most memorable meals was to a place called La Cabrera in Palermo. It was one of those recommendations that people kept giving me as I travelled down South America. 'You have to go to La Cabrera', they all said.

So I did.

Four of us went one evening, reserving a table in advance for one of the hottest restaurants in town. It was a meal to remember.

Philippa and I decided to go all out, both of us ordering the 500g Kobe rump special. We were delivered three large steaks each, which came accompanied with dozens of little ramekins. The ramekins contained a variety of dips, salads and vegetables.

I annoyingly forgot my camera, so had to rely on my flash-less iPhone. Here are my steaks:

 

And here are the bits and bobs that went with it:

The setting was dark and cosy, the steak was probably the best I've had, and the accompanying side dishes elevated it above any other meal I've eaten in the past six months.

After a week, my plan was to head back to Uruguay for a few days (which I'll cover in the next post) and then return to BA for my final weekend on the continent. My last day in the city, before heading back over the Rio Plata, was a Sunday: football day in Buenos Aires.

And this was no ordinary football day. This was the day when Martin Palermo, Boca Juniors' all-time record goalscorer, was to play his last ever home game in the Bombonera.

Tickets for Boca matches are notoriously hard to come by. I didn't fancy chancing my arm by wandering the streets of La Boca trying to buy one off a tout, so paid a bit more to go on an organised trip through my hostel.

The way it works is that Boca's 'hooligans', as Amelia called them, sell off a bunch of tickets to hostels in the city and people like me pay a bit over the odds to go to the match. The whole stadium is Members Only, so this is the most realistic way of getting in - especially for a big game like this one.

With four hours til kick-off we were picked up in a bus by three of these Boca 'hooligans'. One of them had a wad of tickets in his hand, which - at market value - must have been worth thousands of pounds.

We drove to La Boca, got out and joined a long, snaking queue that went past several blocks and round a corner or two. It would be a long wait.

We shuffled slowly forward, spending about an hour and a half queuing to get in. All around us hawkers were selling T-shirts and flags that paid homage to Martin Palermo, the big-nosed No.9 who had become a legend in his own lifetime.

Eventually we reached the first police checkpoint, which soon turned into a crushed bottleneck as people started to get agitated at not being in the ground:

We negotiated that, queued some more, and then eventually found our way to the entry gates. I got through the barriers with about an hour til kick-off and bounded up the steps to the middle tier behind the goal.

It was a completely packed terrace but I managed to squeeze into a spot near the top, underneath the steep roof above:

With about five minutes to go to the off, more and more people tried to cram in to the already-full end. We got more and more squashed, and I began to make friends with various body parts of the people around me.

A nice elbow in my ribs here, a lock of greasy hair in my ear there. I've never been so squashed at a football match.

As the teams came out, the Boca fans sang their (unimaginative) song for their hero Palermo. It went 'Paaa-llll-eeee-rrr-mmm-o' (repeat to fade), and sounded like this:



At that point I was close to breaking point, so the game was secondary to staying on my feet and with air in my lungs.

The first half contained a few chances for Boca, but no goals. The opposition, Banfield, looked poor.

At half-time I was bursting for the loo, and knew I couldn't take another hour of standing where I was, so I vacated my spot on the terrace. In South America fans don't rush to the snack bars or the toilets at half-time, like they do in England, as they know they'll lose their place.

So I knew I would struggle to get back in, and I did. At the back of the stand were hundreds of people who hadn't been able to watch any of the first half. The terrace was too full and there was no view of the pitch from the back. Farcical.

As the second half kicked off I shoved my way through a couple of lines of fans at the back (when they weren't looking) and spent the next 45 minutes on tip-toes watching various parts of the pitch that I could see.

Within a minute Boca had scored. The celebration was good, if not the wild one I was expecting. During the game I expected more from this supposed cauldron of fanaticism, but it didn't really blow me away.

Towards the end, Banfield equalised after a horrible mistake from the Boca keeper. And then the final whistle came.

We all stayed where we were as the organisers quickly erected a stage in the centre of the pitch. It was Farewell To Martin Palermo time.

The man himself finally took to the podium, peroxide-blond hair matted sweatily to his head, and was shown various tear-jerking clips of his achievements and accolades on the big screen. I say tear-jerking literally, as there were grown men all around me wiping tears away from their eyes.

At one point the compere on stage invited some small children to come up and meet His Holiness. They appeared with a special blue-and-yellow cape that had the words Super Martin stitched in the back.

Palermo donned the cape, took a final lap of honour and disappeared down the tunnel. For the next few days, all the sport TV channels were showing wall-to-wall Palermo tributes. His retirement was officially A Big Deal.

And that concluded my first week in big old BA. An intoxicating city full of great clubs, beautiful women, juicy steaks and grown men crying at the football.