Buenos Aires

As our ship pulled into the harbour of Buenos Aires our senses were immediately overwhelmed by all the noise, the people, the traffic. After 3 weeks in the remoteness of Antarctica it took us a couple of days to get used to City Life again. But we decided to make Buenos Aires our home for the next month in order to give Hadleigh a chance to catch up on some work. We rented a lovely little airbnb apartment in Retiro and over the course of the next four weeks we would grow to love the city of B.A.

Buenos Aires is full of beautiful parks with 700-year-old trees, often in full bloom. There also appear to be about as many dogs here as people, there is a lot of traffic but actually surprisingly civilized and orderly. There is an eclectic mix between modern skyscrapers and old, huge, french-inspired palacios.

In terms of food, due to a lot of Italian immigrants to the country, the staple foods in B.A. are very cheesy, thick crust pizzas and veeery good ice cream. Then there is of course Parilla (grilled meats) and Choripan and an obligatory accessory for every Argentinian seems to be a thermos and a mate cup at all times.

I spent some of my time taking Spanish classes, sitting in cute cafes and editing these photos, sketching the city landscapes in the parks etc. Hadleigh spent a lot of time working but also making the most of the amenities of city life, such as good coffee, dentist and chiropracter appointments etc :)

On our weekends we visited the famed neighbourhoods of La Boca and San Telmo with their colourful streets and markets and obligatory street Tango. We spent time with Hadleighs school friend, who happened to be living in B.A. and who was kind enough to show us around and take us to a real football game at the stadium with his family in tow. We also strolled through the famous Recoleta graveyard, where Evita Peron is buried and happened upon some horse racing by chance one day.

On one of our final weekends we did as the locals do when they wanna escape city life and did a "Dia do Campo" (a day in the countryside). You drive about 2h into the surrounding pampas and visit a farm, where you get served an immense feast of parilla, empanadas, wine and mate and you get to go on a horseback ride, listen to live music and see the Gauchos demostrate some amazing horseback skills. We ended up being the only tourists, nobody spoke english but thankfully our spanish is good enough by now to get by and we absolutely loved the whole experience.

Overall we immensly enjoyed our time in B.A., it was a great opportunity to slow down and feel at home somewhere. But now, off to new adventures...