Buenos Aires - Buenos Aires

Just like New York Buenos Aires is so good they said it twice :). Well it's truly a pleasure to be out of Patagonia. Every time I see Patagonia in a travel agent's window or on the cover of a coffee table book I think to myself thank the good lord I've escaped. It's very sad really, I really enjoyed my time there until the whole fiasco wih the car and now that large ancient seabed of an expanse of nothing only reminds me of pain (physical at that!) and a sense of entrapment. Let me elaborate. The last time I wrote gentle reader I was still in Comodoro Rivadavia convalescing. You will remember there had been a volcano which caused havoc all across the country with transport etc etc so flying seemed an impossibility thus we chose to take the 24 hour bus journey instead, all well and good. Up we get to get on our bus at 8.30 in the morning only to find it a little delayed. No matter, I thought, Argentina'a a bit like Ireland like that, it'll be along within the next alf an hour. After 2 hours standing in 0 degrees I began to have second thoughts and eat the face, literally, off the drivers who were sitting in our bus eating croissants and laughing. What the fuck are they doing I asked myself!? Ire rose within me and clouded my weary brain. I was convinced that I was in the village of Prisoner fame except it was not Wales, it was Patagonia. A large village but nonetheless inescapable. You will also remember that due to an immense brush fire a month before we were unable to to go to Buenos Aires from Colonia in Uruguay. This time it was snow. All the time we spent waiting for snow so we could frolic about in the white and now the bastard was trapping us in Patagonia..Again!!! The road was cut off indefinitely. It was all a bit fushy though. We were told the road was cut off in every direction yet Comodoro was completely free of snow. The drifts rose to 60cm in some places we heard and nothing but a film of deep anger lay upon me. I fully expected a large white balloon to appear and swallow me up. Needless to say and to cut a long story short we managed to get a flight the next day having spent another considerable amount of time at the bus station and arrived in the much warmer Buenos Aires that night around midnight. It felt like a deliverance. I really felt that I had been freed. Poor Patagonia, it did nothing to deserve this harsh treatment but that's unfortunately how I felt about it at the time. I really hope I'll want to come back. The placeis really rather awesome in it's way.
So now I'm in Buenos Aires. It's really, well words escape me. It's really something! We managed to rent an apartment here which is lovely and homey and right beside Plaza de Mayo while still being a haven of peace and quiet (difficult to come by in the city). We'rea 5 minute walk from the subway too. It's great. It kind of feels like I live here. The previous place we were in was the Casita de San Telmo. This is quite a place. For one it's a beautiful house, if you read the website you'll get the details. There is also a cat that tries to invade your room but likes a good sword fight :) But the nicest thing about it is how friendly it is. We only saw the proprieter once suring our stay. It really felt like a friend had just given you the key to their house. The kind of house where everyone comes to hang out. Everyone is very friendly, always willing to have a chat and share some food or drink with oyu. It reminded me of living in student accomodation :). We met a lovely Swiss lady who had come to Buenos Aires to write a book and a very nice, interesting and cool irish guy called John. We spent some time with John in out few days in the casita and had a great time. I taught him about dulce de leche and a couple of Spanish words and he taught us about tango, gave us lots of handy advice and brought us to a great Milonga (Tango show, open to participation) where we met another interesting chap called Andrew who packed in his vegetable growing in Wales for a life of tango in Buenos Aires. If you're reading this, John, thanks for everything mate and we hope to see you in Toronto if we get the chance!Sound man as they say. Here's a link to his business website. He knows about cranes. If you're around Toronto and want a crane give him a bell!
The area we were staying in was San Telmo, very historic and ,I've realised, a source of Art Nouveau antiques!! Now, those who speak to me about art will know that I adore Art Nouveau and the prospect of owning such a thing makes my toes curl with delight. The relative cot of things is about a fifth of what it is in Ireland - I may be able to procure such an item without selling a kidney. I'm thinking of it strongly. There's loads of art nouveau architecture everywhere too. It's really great!
Today is the 25th of May as some of you who are keep up with the passage of time will know. Today is alos Argentinian independence day and so we expected the streets of the capital (and the main square) to be thronged to capacity with proud (rabid, or whichever way you look at it) Argentinians but no! The streets were empty, much quieter than a normal day. It was like the Marie Celeste in some places. Very strange. We did see a sort of variety show in the local cafe though. It reminded me of the entertainment you get on those ferries to France but there was a dance to the music of Cinema Paradiso which was really good.
I must mention ,before I go, the sculpture park we found whilst wandering along looking for something else. Giant metal lizards, cows and dinosaurs made out of bits of cars, typewriters, circuitboards, anything solid it seemed and preferably metal or plastic. There was even some giant ants climbing a telegraph pole. All the work of Carlos Regazzoni who is from Comodoro as well. If you've ever been to the town you would wonder how an artist could come out of it. It's like the Argentinian equivalent of Leitrim or something. It's also a city of knowledge we were told by a lady in the airport. Curious. Anyhow the sculpture park was completely unexpected and one of the reasons which I like Buenos Aires so much. It's very very different from Rio but I love them both in different ways. Viva Sudamérica! Hasta la vista!