Day 40

Saturday 11^th December 2010

We were up and out for midday – and the sun had put in an appearance – hooray!

We had brunch at Café Tortoni on the Avenida de Mayo – one of the two biggest most important avenues in BA.

Café Tortoni is the oldest and grandest café in BA. It opened in 1858. Various tango legends have performed here and the national academy of Tango is on the first floor of the building. King Juan Carlos of Spain and Hilary Clinton are amongst some of the more famous patrons. We even had to queue to get in! It was worth it – I had really good orange juice and iced coffee mmmm!!!

Avenida de Mayo is a Parisian styled boulevard lined with shops and cafes that runs from Casa Rosada and the Plaza de Mayo at one end and the Plaza del Congreso at the other end. This layout if supposed to be a symbolic reminder that power does not only belong to the President but also to the people of the country.

We walked sown the Avenida de Mayo to Palacio del Congreso. The Argentinean government is modelled on the bicameral system of the US and this building was designed in the same style as the white Greco-Roman domed Congress structure in Washginton DC.

The oldest Subte line in the city runs underneath the Avenida de Mayo with the original teak tramcars so we headed below ground to check this out. The first train was a new modern one so I insisted on waiting for the next one! When the train arrived it was absolutely rammed so I did get to go on the old tram car. However, I was squashed up next to a bloke who had several packing boxes small savoury biscuits that he was trying to stuff into his hold all. When his hold all was full he concentrated on trying to eat all the biscuits that wouldn’t fit – but he had about 50 bags!!!! We got off before he had finished so I’m not sure of he achieved it – or what the point was!

We jumped off at Avenida 9 de Julio, another Paris-style boulevard. This is HUGE  road – the widest in the world at 140m and 12 lanes wide. The traffic is reminiscent of that in Paris too - it is impossible to cross in one traffic cycle. It was created in the 1930s with a 68m Obelisco at the main intersection.

With Xmas just around the corner there was also some oversized decorations to check out!

Our next stop was Teatro Colon where the English speaking tour was scheduled for 3pm and as we had an hour to spare and we decided it was well past beer o’ clock and stopped off at one of the pavement café bars to take in the crazy traffic and do a spot of people watching.

Teatro Colon is the city’s main lyric theatre and a world class centre for classical music, ballet and opera.

. Building commenced in 1889 but the architect died, and then so did his assistant, then the chief financier was assassinated! I’m surprised they found someone to take the job on but they did and it opened in 1908. It seats over 3000 people and supposedly does not have a ‘bad seat’ in the house. It also boasts world famous near perfect acoustics. Apparently a trip to BA is not complete without experiencing the Colon’s grandeur and stately elegance. However, when we arrived at the ticket office we were told that there were no tours due to strikes! We’re not entirely sure why there were people still working in the ticketing office who had clearly passed a picket line to be there to tell us that there were no tours. They were just sat playing games on the computer so it seemed pretty pointless in them being at work!

I was able to do a spot of conducting on my own in the gardens at the back though!

We hit the Subte again and headed over to Recoleta – the wealthy part of town. San Telmo (where we are staying) used to be the home of the elite as it is situated nearer to the original port of La Boca. However, the elite families fled to the South of the city during a yellow fever epidemic  in 1871 as the South is located over 7m above the height of the river and so there were fewer mosquitoes. The deserted mansions in San Telmo and La Boca became tenement houses for poor European immigrants and so BA’s population is a mixture of the descendants of the English, Spanish and Italians.

We were going to Recoleta to visit the cemetery – I know not usually the top of honeymooner’s activities but there you go! This is one of the world’s largest necropolises and has been the burial place of choice for Argentina’s elite since the mid 19^th century. Presidents, military generals, artists, aristocracy and most famously Eva Peron lie interred here in fabulous granite and bronze mausoleums. It’s a weird city of the dead comprising a maze of streets and narrow passageways between the tombs – some of which you can see into and inspect the contents. However, it felt very peaceful and serene and a fitting tribute to commemorate the lives of those who had been laid to rest here.

Evita was the first wife of Juan Domingo Peron who was elected president of Argentina in 1946. The Perons were loved by the people as they empowered the urban poor and working classes by offering them political participation, a set minimum wage, salary increases, better working conditions, housing and education. Evita was a radio actress born from a working class family herself and seen as a saint. She lies 5m beneath the earth in her the tomb of her maiden family, Duarte. She is protected by metal bars to prevent attempts to steal her body. She died of cancer in 1952 aged just 33 and there was a national outpouring of grief that is continued to this day. There are always fresh flowers left at her families tomb.

As we wandered amongst the tombs the sky turned darker and the first rumbles of thunder could be heard. It was oppressively hot and sticky and we knew a storm was fast approaching so we hurried to the La Biela café for some liquid refreshment (that’s a tankard of beer please!).

A couple were performing the Tango just outside but it wasn’t long before the heaven’s opened and our sunny day in BA had turned into yet another washout!

When it eventually subsided we were able to hit the streets again and head back to San Telmo on the subway.

After our disastrous attempt at a night out on Friday had been thwarted by over excessive food consumption we decided to head to the English pub for an early tea.

Then it was back to the hostel for the inevitable….. nap!

We had been told that things don’t really get going until late in the evening in BA so  we’d purchased a bottle of red wine at the supermercardo to drink in the room and we eventually left the hostel and headed out in search of the nightlife at about midnight.

We arrived at the club in taxi which was useful as we would have just walked in by. There were two Spanish speaking doormen on the pavement at a narrow doorway with no sign and a staircase leading upwards. We approached the door and were garbled at in Spanish. We had no idea what was being said but it was clear we weren’t being allowed in. Although another Argentinean couple who arrived at the same time as us made it upstairs without so much as a second glance! We didn’t understand the doorman and he didn’t understand us so it was a bit of a stand off until the second doorman disappeared off up the stairs. On his return we were allowed in – with no idea what the issue had been or how it had been resolved!

We had picked El Living from the list of nightclubs in our trusty Top 10 of BA guide (thanks Matt – it’s been invaluable!). This one was picked on the basis that it was one of the few clubs that didn’t boast hard house, techno and trance on a Saturday night. This didn’t mean we were prepared for the video of Simply Red playing as we hit the bar though! Is there no middle ground???? The ‘club’ was also very subdued with people just sat around eating. It resembled a restaurant more than a club but we settled down at the bar in the hope that things would improve.

A couple of Warsteiners (Franky) and red wines (me) later not much had changed. Except that Mick Hucknall had given way to the Pet Shop Boys!!!! We were relooking at the guide for other options. A club called Mint seemed a likely candidate but it didn’t open until 1.30am so we decided to stay put for another drink.

Miraculously the club then underwent some transformation. As the clock struck 1.30am all the dining furniture was rearranged and the bar was suddenly full of punters. We realise now this was the issue with the doormen – you had to pay to get in the club at 1.30am and before that it was purely for diners but they’d obviously given us the benefit of being dumb tourists and not understanding this crazy system. I mean who goes pout for a meal at 12.30am on a Sunday morning???!

With new found enthusiasm for the night out Franky approached the DJ and requested

some Pearl Jam – only to be told that they only played British artists. Not to be deterred Franky replied, ‘OK, I’ll have some Rolling Stones please!’. To which the DJ replied ‘No, I like the Beatles!’. The notion of pleasing his public was clearly lost on him!!! So we requested some Kasabian and were told that this would be played with Oasis and the Arctic Monkeys at 2.30am!!! He also told us the bar would be open til about 6 or 7am! It seemed some kind of schedule had to be kept to and the DJ didn’t care that we’d have had 2 hours of Pet Shop Boys crap by then – our own fault for arriving stupidly early I suppose! The music did improve with a number of well known British artists – MGMT, Madonna, The Strokes, Kings of Leon and The Killers to name a few!!!!

By 3am we’d had enough and thought we’d check out Mint. So we left and hailed a taxi.

Torrential rain was lashing down and it was blowing gale as we got out of the taxi. We couldn’t see a club called Mint but there were a couple of potential candidates so we got out into the typical Manchester type weather. We asked the bouncers who cheerfully informed us that Mint was 25 blocks away and we would need a taxi – great!

We flagged another one down. Asked for ‘Mint’ and we were off. The taxi driver took us on a merry tour of the area – back the way that we had come. Then he asked us again where we wanted to go – turned round and headed back to where we had just come from. At the same time asking us why we didn’t speak Spanish. If I had been able to speak Spanish I’d have asked why the taxi drivers in BA don’t seem to know where anything is! At 4.30am we eventually got to the car park for Mint where another bouncer stopped us and told us that the club was now closed – Mint!

We’re not sure why a club opens at 1.30am and is all over by 4.30am but it seems that is how it works in BA. So we went home to bed!!!



This is outside "El Living", looks like a Nightclub don't you think??