greetings from uruguay

Hola! I'm still alive, just haven't had much opportunity to access t'internets. I'm writing this from the empty lounge of our hotel in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. The rest of my tour group bar one is currently out on a bicycle tour of the city but I wussed out because I don't want to get run over and/or fall off my bike and embarass myself due to lack of practice. They say it's like swimming and that once you learn you never forget, but still...

Making the switch from travelling purely solo to joining the group was initially a bit difficult, because I'd become spoiled with being able to do or not do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. Luckily though, the way GAP tours are set out is pretty flexible. You're given the opportunity to join in group activities if you wish, but there's no pressure because nothing is compulsory. So if you want to do your own thing, you can.

My group is 15 in total, including me. There are 8 girls and 7 guys, with an age range of about 22 to 38, from England, USA, Canada, Japan, Belgium, Germany, Sweden and Australia. It's also quite interesting that everyone except the two Swedes, who are friends, is travelling solo like me. From what I can tell, it's a nice bunch! No social retardation, or highly-strungness in evidence. And it seems the other girls, though they all look slender and fit, are not afraid to eat, which is awesome.

Disaster struck early on though. On Sunday a bunch of us really wanted to visit La Boca, which is one of the southern barrios, so called because it's located at the mouth of the river. La Boca is known best for the area known as 'El Caminito', which is full of buildings splashed in vibrant primary colours by the immigrant dockworkers who originally settled there, and the La Bombonera football stadium, which is home to the Boca Juniors football team.

El Caminito bustles with cafés, market stalls, street artists and tango and flamenco dancers. However, we'd been warned that the streets surrounding the small tourist centre are not safe, and my guidebook advised that you get a taxi for any onward journeys rather than try to walk.

One of the girls, whose name was Akiko, had ventured out in the morning with one of the German guys to have a gander. However they must've taken a wrong turn somewhere, because we later found out that they had been ambushed by four men and robbed at knifepoint, in broad daylight. Unfortunately it seems that this kind of thing is pretty common. The tourist area of La Boca only takes up three blocks; apparently you only need to stray just one block beyond this and you can be in trouble. The robbers stole Akiko's backpack, which had her phone, cards, money and camera in it, and cut her in two places. Luckily she's ok, but what a horrible way to start this leg of her trip. She told me that she's really scared now of strangers, and has had nightmares about being attacked. So that was not an auspicious start, but the rest of us took heed and proceeded on to La Boca uber-cautiously.

Fear of being mugged aside, I really liked it there. The colours are beautiful and there's a buzzing atmosphere. Lunch was awesome too. We had more empanadas (my favourite this time was chicken), and tried some cake things which had a layer of dulce de leche in the middle, which is milk caramel and a very popular flavour in South America. I don't usually like caramely type things but these cakes were delicious. I must try to find some to bring back home with me.

After La Boca, we headed off to Plaza Dorrego in San Telmo, which is the oldest barrio in Buenos Aires and famous for its antiques market.

Buenos Aires on a Sunday is absolutely market-tastic. I know London has quite a few markets, but I don't think I have ever seen quite so many markets altogether in one place on the same day. And the sheer variety on offer is mind-bending. I must have walked a mile down Defensa street, and even though there were some standard genres (leather, jewellery, knick-knacks, curios, handicrafts), it seemed like every stall had something different. I was also astounded by the creativity and skill on show. I'm generally quite skeptical about markets, particularly when on holiday, because a lot of the time you can smell the 'tourist tat' a mile off, but I was sipping my freshly squeezed orange juice and oohing and aahing all the way down the road.

On Sunday evening the group activity was to go see a tango show, but it was quite expensive and I was leaning more towards spending the money on great steak and a milonga, a la Wednesday evening, as my way of rounding off my time in BA. So, I managed to persuade two of the girls to form a breakaway rebel alliance for a return (for me, anyway) to La Cabrera.

We headed first to Plaza Serrano in Palermo. So much love for this part of town. The vibe is a bit more bohemian, it's a bit more green and leafy than the centre, and cool looking bars and cafés line the square, with people sitting out on the roof terraces chatting and drinking cold beers. There are also little boutiquey type shops showcasing clothing from different local designers, similar to what we have in Brick Lane. Market stalls were out in force here too. Nandie and Anna, the girls I was with, tried a snack from a street vendor which I think was basically figs on a stick, coated in popcorn and held together with sticky caramel. I have no idea what it was called but it was really tasty. Nom nom.

Continuing on the subject of mind-bending and impressive handicrafts, I spent quite a bit of time staring goggle-eyed at one particular stall, where a man was selling coin pendants. Now, adding a little loop to a coin and making it into a necklace is not particularly skilled or even interesting, and if this were the case I would've just walked on by. But this guy drills into the coins and then uses a hand saw to cut around the detail inside the coin to create really unique-looking, delicate pieces of jewellery. His coins were from all round the world. The best ones, the most intricate and visually interesting were from Peru. There were a few from the UK too, including a pound coin, a ten pence and a 2p. I ended up buying the 2p one. It is awesome. I have a photo of it on my camera so hopefully I'll be able to upload it soon, but I'm already regretting not buying more. I haven't seen anything like it before.

We headed to La Cabrera for 7 but only to find out that both branches of the restaurant were fully booked until 10pm. Given the last time I was there, this was not that surprising to me. So we bar hopped and snacked on delicious pizza in the interim.

It was a bit of a wait but I think that Anna and Nandie were not disappointed. They were there solely on my recommendation, but together we felt like we ate our own body weight in pure meat. This time I went for kobe beef, which I'd never had before, Nandie had the sirloin and Anna had the medio lomo. I was a bit disappointed that Anna's steak hadn't really come medium rare as she'd asked, and as I'd had it, but it was still really good, and far superior to the steak we'd had as a group the night before, which was disappointingly mediocre.

We left at about 1am, completely satiated and wondering whether we'd ever be able to eat meat again (answer: ...yes).

Nandie and I finished the night off at Confiteria Ideal, a dance hall which holds midnight milongas every night of the week:

 
Like on Wednesday, there were only a few couples left, but when we arrived they were getting their groove on to salsa and meringue, which was unexpected! We nestled down at a table and shared a cold Quilmes. Soon the music changed back to the crackling, melancholic notes of the tango. This time, I wisely turned down the offer to dance and remained a spectator.

It was a fantastic, low-key, yet comfortingly local way to end my last night in Buenos Aires.

*

I need the loo now and have been hogging this computer for ages so I will have to leave Uruguay for another day!

24 hours in buenos aires: part 2

Right, where was I? Oh yeah, Recoleta and Barrio Norte. So, after my little jaunt at the cemetery, I ambled over to...

The Best Bookshop in the World
El Ateneo is a chain of bookshops in Argentina, but the El Ateneo Grand Splendid on Av Santa Fe is like no other bookshop I've ever seen. It's housed in an antique cinema and theater, where the great god of tango, Carlos Gardel once performed, and it looks like this:

Pretty sweet, eh? Behind the curtains in the stage area is a café, so I rested my weary feet, tucked into an empanada and sipped my first glass of Malbec. Mmm.

Back at the hostel, I had a little rest, but the evening was about to get very interesting. In an unexpected but fortuitous turn of events, I gained a steak/tango buddy for the night. Her name is Lewis and she is the younger sister of an ex colleague's girlfriend. Bit random, but basically I found out that she was currently out in Buenos Aires learning Spanish and volunteering, and was keen to meet up.

So, I hopped onto the Subte and took the green Linea D out to Palermo to meet her. This was at about half 9, and I was already pretty hungry by this point. All I'd had to eat all day was a small bowl of cereal, a bread roll, an empanada and a mini tub of Pringles. I was ready for that steak.

Love Me Tenderloin
Lewis wanted to take me to a restaurant called La Cabrera, which is a parilla, a grill place/steakhouse. She said she'd been there once before, and although on first impressions she wasn't sure, as it smacked of being a tourist trap, it turned out to the best steak she's had in all her time here. Well, I was sold.

We got there at about 10 o'clock, but there was a throng of people milling around outside and the restaurant itself was packed. Outside the front enrance stood a pretty, petite woman with a laptop on a mini round table. This was the holy grail of reservation information. Lewis asked if there were any tables available but we were told to give our names and come back in 40 minutes.

Off we went to a neighbouring bar for some cerveza and nibbles. I procured a bowl of fries to help stave off the starvation, and we chatted.

40 minutes passed. It was time. We returned to La Cabrera, but there was still a throng of people, though different ones this time. I could hear English, American English, French and Spanish voices. The sense of anticipation was intense. Those were some eager, hungry people, us included. I've never seen anything like it. It was mad! The restaurant lady would call out names at irregular intervals and as she did so she soberly bestowed a magic piece of paper to the chosen ones, bearing their name. Off they went, to enter the temple of beef, leaving the rest of us behind, consumed with envy. There were two old French women who kept trying to sneak round the table to peek at the laptop, seeing if they could discern when their turn would come. It was quite confusing. Eventually though, Lewis' name was called, and I let out a triumphant YESS and punched the air. 'It's like winning the lottery!' someone said. Oh yes. The best kind of lottery. STEAK LOTTERY!!!

Lewis ordered a chorizo steak (chorizo here is both sausage and a cut of beef), and I ordered a 'medio lomo', a medium tenderloin, which is apparently the best cut.

Was it as big as my head? Nearly. Lewis' steak was HUGE, and mine came in three sizeable juicy portions; it looked like three fillet steaks. The steaks arrived on big wooden platters that took up the length of our table, complete with little pots of side garnishes. The smell that emanated from them was maddeningly divine.

bife de chorizo

My knife sliced through the tenderloin like it was butter. I'd asked for it medium rare, and inside it was pink and oozing juice. I put the first slice in my mouth, and it practically melted. This steak was FIT. Quite possibly, the best steak I've ever had. It was pure meat, cooked simply and to perfection. No sauce, no seasoning, it simply didn't need anything else.

The chorizo steak was completely different in taste and texture. Delicious too, but I felt my tenderloin had the edge.

We accompanied the steak with a bottle of really smooth, tasty Malbec. I could barely finish mine in the end. Including tip, the bill came to about 20 pounds each. Gaucho Grill, eat your heart out. This is where it's at.

Milonga
Next on the agenda, and another of Lewis's recommendations, was a milonga (tango social dance) at a place called La Catedral, which is one of the more underground milongas. The venue itself is incredibly cool. It's up one floor in a converted garage, with moody lighting, and a high, vaulted ceiling. On one wall, a blown up, pixellated, black and white photo of Carlos Gardel's face watches over the dancefloor.

However, by the time we arrived it was 1am and unfortunately most people had already gone home. Nevertheless there were one or two couples dancing, so Lewis and I sat down with a glass of wine to watch.

At one point, the dancefloor now empty, an elderly gentleman from one of the other tables came up to us and asked me to dance. I was already a bit pissed, and tried to protest that I didn't know how, but he insisted. So, embarassingly, I took to the floor, and felt like I was single-handedly committing heinous tango murder. Bless him for trying, but the last time I had danced any kind of tango was about 3 years ago in Manchester. Throw in wine-related co-ordination deficiency to the mix and you have a poor attempt at what is otherwise a very fluid, sensual dance.

Sensing the party was well and truly over, we decided to head out to Puerto Madero, to a club called Asia de Cuba.

Man-onslaught-er
'So this is where the bright young things of Buenos Aires come out to play?' thought I, as we entered into the fray, having haggled down the entry fee from a tenner down to a fiver. Actually no, I wasn't really thinking that, in reality it was much simpler and baser, closer to 'WANT DANCE NOW OMG!"·/%!$·'. My first mistake was to drink a vodka + red bull, followed by flaming sambucca (it seemed a good idea at the time, especially as Lewis had confessed to me that she's never had sambucca before). I'd already been drinking beer, and then red wine. Why, Alaka, why?

But, dancing is what we'd come to do, and dancing is what we did. I've noticed this in other cities too, but the local crowd seemed so tentative and, well, lame. Lewis and I looked around in despair. Where was the oomph? So to help compensate, we wholeheartedly threw ourselves into it. Gave it some welly, as my old P.E. teacher Mrs Ross might say.

Then began what I have now termed as manonslaughter. Man #1 was called Juan, I think, and was from Argentina. It didn't take me long before I whipped out what Tom told me would be my most important phrase whilst out here: tengo novio! (I have a boyfriend). Juan's initial response was: 'I am jealous! Very jealous!' We had a bit of a dance, non-sexual like, and he was trying to sidle up and make a move. 'NO PUEDO!' I shouted over the music (I can't), 'E NO POSIBLE! Tengo novio in Ingleterra!' His response? 'It doesn't matter! He is very far away!' Charming! I quickly set him straight.

Man #2 came out of nowhere like a sexually charged bulldozer. I don't know what his name was but I shall call him Juan Kerr. He was quite forceful and basically launched himself at my face and was a little bit gropetastic. Not great. I found that good old-fashioned shoving worked wonders there.

Man #3 was called Carlos, and was from Brazil. He had a nice smile and was much less offensive. I used my 'tengo novio' line on him and I can't quite remember now what he said but I think it was some variation on Man #1's disappointment, which is nice.

Man troubles aside, Lewis and I had a bloody good boogie to the electronic pop blasting from the speakers, and at about 4.30am decided to call it a night.

By the time I got back to my hostel it was coming upto 5am. I staggered into the loo and sat there, head in my hands, desperately willing the room to stop spinning. I remember thinking, I must stay here and breathe until the urge to vom goes away. Next thing I know, I'm looking at my watch and it's 7am. How the hell did that happen? Did I really pass out on the loo? Not my finest moment.

I fell into bed and spent the rest of the next day (today) with a stinking hangover, feeling sub-human and wanting to die. But it was worth it.

And that was a full on 24 hours in Buenos Aires.