Living like locals

I am so pleased that we decided to begin our journey with an extended period of time in Buenos Aires.  The things I often enjoy the most when travelling relate to daily happenings of life for the locals – finding the local coffee spots (note: quality is generally awful!), shopping, and of course meandering around the odd things to be found in supermarkets! It is great to have the time to do this with no need to rush.  So, already one week in to our one month in BA, we have embraced local customs, and are really feeling like porteños. Everyone seems to spend a lot of time out with their dogs (dogs = everywhere), and they love to run!  Morning, noon, night – they are out in the parks running, rollerblading and cycling.  We have embraced it, and join in the morning run squad doing laps of the park (Parque de 3 Febrero).  I am not going to lie – for me, the past three months in London were not focused in any way on exercise (“another glass of prosecco?  Oh go on then…”), so the first couple of runs last week were not pretty. Thankfully I’m through that first-week-back-running-and-want-to-die phase, and we have even signed up to another local custom – the Fun Run! Will post the results later, but 10pm next Saturday night we will be out doing the Energiser 10km night run.

Jackpot, found a great supplier of cold brew for the hot days

Exploring the markets

First of many…

Tango at St Telmo

Patriotic locals

A wonderful sunday afternoon where everyone joins in dancing

The view of our apartment block from the polo grounds

As the locals do, we went to the polo!

Vibrant La Boca

All the touristy stuff

Buildings are brightly and exuberantly decorated

No doubt a future football star in La Boca

Messi is King

Phew, taking a load off!

Coffee with a side of planning

Evening at the park

Locals getting a dusk run in

Hired bikes and hit up the Ecological reserve

The ‘business’ end of the city

A very good student, Paul doing his verb homework!

Stunning use of a theatre, a fabulous bookstore

Waiting for the music to start

Great evening spent at Konex

We hadn’t appreciated at all how big BA is.  The first few days we were here were spent completely on foot (again a shock to the system whereby up until now my days were spent in front of the computer), and it wasn’t uncommon to have been walking for an hour, check the map and see that we had only gone a tiny distance.  This link is interesting to show how big BA is in comparison to other world cities. This week’s recap of a few of the places visited and some observations:

• Cars rule.  The roads are massive (the largest boulevard has an incredible 14 lanes and is 140m across), and as a pedestrian in the taxi-car-bus pecking order, we are just above the dogs. Zebra crossings and white (green) pedestrian lights are meaningless.  The road rules seem tenuous at best, and miraculously people zoom around using the road lines as a rough guide, but beep their horns and move in and out somehow without hitting each other.
• We made it out to St Telmo for the famous Sunday market.  Was expecting a lot of jostling and pushing, and while it was busy, it was no worse than Brick Lane on a usual Saturday!  After seeing some remains of the earliest city underground, we came across a derelict building that was apparently an old orphanage but has now been taken over as a homeless shelter / art colony.  On Sunday’s it becomes a BBQ and music spot fundraising for the residents.  We spent a good few hours there, eating, drinking, chatting and dancing.  See below, one of the paintings that we managed to see being created while we were there.  Street art is not a crime here, and is seen as a legitimate form of self-expression (particularly after 2001 and recession) and artists from around the world apparently travel here to experience the freedom of graffiti art in BA.  When the dancing started, the locals were really welcoming and even tried to teach us the moves to the big circle-with-arms-in-air dance everyone instinctively seemed to know.
• The La Boca barrio is probably one of the most well recognised images of BA with the brightly coloured corrugated iron buildings (from the picture in the header).  All of the guidebooks come with repeated warnings not to stray too far from the designated tourist areas due to the high likelihood of muggings.  The buildings themselves get their bright colours from the historical linkages to the port.  Originally the low-income people (Genoese) who lived there would ask for unused paint from the ships to paint their homes.  It is indeed bright and pretty, but sadly just feels like a tourist trap now.  We did venture down a little further, and saw the gigantic Boca Juniors football stadium, but felt happy with just the afternoon visiting there.
• Found a bargain in the guidebooks and saved ourselves a whole 10 pesos (50p maybe) each by visiting Malba on a Wednesday.  This is the gallery that showcases modern Latin American art.  It was fantastic, totally recommend it and the works by Antonio Berni, particularly his “Ramona” pieces, were my favourite.  It is also home to the more famous Frieda Kahlo self-portrait (below).  A great title for the piece: Autorretrato con chango y loro, or, Self-portrait with monkey and parrot.

Artist at work in St Telmo – paintings development over a few hours (and glasses of vino!)

Self portrait by Frieda Khalo

We are off this afternoon to cycle around the Puerto Madero ecological reserve and have a picnic in the sun.  You will be in for a treat next post, following tomorrows excursion…. we are headed out-of-town for the day at a Gaucho Festival (Dia de la Tradicion en San Antonio de Acreco).  Bets for whether Paul buys a cowboy hat?!  P&L x