Andy & Gillie's Big Adventure!: The Time Has Come...

…The walrus said. So, this will be our Last Post. At least until we set off again for our TBA Pt II – ‘The Europe Files’ (!). In only a few days we’ll be boarding the plane to Gatwick, then taking various trains around the country to catch up with friends before flying off to Australia again to see Holly and Emily. Looking forward to all that. But looking back at our adventure, as well. Don’t worry, we don’t plan to load this last issue with reminiscences, so panic not.

Following on from our last post, the trip to San Carlos de Bariloche in Argentina, while filled with lots of fantastic scenery and some pleasant (and some not so pleasant) people, was a long one, getting on and off buses and boats for about 12 hours, including a quite unnecessary three-hour wait in Puerto Blest, while people ate lunch. But we saw some beautiful sights, not least Mt Tronedor (Thunder), which is an active volcano, as well as several glaciers. Sadly, this was the only time we spent in Patagonia – either Chile or Argentina - and it gave us a taste of what we might have been missing. But we keep reminding ourselves we can’t see everything and time, budget and opportunity sometimes go against us.

The weather in Bariloche was wonderful and we spent a relaxing day and a half walking along the lake, reading and getting ourselves mentally prepared for the final 24-hour bus ride.

We boarded the bus at the allotted time, were immediately fed with quesadillas, fed again with merienda – Spanish afternoon tea involving cake and sweet things and tea – four hours later, then another meal four hours after that – a pasta with rather nice sauce! Sated, we settled down to sleep, but as with most of these bus journeys, sleep was easier to write about than achieve and a restless night was spent, before more food arrived!

After the pleasure of the Andean foothills and lakes, we encountered hour after hour of never-ending Pampas (plains) before we eventually made it to Buenos Aires. We settled in quickly to our little Airbnb studio in Recoleta and proceeded to explore the area. Over the next few days we found the famous cemetery where Eva Peron (Evita) is entombed; the world’s most acoustically-perfect opera house (Teatro Colón), which has hosted all the greats; a bus tour taking in La Boca and all the main sights; Recoleta market; a world-famous Tango show and the home of Fuerza Bruta – the most spectacular 80 minutes you are ever likely to experience.

A word about Buenos Aires: one of the biggest and richest cities in South America, nearly a third of Argentina’s 40 million population live here. There are several barrios, or neighbourhoods, not all of them safe for Argentinians, let alone Europeans, day or night. Suffice to say that Recoleta, San Telmo and Palermo are considered to be among the most upmarket. Although, walking along the narrow, potholed, damaged pavements avoiding the dogshit, it’s sometimes hard to credit. The city sprawls and seems to be constantly on the go. Nobody thinks twice about blaring a very loud horn for several seconds at three o’clock in the morning. As if anyone’s in a hurry at 3am. Or maybe they just wanted to see how many people they could piss off.

Dogs – there are loads of them – apparently a throwback to when the paisanos came into the cities and brought their dogs with them. It was natural for them to leave their dogs to roam in the country, so that’s what they do here! Hey ho. It’s the same all over South America, but seems to be more under control here – fewer obvious strays, but just as much, if not more, dogshit. Only today we saw a dogwalker being pulled by at least 12 dogs out for a ‘walk’ on the narrow pavements. You simply have to wait until they’ve dragged him through and scour the ground carefully after they’ve passed! And any slight disturbance, real or imaginary, and a dog will bark, no matter the time of day or night. If one dog barks, of course, everyfuckingdog in the neighbourhood barks and won’t stop.

Merienda – South Americans and I think Spaniards, but Argentinians in particular, have a predilection for delicious, high-calorie, sweet, but not stodgy cakes and other sweet things, to be consumed daintily at the appointed time – around 4 pm. High tea, or Merienda. What a great idea, we thought, so when in Rome…

Anyway. Our open-top bus tour of Buenos Aires revealed what is essentially a newish city. While some of the buildings are from the time of the Conquistadors, most date from the country’s independence from Spain, which came about after the Guerra de la Independencia, in 1813. The city has not long celebrated its 200^th anniversary as a federated region and is no doubt still paying for it.

Much of Buenos Aires is even newer than the bicentennial and not that remarkable, but there are some excellent examples of street art, both official and unofficial. There’s also a very heavy European – particularly French – influence in this city that has been described as the most European city in South America. It was great fun driving around the city in an open-top bus once we had realized that the commentary – ostensibly in English – was a bit of an optional extra, depending on whether or not it chose to work.

One of the highlights was when we reached the barrio of La Boca, which is the home of Argentina’s most famous club de fútbol, Boca Juniors, whose favourite son is of course, ‘El mano de Dio’ himself Diego Maradona or simply ‘El Diego’. The ground itself, famously called ‘La Bombonera’ – ‘The Chocolate Box’, presumably because of its size (small) is not very impressive and is painted in the team’s colours – yellow and blue – chosen, because the next ship to sail into the River Plate when they were deciding their strip was from Sweden (I kid you not). La Boca neighbourhood itself, though, is one of the most colourful in the city with streets full of multi-coloured houses, originally built to house thousands of immigrants flooding into the city in search of wealth, but gradually added to by those who already had the wealth.

One of the things we were told not to miss while we were in BA was the Recoleta Cemetery. So on a pleasant sunny day we strolled a couple of kilometres to said august institution and proceeded to hunt down the memorial to its most famous occupant. Strangely, the large plan in the entrance to the cemetery, which also houses many of the great and good of Argentina, including a fair sprinkling of presidents and dictators, puts Eva Peron’s (Evita’s) tomb in the grid H6.

After several hours (it seemed like) of fruitless searching in and around that area, we found someone with a different plan, which put the tomb in C7! There are no signs or landmarks or indeed anything to give you any indication of where you are throughout most of the cemetery, so it was more by luck than judgment – and on the verge of giving up the search – that we eventually found her mausoleum(?) Very unprepossessing and inconspicuous it was, down a narrow street full of other nondescript dead people.

Not sure why Evita seems to have a place in British hearts unless it’s due to the Rice/Lloyd-Webber shite of a musical with a catchy pop song, but she seems to be quite important to the Argentinians, possibly because she carried on the fight for democracy after her husband, Juan Peron, was killed by the fascists and was herself killed when she was only 30 years old. Then the military junta tried to deflect attention from their heinous deeds by invading The Falklands. And we all know what happened then. (I might have made up all that stuff, by the way.)

One of the most awe-inspiring buildings in Buenos Aires is the Teatro Colón – Theatre of Christopher Columbus Opera House. It took over 30 years to complete and had three different architects. The first two were Italian and both died aged 44 before it was finished, so they hired a Belgian older than 44 to complete it! Apparently it is the most acoustically perfect opera house in the world and the third best acoustically for symphony orchestras. It seats over 3000 altogether, we went in the State Box – used by presidents etc for official functions with visiting dignitaries (poor sods, I couldn’t help thinking). Luciano Pavarotti once came here to sing in the Teatro Colón and complained about the acoustics. In a panic, the conductor said ‘what’s wrong?’ Pavarotti is said to have replied: ‘e perfetto’. Of course Pavarotti himself didn’t sing a note out of tune during his performance, our guide ventured disingenuously…

Onto theatre of a completely different kind. Where opera and symphonic concerts may be said to represent the establishment, our experience at the Centro Cultural Recoleta could equally be described as subversive and dangerous. Fuerza Bruta (Brute Force) is what it says on the tin. A high-voltage, high-volume assault on the senses. We’ve seen it before at The Roundhouse in London, but seeing it in a smaller venue, where it was first created, is a real treat.

The audience is showered by ticker-tape, drenched in water, has to dodge flying tables and chairs, made to squat on the ground, covered with a giant sheet which then inflates and spends 80 minutes looking up and around at a display of high-energy aerial excitement, giant hanging pools of water and general mayhem. It is completely captivating and, I use these words rarely, literally spectacular. Look ‘em up. Try and see ‘em. Awesome.

Exhausted after that little rave. One of the things that has been exercising my mind over the past two weeks has been where can we watch The Match? I refer, of course, to England v Wales at Twickenham yesterday. We found somewhere promising just two blocks away during our first week, so ventured down there and asked in very stilted Spanish if they would switch the tv onto the channel for ‘el rugby’. They were happy to oblige, and as the clock ticked towards 1 pm, we came to the realization that all we would get on this channel was a boring magazine programme about European football. Again, in stilted Spanish – ‘please will you try and find ESPN?’ and there it was, just three minutes into the match and watching it in the presence of an expat Welshman! No commentary, just a dinner jazz soundtrack. How nerve-racking, but ultimately how sweet the day!

Then onto another, completely different cultural experience. To mark the end of our Adventure, we treated ourselves to an evening at a world-famous Tango Show. This was at the Esquina Homero Manzi – which had been founded in something like 1912 by Homero Manzi and now boasted one of the city’s most authentic and excellent shows. We were picked up from our ‘hotel’ (actually, we put in the name of the nearest hotel to where we have been staying and went and waited outside at the allotted time) and were transported across the city to this wonderfully elegant, plush and evocative restaurant where we had a lovely meal and watched a brilliant tango show with amazing dancers, skillful musicians and crooners in shiny suits and low-cut dresses (can you call women singers ‘crooners’? She was the one with the LCDs).

It was a great night and we met a lovely couple from Oldham who were setting off for a cruise Round The Horn (remember that? I don’t, Gillie does!) and who have invited us to stay with them when we get back! Careful what you wish for Mike and Barb!

On our last full day in this great city, we decided to walk again to the Plaza de France by the Recoleta Cemetery and have brunch. Interestingly, the place we had been recommended, although it advertised a mouth-watering Brunch on its menu, couldn’t provide it, so we went to a restaurant round the corner and enjoyed a fine desayuno surrounded by the wealthy matrons and caballeros of moneyed Bs As, keeping the suppliers of Botox, hair dye and blue blazers in business.

Sundays are very important days in Bs As, when everyone likes to put on their finery and promenade in and around the watering holes to see and be seen. And most entertaining it is, too.

So, here we are at Sunday night and just putting finishing touches to the Last Post…we hope you’ve enjoyed joining us on our travels and travails (though not many of them, it has to be said). It’s been 18 months, thousands of words in 38 posts over three continents and seven countries (is that all? – ed.), since we first put metaphorical pen to paper. We shall be back sometime in May to share impressions of our Europe adventure with you. But…

…Now’s the time to say goodbye. Goodbye.

PS. Goodbye!

PPS. Andy forgot to mention our wonderful hosts in Bariloche. They have converted a run down hovel into the loveliest hostel overlooking the lake. They have built a ‘Wendy’ house at the bottom of their garden, which houses four apartments and we were lucky enough to stay in the best one with magnificent lake views. The whole place is quirky and beautifully designed. Our best Airbnb yet. They are travelling to Europe for three months with their children this spring, so you never know, we might bump into them. The husband displayed examples of his paintings all over and believe it or not it inspired me to delve deep into my rucksack and fish out my pad and paints!!

Since we arrived in BA my creative juices have flowed on a daily basis… it feels very much like Paris in this neighbourhood, so with Andy on his ukulele and me painting, our ‘garret’ has felt like a scene from one of those French novels (but in a happy way!) We love Buenos Aires and are so pleased that we allowed ourselves 12 days to explore and to really get a feel of the city (cake shops and all.) Love to all, see you in Europe. Gillie xxx

'Fuerza Bruta'. These performers are actually in a swimming pool above the audience's heads

Broadcasting House, BA-style

Mmmm...

Some colourful houses in La Boca

More colour on our bus tour

Street market in...La Boca

...You guessed it!

Did we say we went to La Boca? Like the bike!

Rather fetching sculpture - don't know what it's called - the commentary went home by this time

No idea who this is...

This chap is actually holding up one of the branches of La Gomera - The Gum Tree - which was either planted in 1795 or 1813, depending on which version you read. The tree itself is...