Mi Buenos Aires querida (or not)

I'm in a bar in London while I write my latest South American adventures, but I thought that it was at least fair for those that have been following me in this trip, to keep writing...and fair to myself as well for not losing the related memories...

I don't think I can express with words the excitement of me arriving to Buenos Aires...again, I was expecting seeing people dancing tango in the streets, I was expecting to eat amazing food and, as predicted by my friends, I was going to fall in love with a tango dancer and live with him happily ever after! :)
I also had planned not to move from the city for a month, and spend time learning tango, joining a painting school and just enjoying the city before going back to London...
For all these reasons I had asked Sam (my friend from London moved to BA 4 years ago) to help me finding an apartment to stay for a month.

It all looked amazingly planned, including Sam having found a place at Brie's in Recoleta - one of the poshest and safest neighbourhood in in the city...
Except that everything changed! :)

So, after having kind of settled at Brie's place...lovely big house in a very cool area, but after a little while I started to feel a bit uncomfortable.

When I arrived in BA I got in touch with Ben, an English guy met in Auckland...despite my willingness to relax, I still needed to get connected with other travellers. Ben and I went exploring the city a bit; from la Casa Rosada, to San Telmo, to Plaza de Mayo...we crossed the streets, had food in San Telmo...talked about the last month of travelling stories and had fun!

Photo by Maria Teresa Salvati

He talked about a place he had decided to visit just outside of the city with his friends at the Clan hostel: a Jesus theme park! Curious...

So, I went with him and his friends...we were all very excited!! They had heard about Jesus raising at the sunset and at specific times of the day for a very special moment. It was surreal and I must say the border between sacred and profane was really blurred.

Photo by Maria Teresa Salvati

The adventure in BA continued amazingly in various hostel, doing crazy things with other crazy travellers, but I have to be honest, I was disappointed by the food - a bad copy of the Italian food - by the fact that those that really still dance tango are the nostalgic older argentinian in hidden places in the middle of the night and I felt it was really like being in the South of Italy: nothing new.

In all fairness with Buenos Aires, though, stakes and Malbec were sublime!...ah, and the people I met, and the artistic predisposition of the city, fantastic!

Photo by Maria Teresa Salvati