Into the enemy camp...
Trip Start
Jul 05, 2006
1
40
56
Trip End
Jan 04, 2007
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Monday, November 13, 2006
And to be perfectly honest within only 3 days of being in Buenos Aires I'm starting to think they've got a fair bit to be proud of. The architecture is every bit as magnificent as Paris (they do call it the Paris of South America), the people are passionate and fun in a Latino way and the steaks make USA look like they serve small portions and the wine is decent and cheap. I'm in heaven...
So, what have we been up to. We had a day as usual finding out what we were interested in doing and what was on. Luckily for us it's the main polo season and the final of a club tournament was on Saturday. Having gone out to the national polo stadium (yes, it's a big enough sport to have a national stadium for it) to find out about watching a game. An interesting bit of trivia - Argentina have been world champions at polo every year since 1949. Not a bad run in anyone's book. After a few halting discussions with a local cafe owner and a security guard we found out there was a game the next day, but it took us an hour or so searching on the internet to find out that it was at a different club somewhere in the suburbs of BsAs. Another look on the internet and we'd got ourselves the train times. A 20p train ride later and we were in Hurlingham. We found the club to be told that the game didn't start for another 4 hours. So time for a walk round a leafy suburb, a stop at a mediocre restaurant and a fantastic ice-cream place. The polo was exactly as you'd expect. Country club, horses, posh totty tottering around, Mercedes stand and other such stuff. Although we opted for the cheap seats there's not really anywhere round the side of a polo pitch that you get a decent view so we spent most of the time with the rest of the crowd playing "spot the ball". All in all a really nice day out and a great way to see how the "other half" live. I think we can safely say we were the only ones getting the train home!
Today has been mixing with the other end of the social spectrum as we went to watch Boca Juniors play. The stadium is in one of the worst areas of town and since we couldn't stomach paying for the whole football experience tour we just joined the action in the Publico stand having paid slightly too much to a tout (but still 5 times less than the tour was asking). The football was forgettable but there were certainly no prawn sandwiches in the two publico ends of the stadium and the crowd seemed to be constantly singing and bouncing around. Quite a sight and probably the best atmosphere of any game I've been to. Just one problem, the away fans were above us and kept spitting and throwing stuff down at us. We also learned a few new words of spanish, but I don't think they'll be much use to us when ordering food etc.
Comments
Polo sounds like a lot of fun!
Sounds like you guys had a great time in Buenos Aires, and makes us wish that we'd gone to see Polo in action.. Keep up the travelling & we'll have to meet up back in the UK to compare stories.
Fellow travellers & wine drinkers from Puerto Natales
Andrew & Cath