After two weeks exploring Patagonia, we found ourselves back in Buenos Aires with yet another great experience to look forward to. Our friends from home, Harmony and Ryan, were coming to travel with us for two full weeks...and when I say full, I mean FULL!
We started with three nights in Buenos Aires...not wasting a second of our time there. The morning Harmony and Ryan arrived they hit the ground running. We walked through the artist market in San Telmo, clicked some pictures of the revolutionary Plaza de Mayo and the Casa Rosada (Argentina's version of the White House), feasted on empanadas, squeezed in a cat nap, and were off to try some of Argentina's famous steak and wine.
The following day we all decided there were two things we absolutely needed to see before leaving Buenos Aires...a tango show and a futbol game. Thinking we were on it...we bought a newspaper and found a tango show that would be taking place that night. After an afternoon of cashing traveler's checks, shopping, walking down the widest street in the world, and a celebratory St. Patrick's day beer on the sidewalk, we cleaned ourselves up and headed to the show. Unfortunately, the place looked pretty closed up when we arrived. A man in the restaurant across the street let us know that the place was only open on the weekends...oops I guess we should've called.
We didn't give up that easily though. We stopped into a nearby hotel and asked what other options we had to see a tango show. Armed with a map and showtimes, we stopped for and headed over to Cafè Tortoni to see a show. I guess we didn't keep a very good eye on the clock because we didn't get there until almost midnight and the last show of the night was almost over. All the doorman could offer us was a flyer with a phone number and to try again tomorrow.
The next day, we decided not to take any risks so we found a website online that had all of the up-to-date tango show information in Buenos Aires. Being the cheapskates we are, we were pumped to find a free show at the Recoleta Cultural Center that evening. After another day of checking out Buenos Aires and the Evita Peron museum, we wondered into the cultural center about an hour prior to the show. The lady at the information desk confirmed there was a show that evening so we decided to kill some time with a cheese and meat "tabla" and a bottle (or two) of wine. We were stoked when we found out that in addition to snacks we had stumbled upon a DJ spinning a mix of tango and electronic music in the plaza.
We returned to the cultural center to, finally, get a glimpse of a tango show. When we walked into the room it looked a bit strange for tango. It was two women on stage singing accompanied by a solo accordian player. It quickly became apparent that the name of the musical group had the word "tango" in it and that's how they were able to advertise on the tango website.
We cut our losses and headed back to Cafe Tortoni hoping we could get into a show seeing as how we were planning on leaving Buenos Aires to head for Mendoza the next day. We were greeted by the same doorman we had talked to the night before. Unfortunately, his response was the same...all shows were full call the number on the card to make a reservation for the next night. Luckily, one of the managers heard our reaction to this (not pleased) and came over to let us know we could get on the standy by list in case of any cancellations.
We had yet another drink in the cafe while we waited and, luckily, there was a cancellation and we were FINALLY able to get into a tango show. It was totally worth it! It was probably extra cool to us because we'd been trying to find a tango show for two days. You can't come to Buenos Aires without seeing some tango.
The next morning we figured we would hop on a plane to Mendoza...without reservations. When we arrived to the airport we realized that the week before Easter is a HUGE vacation time for Latinos and all the flights to Mendoza or any town close were booked until Easter Sunday. After a short-lived plan to catch the ferry over to Uruguay for a few days...boats booked full as well...we rented a car and drove out to the coast...Pinamar to be exact.
The first day yeilded great weather and we were able to spend some time at the beach. The following days were a bit more chilly, but we considered ourselves lucky because Buenos Aires was being hit by horrible weather...tornado included. Even though the beach wasn't on our original itinerary, we ended up having a nice, relaxing time...eating, shopping, and drinking wine. Brandon and Ryan even tried their hands at parilla...the Argentina's form of BBQ.
We planned to come back to Buenos Aires on Easter Sunday because we still had to complete our second objective...to attend a futbol game and the majority of games take place on Sundays. We rolled back in to BA just in the nick of time. A Boca Juniors game was starting at 4pm and we had about two hours to find a room, get to the stadium, and buy tickets.
We had been warned by the information office that it wasn't in our best interest to buy the cheap tickets in the "popular" section because tourists tend to walk out of these areas with lighter pockets. The only problem was that when we arrived to the box office and, finally, made a decision as to where we wanted to sit, the "popular" section was our only option. The man at the ticket window ensured us that we would be fine so we took his word (with a small grain of salt) and went for it.
We were glad that things worked out the way they did. The "popular" section was great! With standing room only, the crowd was energetic, but not out of control...thank goodness Boca Juniors was winning. There was another "popular" section at the opposite end of the field which looked a bit more rowdy...band and banners included. The fans cheered and sang different chants the entire game.
The only part that got a little bit dicey was the end. We thought we would beat the crowd by leaving just before the end of the game. We made our way over to the exit tunnel to find that the cops weren't letting anybody out. Turns out, they were keeping all of the Bocas Juniors fans in the stadium until the opposing team's fans were gone. Reason being, the opposition was seated in the tier above us and had been spitting and throwing drinks on people the whole game. I guess the cops wanted to give them time to run :)
It was a bit unnerving while we waited for the police to open the gates because you never know how a locked-up crowd will react. We probably waited for about 45 minutes until our section was the last to be released from the stadium. Fortunately, everybody behaved and we exited smoothly.
Our first week in and around Buenos Aires with Harmony and Ryan was action packed.
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