A Place Both Wonderful and Strange – Tash & Ricki's Career Break Travels

After 3.5 weeks in Argentina, we finally made it to the cosmopolitan capital of Buenos Aires. This port city is likely to be the most southern point we hit this year, though we hope to make it further south in our future travels in a return to Argentina, perhaps to Ushuaia and the Tierra del Fuego.

For now though we are sticking with the hustle and bustle of big city life.

After enjoying a free walking tour in Madrid, we decided to do the same thing here. As before, it was a great insight into local life, and not just because our first attempt at it was cancelled due to a large scale protest…

The next day was more successful, and we enjoyed seeing the main sights of the city centre. Everything is so ornate here, and you can see why Buenos Aires is often referred to as the Paris of South America.

The tour is great for learning things we might not have picked up otherwise, for instance the Palacio Barolo. This towering mixed use building, is not only topped with a working lighthouse but the design is also inspired by Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy”. It is 100m tall and 22 storeys to correspond to the 100 songs and 22 stanzas of Dante’s work respectively. Any office workers reading this will likely agree with the interpretation that the office floors represent purgatory. Though I’m sure you might also agree, some days the nine circles of hell seems more appropriate…

The tour also makes Buenos Aires come to life as the guide can talk about their own personal experiences – for instance, running to the Obelisk as Argentina won the World Cup last year and feeling the joy of a country (where there are a lot of divided opinions) united.

Soldiers stand guard at the tomb of General San Martín, widely seen as the leading figure in Argentina’s fight for independence

Even this bookstore (the Ateneo Grand Splendid) is attention grabbing!

Now, call me a ghoul, but I do love a walk round a cemetery, as you may recall from Rome. Unusually for a city, one of the very top attractions in Buenos Aires is Recoleta cemetery. This is a marble city of mausoleums, one ornate memorial quickly giving way to the next. I couldn’t wait to get lost in it! 

Alright, getting lost would be hard to do on account of the square plot, but also because we had downloaded a mapped guide. This meant we could visit in our own time rather than having to stick to one of the once-daily guided tours. Given the famous residents and historic stories, it is definitely worth having some kind of guide here rather than aimlessly wandering. Tombstones can only give you the bare bones (!) of somebody’s life. Though given the size, and in some cases modernity, of some of the Recoleta tombs, I’m sure they could incorporate a video screen or two if they wanted.

The PDF guide was great at directing us to particular persons or details. The downside of the format was it couldn’t give you a full numbered map of the cemetery on one page. And my rather hasty decision to work our way forward from the back of the lot defied the suggested route. Our hours in Recoleta became something of a sarcophagal scavenger hunt.

We did worry that we had arrived a bit too late in the day to get the most of our visit. But we managed to get round the majority of the necropolis, and as a plus side most of the crowds were gone, even around the beloved Eva Peron’s tomb.

The peace, together with the autumnal late afternoon sun casting an ethereal golden hue over the tombs, created a suitably spooky atmosphere.

To my surprise, some of the tombs aren’t very well maintained at all, in contrast to the almost office lobby like entries to others.

Where the stone was breaking apart, and coffins collapsed towards the gaps, you could let your imagination run riot and picture a bony hand reaching out to you…

Altogether, it’s amazing how the occupants of Recoleta still have such a presence, so many years after their passing – some of my favourite/notable stories are captioned below.

Ida whose tomb allegedly reflects her death, falling from a balcony while reaching for a rose.

Not content with visiting one city of the dead, I also had to check out Chacarita Cemetery. It’s less visited than Recoleta but much larger, so much so that roads run through it.

Some online reviews were rather harsh about Chacarita, commenting on a more obvious state of decay than Recoleta and the literal smell of death in the air. Happy enough for a creepy atmosphere as I am, thankfully I did not find the latter point to be true. Though there were quite a few tombs I could have just let myself into (if I fancied risking a 6 foot plunge to my own demise).

There maybe aren’t quite as many statement tombs as Recoleta, but there is still plenty to look at. I constantly found I’d tell myself I was heading for the exit, then would see “just one more” thing I wanted to see in more detail.

A key difference from Recoleta are the sunken galleries with their brutalist architecture and thousands of coffin vaults.

Occupants of Chacarita include those of a more artistic persuasion, including writers, composers and tango dancers. 

The tomb of Carlos Gardel is the most noted in Chacarita. Fans flock there to place flowers through the crook of his left arm and a cigarette in his right hand. You might recognise his most well known song – Por Una Cabeza. 

That leads me nicely from stiff and decrepit tango dancers to…stiff and decrepit tango dancers. It was finally time for Ricki and I to hit the dancefloor!

We’ve enjoyed dabbling in dance before, so to get the full immersive experience we went along to a local milonga. Community halls open from dusk until dawn and schedule a mix of lessons and social dancing in the hours between.

There was a brief moment of panic at what kind of lesson we had joined, as everyone was invited to the dance floor, and with no word of an introduction were led in nonsensical (to us) Spanish through a sequence of fast steps. We briefly panicked that we had made a miscalculation in our choice of class.

I’m still not sure exactly what that was about, but thankfully after the baptism of footwork-fire, we were told where the beginners could go – and no, it wasn’t out the door! We were taken through some basic milonga (a casual, social tango-like dance) and tango steps. 

Pretty quickly, some words struck fear into my heart – “And now, we swap partners!”. Although perhaps after 4.5 inseparable months together, I should have been glad of the experience!

It wasn’t as painful as I thought though (not least because I managed to avoid treading on any partners’ toes!). As many spoke English, it was a nice chance to briefly meet some other travellers. And one even complimented how well I followed – not something I’m accustomed to hearing from Ricki! On the other hand, there was another partner who kept us in a back and forth action in just one corner of the floor and puzzled at why we weren’t going anywhere.

Unfortunately there are no pictures or videos allowed in the hall, so you will just have to trust me that after our classes, Ricki and I were delivering a performance on par with Strictly’s Vincent Simone and Rachel Stevens.

For another taste, literally this time, of Argentine culture, we also went along to an asado experience. We’ve already been enjoying the steak here, but it was time to go the whole hog (or rather cow!) and enjoy six or so courses around the BBQ.

Booked through Airbnb, it took place on the rooftop terrace of the host’s home and gave us the chance to learn more about typical Argentine food and see it cooked right in front of us. It was a lovely way to spend an evening, and our host expertly steered conversation across the table to avoid any awkward silences (not always easy, as some guests only spoke Spanish, and others only English).

Unsurprisingly for a capital city, there has been no shortage of activities to keep us busy so looks like we’re set for a very full month in the city affectionately known as BSAS!

Tash’s Treats

Of course with the asado we got to enjoy more beef and empanadas, but some other new things we’ve tried include:

Provoleta – A disc of grilled provolone cheese

Alfajores – Possibly Argentina’s favourite sweet treat. Dulce de leche sandwiched between either two layers of sponge then covered in chocolate, or two uncovered shortbread-like biscuits.

Chocotorta – I’d seen, and avoided this on a few menus as I thought it was a standard chocolate cake. But it was the dessert of choice at the asado and I ended up happy to be introduced. It was originally conceived as a marketing tool between a chocolate cookie and cream cheese manufacturer seeking to promote their products. It’s a very easy, no bake layered cake of coffee soaked cookies and cream cheese mixed with dulce de leche. So easy that I will definitely be making it when we get home.

Fernet and cola – The national cocktail of Argentina. Bitter, herbaceous fernet is served in very generous measures alongside coca-cola. 

One thing that we’ve seen a few places to our surprise – Bombón Escoces, or Scottish Sweet. If anyone is aware of a Scottish dish involving a chocolate covered ice cream cake filled with, you guessed it, dulce de leche, let me know! Maybe this is similar to how the Chinese takeaway food we get in the UK isn’t actually representative of China?!