Buenos Aires (is more than the Paris of South America)

Old Citroen cars adapted as tourist taxis

First of all, I know I'm horrible by not posting as often as I told myself I would. But we do work hard babysitting the students at the hostel might not be the absoult truth, but it makes me sound less lazy and now I'll make up for it.


So I'll tell you guys about Buenos Aires...

When we first succesfully arrived in Chile (another story full of fun, blocked credit cards and passport stamps that we'll post about later), we met this young traveler from the U.S. who said the following about Buenos Aires

"Yes, I loved it... it's a very European city! I felt perfectly safe there!"

When we asked more about it, he told us that he had stayed at the biggest party hostel, clubbing every night and getting up in the late afternoon just to "have an empanada" and do it again.

I guess it's a valid option if that's your way of enjoying your trip, but still I want to agree with something Chey said to me after parting with said young traveler: if you leave Buenos Aires feeling it's "safe and European" you haven't really seen it.*

Just to clarify, there was a time when Buenos Aires was nicknamed 'The Paris of South America'. This was partly because of the architecture -a mix of Italian, Colonial Spanish and French- but mostly because of the atmosphere. Writers and bohemians moved to the city, captivated by its charm, theatres, bookstores, late nights and cultural life.

Palacio Barolo, just one of the beautiful Italian made buildings around the city.

The National Congress, a copycat of the White house

Traditional café in the city centre

Traditional cafe and the line of people waiting for the theatre

Nonetheless, the Buenos Aires of this time is much more than that. Homelessness and poverty are there to see constantly. Everywhere. The breach between rich and poor is wider than ever, leading to a great amount of lower-class resentment that turns into violence. And it's wild and chaotic. All this makes Buenos Aires  a place just as dangerous and raw as it's beautiful and interesting.

A normal day in the city: some water pipes broke and everything went to hell

Luckily, our experience was fully safe. But we saw the artsy and the broken. The hipster and posh, and the working class. Old historical and new interesting places. And a raging futbol hooligan mob. And empanadas. And tango. No experience of Buenos Aires would be complete without tango.

Street art in Palermo neighbourhood, hipster haven

 *Doesn't that make us sound like The hipster travelers? Considering changing the blog name to that, and posting stuff like "We went to Rio Mayo before it was cool"