Week 35 - Argentina - Puerto Iguazu to Mendoza

On Monday we woke up after an average night's sleep on the bus, to the movie Avatar, which was playing in the background. We were given biscuits, crackers, jam, croissants, coffee and tea for breakfast. We arrived at the Buenos Aires' Retiro bus station at 11.00 am and it was a beautiful sunny day with not a cloud in the sky. We bought "cama totale" (full bed) class bus tickets to Mendoza and then caught a taxi to our hostel in San Telmo.

After a shower, we went out for a walk and to find some lunch. Buenos Aires was a really stunning city with wide avenues and beautiful European architecture. However many of the buildings were dilapidated and covered in graffiti and the pavements were cracked. A lot of the shops were closed because it was a public holiday so the streets around San Telmo were strangely empty. We walked into town along Avenida Peru which turned into Avenida Florida. In contrast to the rest of the city, Avenida Florida was a hive of activity. There were street vendors selling panama hats, mate gourds and perforated spoons/straws, cheap handbags, and hand-made jewellery. All the restaurants, cafes and a lot of the shops seemed to be open – in particular the leather shops. On one street corner we saw a fantastic tango street show and we went for a quick look at the ceiling frescoes inside the Galerias Pacifico – a very plush shopping centre. We walked around for a couple of hours and then headed back to the hostel. On the way back to the hostel our backs were squirted with a foul-smelling green viscous liquid by some woman who then offered to help clean us up (and then pick our pockets). We brushed her off, bought a bottle of wine at a nearby supermarket and we went back to the hostel for a rest before dinner.

We headed out for dinner at around 9.00 pm. We decided to have dinner at a grill that we seen earlier. The Parilla El Gaucho was great. It was a tiny mom and pop shop hole in the wall with about three tables jammed in beside the grill in the wall. On the grill was beef, chicken, chorizo and morcilla (black pudding sausage) which we ate with a basic lettuce and tomato salad and salsa. We had a couple of glasses of house wine poured from an enormous raffia wrapped bottle and the casero budin de pan – home-made bread pudding with apple and raisins.

We woke up to another sunny cloudless day on Tuesday. After breakfast we spent a couple of pleasant hours walking around the cobbled streets of San Telmo. We spotted a few "paseaperros" (professional dog walkers) walking around with as many as eight dogs. There were a lot of stores selling vintage clothing, antiques and collectables, shopping arcades in the courtyards of crumbling mansions, and a few boutiques. There was also a covered market there but even though it was after 11.00 am a lot of the stalls were still closed. We headed back towards the city centre stopping on the way to have a vegetarian lunch at Abuela Pan (recommended in the Lonely Planet). After lunch we walked to the Casa Rosada (the salmon pink government house) with its famous balcony from which Evita Peron used to address crowds and then on to the Obelisca – the symbol of Buenos Aires on the massive Avenida 9 de Julio. Then we walked across town to the plush neighbourhood of Recoleta which was full of fancy designer stores, cafes and shopping centres. We walked all the way around the impressive walls of the Cementerio de Recoleta (where Evita is buried) but it appeared to be closed. We spent the afternoon walking around the leafy avenues and green plazas in the Recoleta area and stopped at Havana for an Alfajor (two biscuits sandwiched together with dulce de leche and covered in chocolate) and coffee and then walked back to our hostel. We saw lots of cartoneros - people on the street sifting through the rubbish. Buenos Aires had a slightly decrepit edge with all the dilapidation, graffiti, dog droppings, beggars and desperation under the style and wealth of the city.

After breakfast on Wednesday, we headed off to catch the Line 29 bus to La Boca – we had been warned not to walk. We had no coins to use the ticket machine on the bus but a lady kindly helped us with change. La Boca was the old quarter at the mouth of the river where the docks used to be. This had always been tough working class neighbourhood and the home of the famous Boca Juniors soccer club. The bus terminated near Caminito, a short cobbled pedestrian street. The street was lined with corrugated iron souvenir shops and tango bars painted in bright garish colours. Obviously they were desperately trying to attract tourists back into the area but it was just too contrived and the dirty slum neighbourhoods were just a block away. There were some street stalls selling tango photographs and paintings, grimy looking men and women dressed in tango costumes posing for photos, and dodgy salespeople selling tickets for tango tours. However there were some decent murals on some of the buildings a block away from the Caminito and the blue and yellow Boca soccer stadium was 200 metres away. Outside the stadium on the street was a restaurant cooking chicken, chorizo and beef in an oil drum Parilla (barbecue) which looked and smelt delicious. We stopped to ask some police where to find coins for the bus and they made a point of telling us not to walk more than a block away from the Caminito. They sent us to the bus terminal where we could buy a ticket without needing coins. Later we found out that there really was a shortage of coins and you need to pay $100 pesos to get $90 pesos in coins!

We caught the bus back to San Telmo and got off near the Mercado San Telmo to see if it was up and running today. We bought a fresh orange juice at Plaza Dorrego while admiring a handbag made from wild pigskin, and some strawberries at the Mercado. The meat stalls looked sensational with posters illustrating the many cuts of beef – which are different to the ones that we have in Australia.

After lunch we walked to Independenzia metro station to catch a metro to Palermo Viejo. The subways were decorated with stylistic Arabic tiling and the platforms had scenes of life on the floor and walls in tiles. From Plaza Italia we walked around Palermo enjoying the trendy designer boutiques, funky coffee shops and Disco supermarket (with its extensive variety of wine). We walked along some wide leafy avenues admiring the European style mansions with wrought iron balconies. We stopped at a Freddo ice cream shop where they had an amazing array of flavours and toppings. We walked around the Plazaletta Cortazar with restaurants and boutiques set around the tiny green central roundabout. Then we walked back to the Avenida San Felipe and wandered around the Botanical Gardens which were rather small, slightly derelict and overrun with stray cats. However the cats looked well fed and there were some excellent statues including Saturnalia – a drunken Roman scene. We caught the metro back to San Telmo at peak hour and it was jam-packed.

We had a wine tasting with Sean and Sara (who we met at Iguazu Falls) in our room and once the wine was finished we headed out for dinner. We went to the Gran Parrilla del Plato where we all ordered steak, salad and rosemary potatoes and a bottle of Finca El Origen Malbec. The steak was fantastic – ojo de bife (rib eye) and medallon de lomo (tenderloin/eye fillet?) – probably the best steak we have ever eaten! We staggered back to the hostel in the rain. Outside the hostel, the cartoneros (rubbish recyclers) had been at work - all the rubbish bags had been opened and their contents were strewn across the pavement. It was an awful mess.

It was overcast and raining when we woke up on Thursday morning so we took our time getting ready and eating breakfast. The mess outside the front of the hostel seemed to have disappeared overnight – municipal rubbish collection? After breakfast, we started walking back to the Recoleta neighbourhood. We walked through the Retiro neighbourhood past the Plaza San Martin and admired the monument to General San Martin. We peeked through black and gold gates at the impressive Palacio Paz on one side of the plaza and then we made our way back to the Cementerio de Recoleta known locally as the city of angels.

The main entrance (classic style with Greek columns) was closed for renovation so we went in through a side gate. The cemetery was laid out in grid format like city blocks. There were many elaborate marble mausoleums, decorated with statues, in a wide variety of styles and in various states of repair. Some were well maintained and in good condition, whilst others were littered with broken glass, tiles and falling masonry. Some tombs had been shored up with bricks to prevent collapse. Each mausoleum had the family's name engraved into the facade with marble, bronze or bronze plaques added to the front for particular family members. Many prominent Argentines are buried here including writers, poets, several presidents and Eva Peron. We spent a good two hours wandering along the walkways admiring the statues and mausoleums, and looking for Evita's tomb. We started off very methodically, working row by row until we realised how large the cemetery was. It started to rain and then we bumped into Sean and Sara who had just been to Evita's tomb and pointed us in the right direction. We had already walked past the tomb and missed it because she was interred in the Duarte family tomb along with several other members of her family.

After lunch we decided to visit the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. We spent a couple of pleasant hours there admiring the works by Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, El Grego, Goya, Degas, Gauguin and Rodin. There were also some prominent Argentine paintings in the collection and pre-Colomban art.

On Friday it was overcast and colder than any previous day. We walked through San Telmo up to Plaza de Mayo where the crowds of tourists were thronging. We walked down Avenida de Mayo stopping to admire the 22 storey Palacio Barolo office building which was completed in 1923. It had a beautiful carved granite facade and inside the lobby were elaborate sculpted iron dragon lamps. We walked along Avenida de Mayo until we reached Plaza Mariano Moreno which joined onto Plaza del Congreso. There were fantastic sculptures of happy cherubs dancing, giant lizards, Andean Condors, winged angels with swords and more in front of the National Congress building. There was a protest by conscripts who had fought in the Malvinas/Falklands conflict going on. They made a lot of noise with their drums and blocked off some traffic. The Congreso Nacional building was monumental, with more sculptures on all sides and the roof and a front gate containing a coat of arms for each of Argentina's provinces. Opposite one corner was the fabulous old Confiteria Del Molino building with a decorative windmill up high below a hollow spire. It was all boarded up and slowly decaying but was magnificent faded grandeur. It was crying out for someone to renovate it. We walked back along Avenida de Mayo to Cafe Grand Tortoni founded in 1858. It was lunch time so we had to queue to get in. It was another great old cafe filled with antiques, stained glass, art deco lights, memorabilia on the walls etc. Afterwards we walked to Puerto Madero via Avenida Florida and Avenida Cordoba. It was a huge area of restored port land with a canal running through it. It had over 100 restaurants and other shops but still felt a bit cold and stark because it was so spread out and there were fewer people than the bustling centro. We walked home through San Telmo via the famous Parrilla La Brigada we had seen on TV.

At 7.00 pm we went downstairs to the lobby for a tango lesson with two other couples. This was much harder than we expected and we spent a lot of time trying not to tread on each other's feet.

After our tango lesson, we went back to the Gran Parrilla del Plato where we had steak, salad and a half bottle of Estiba I 2007 Cabenernet Savignon. We ordered medallon de lomo (tenderloin) again and tried bife de chorizo mariposa (thick butterflied sirloin steak). As we had two different cuts of steak, the waiter cut each steak in half – with a spoon!

On Saturday morning we had to check out of the hostel. It was a beautiful sunny day so we decided to make the most of it. We walked back to Recoleta to check out the hippy market outside the cemetery. It took us about two hours to walk there because we took some scenic detours and stopped to take photographs. On the way we walked past the Club Espanol – a magnificent building on the Avenida 9 de Julio with bronze statues, intricate carriage lights, mosaic tiled entrance and Islamic arches with art deco mosaics on the interior. The market at Recoleta was still setting up when we arrived at around midday. There were some really nice handicrafts for sale – paintings, leather, knitwear, clothes and semi precious stones.

We spent some time browsing at the stalls and then made our way to Palermo. We were pretty tired from walking so we were happy to stop for lunch at a busy restaurant called El Pinguino de Palermo. We had a mixed salad with the Parrillada – grilled short beef ribs, pork, chicken, chorizo and kidneys. We asked them to leave out the morcilla (black pudding) and chinchulines (tripe). After lunch, we walked to the Buenos Aires Zoo. We saw a South American beaver (coipo), jaguar, puma, tapir, agouti, liebre mara (giant hare with short ears), maned wolf, various bears, alpacas, vicunas, llamas, giant anteater and capybara. Like everything in Buenos Aires, the Zoo was a little run down and in need of a good wash. The stench from some of the cages was overpowering.

It was almost 6.00 pm when we left the zoo and we were tired from our day of walking, so we decided to catch the metro back to San Telmo. Back at the hostel, we had a shower and spent some time updating our diary and uploading our photos before catching the taxi to Retiro Bus Station to catch our bus to Mendoza. The taxi we ordered didn't turn up at 8.20 pm and we ended up just getting one off the street at 8.30 pm. The taxi driver told us it would take 20 minutes to get to Retiro and our bus was supposed to leave at 8.50 pm so it was an anxious ride to the bus station for us. It actually took about 10 minutes and the bus left 10 minutes late so we were in plenty of time.

This time we were travelling "cama totale" or full bed class so there was much more room behind and in front of the seats which were made of leather. Once the foot rest was up and the seat back fully reclined, the seat was practically horizontal. After they served us dinner on the bus, we set up our beds and went to sleep. We were uncomfortably warm on the bus because we were seated over some sort of machine that generated hot air during the night.

On Sunday morning we had breakfast consisting of a selection of sweet biscuits and muesli bars on a polystyrene tray. It was a beautiful sunny clear day and we could see green vineyards and the Andes in the background as we drove into Mendoza. After we arrived at Mendoza, we walked a couple of blocks to the Hostel Lao where we sat at the breakfast table drinking coffee and chatting to other travellers. When our room was ready, we had a lovely shower before heading out for lunch. On the way out we chatted to Mike, Romina and German, who told us that it was siesta time and everything was closed so they suggested that we have a long lunch at Anna Bistro. We walked through town and several beautiful green plazas but there weren't many people around as everyone was having Sunday lunch for Mother's Day. We had a great lunch at Anna Bistro, sitting in the garden eating pasta and a monster salad with a bottle of Altavista Premium Malbec. We walked back to the hostel and had an ice cream from Farruccia Soppelsa, a legendary Mendocino place on the way. We stopped at Carrefour to pick up a bottle of Nieto Senetiner Malbec and waited at the hostel for Sean and Sara to return from horse riding. We shared the bottle and caught up with them and also shared their bottle of Septima Malbec 2008 before we walked to El Palenque for dinner.