San Telmo, Buenos Aires

Posted by Dave and Zephie

Buenos Aires is actually the best city in the world.

Thanks to a stroke of genius on the part of the South American weather, we decided to change our planned route and head south to Argentina instead of north(ish) to Bolivia because otherwise we would essentially be following the rainy season around the continent. The rains aren't too bad in general, but typically come with sweltering heat and in Bolivia it tends to mean that the roads become impassable - and neither of us really fancied getting stranded anywhere, least of all the jungle, where we will eventually be heading.

So, Argentina it was! We hadn't originally planned on staying there very long at all, but we thought we may as well stay for a couple of weeks to learn Spanish as it is supposed to be one of the best cities in the world to learn it and excel beyond key phrases like NO ME GUSTA LA MUSICAAA EN FESTIVAAAAAAAAAL!!!!! A widely used term in Bristol and Manchester these days...!!!

We decided on staying in San Telmo, which, by all accounts was a cool and arty place "to be". We fell in love with the place immediately. Our hostel was a few blocks away from Plaza Dorrego, which is quite clearly the best plaza in the world. We spent so much of our time there and it was the cite of one of our first experiences of the city, which luckily fell on a Sunday, when the square errupted into a mass of stalls, music, tourists, locals and Tango, with people selling their wears for what seemed like miles across the city. The market in the plaza was dedicated to antiques, which is a speciality of this barrio of the city. There are literally hundreds of antiques shops and markets in San Telmo, which we spent hours looking round. We later discovered that the whole of the city had dedicated areas to various different items; there was a whole street dedicated to remote controls, for example! Another time we got lost in the Bermuda Triangle of music shops while looking for a new guitar for Dave. We eventually emerged very harassed, but that's another story...!!!

Here is the square with people enjoying a spot of Tango. Each night the square would transform into a dancefloor. Dave and I refrained, but went along a few times to sit on the wall around the plaza to enjoy the various bands and chatter with the locals.






On this one day alone we saw Tango, a few busking bands, a Flamenco show and as the stalls were being put away around the corner came a huge percussion band which led a street party in the square! They were incredible!







So this became our favourite haunt, where we would buy a litre of beer for less than a pound and sit in the square waiting for whatever treats would emerge! It was perfect for us because it was very cheap but still loads of fun!