Buenos Aires - traffic, futbol and doo-doo

Flares

After nearly a week of trying to pigeon hole Buenos Aires, we have yet to succeed. South America's third largest city, we can tell you, is a place with far too many strings on its bow, to be summed up easily.

Even the shortest of strolls, along bustling pavements and gridded city streets will produce endless options for just about anything - food, music, shopping, etc. Chances are that whatever you're into, you can do it, and do it well, in Buenos Aires.

Like with most cities of 10+ million people, the inhabitants, at first, seem only to mind their own business. But as so often is the case, that isn't entirely accurate. Argentinians, in fact, are so willing to interact with visitors, that a mere passing greeting or quick smile will trigger a genuine and enthusiastic response, like a spring-loaded friendship waiting to reveal itself at the smallest of provocations.


Charmer

At more than 5000 square kilometers Buenos Aires is a massive city. Settled by the Spanish in the early 1500s as the "City of Our Lady Saint Mary of the Fair Winds", it eventually evolved to be known as Buenos Aires or, simply, BS. These days the translation (Good Air) is a joke, with crazy traffic, heat, noise and pollution.

Despite this it somehow manages to be a very charming place to loiter in. The streets are lined with outdoor restaurants, smiling peanut vendors, tango dancers and a plethora of pensioners standing idly on their balconies, waiting to wave to strangers. Stray cats are all over, as if the unintended result of an ill-advised introduction of a new species.


La Boca

As people make their way between any two given points, they don't really each other in the eyes. That's because they are constantly needing to monitor the pavements, to slalom their way through a continuous assault course of doggie doo-doo, deposited by the many daily walks of the 'Paseadores' - the professional dog walkers.

The Paseadores are built like wrestlers, which in many ways they are. They have up to thirty, dirty dog leashes wrapped tightly around their veiny, clinched fists as they jolt and yank their way to and from the city's parks - around them an army of yapping mutts of varying sizes and breeds. A sad modern phenomenon due to so many people wanting pets, but so few people having time to care for them.

On the downside of this place, our BS hostels have been pretty lacklustre. Especially when compared to the best hostel we stayed in for the entire journey, the mega excellent 'Penthouse 1004' in Bariloche, a place that no fewer than a dozen travellers warmly recommended to us (through quiet whispers and secretive scribbles, as not to spoil the place by letting the crowds hear about it).


Street tango

To forget about our BS bed bugs, unpredictable shower temperatures and uninspiring breakfasts, we figured a good start would be to see a proper game of futbol in the Argentine Primera Division.

So on Saturday night, more than slightly apprehensive, we entered the super important quarter finals of River Plate vs San Lorezo, two BS teams, in the middle of a large huddle of foreigners, carefully shepherded by two ex-navy looking minders. Like sheep dogs they whistled and barked us through an ocean of drunken River fans, towards our reserved seats high up in the bleachers.

After a maze of concrete stairways and metal gates that nearly triggered our deep down claustrophobic instincts, we sat down with hot dogs in hand and waited in anticipation for the show to start. Meanwhile, around us, 60 000 frenzied River fans (and about 5000 San Lorenzo fans, in a cage right above us) were high fiving each other and punching the air in anticipation of the all important next 90 minutes. Clearly the outcome of this game would decide the meaning of life for many young men.

As the opposing team jogged out for their pregame jumps and stretches, the home fans showed their overwhelming sportsmanship by whistling, booing and throwing missiles. Then, after a dramatic pause, the good guys came out. Oh, boy.


Frenzy

Jesus Christ all mighty. It's difficult to describe what happened at that moment. The stadium roared alive in a eruption of years of repressed tension - the announcer screamed into his microphone and everyone went absolutely nuts. A simultaneous explosion of fireworks, emergency flares, and small bombs (yes, bombs) went off. It was so loud that we could hardly hear the screaming morons next to us.

Every person (man) screamed, jumped and pounded their chest as hard as they could without knocking themselves over. Expertly choreographed rolls of toilet paper were thrown into long white streaks across the sky, as if the final scene in an Esther Williams movie. Confetti rained down on us and got stuck in the mustard on our hot dogs. Catholicism, we discovered, is definitely not the biggest religion in South America.

When the final whistle blew, the stadium was deafeningly silent. River had managed the monumental feat of giving away a 2-0 lead to a team with two less players on the pitch. Since we were completely illoyal, only there to watch a good game of football, we were just as happy.


La Recoleta

The next day we visited the infamous La Boca - a creative but dodgy barrio, which is home to the brilliant Boca Juniors football team. After this we took a smelly cab to the equally famous La Recoleta Cemetery, a stunning ancient graveyard filled with ornate marble mausoleums, bronze statues and elaborate engravings. Other than being the final resting place of Eva Perón (a corpse which has been re-exhumed and re-buried more times than John Goodman has had cheese burgers) it's a fascinating display of architecture. The fact that it is also a favourite hang out spot for many of the city's cats, makes it feel like you're in the first five minutes of a Hitchcock movie.

Then, to complete our rushed sightseeing, for the day before we left, we briefly popped over to Uruguay. We wandered along the cobbled streets of Colonia, a quaint, beautiful harbour on the south coast. We saw everything one could see in the space of a few hours. We laughed. We made some friends. We ate a pizza and played chess with a street bum. Then we took the ferry back.


Uruguayian sunset

As of yesterday we're in Puerto Iguazu, a town near the world famous Cataratas del Iguazú, a natural wonder where some 275 waterfalls coincide in more or less one location.

This ought to be special.