We had planned to begin the month with a trip to Colonia, in Uruguay, but the thought of 6 hours' transport (a three-hour ferry journey each way) for the sake of a few hours in the town put us off. We'll save Uruguay for another trip. Instead, we decided to spend our penultimate day in South America in BA.
After a morning dedicated to errands, we had lunch in a charming little San Telmo cafe called La Poesie. We then took the bus to La Boca, a blue-collar neighbourhood down by the docks (or more precisely, to the few touristy blocks called El Caminito). The bus fare had to be paid in coins and we were short by around AR$ 0.40, i.e., not very much. We asked the bus driver to drop us at the next stop where we hoped we could get some change. He then asked people on the bus whether any of them had change for a $2 note, and instead a girl generously offered to pay our fare with her card. We wanted to give her what we had but she declined. This definitely spared us some hassle and we thanked her heartily.
15 minutes later all the tourists got off the bus at the stop "El Caminito". The street is famous for its painted houses. Originally, Italian immigrants lived in that area and they used to build and paint their houses using the unused materials that they found in the docks. The area was later abandoned and the houses lost their colour, but in the 1950s an Argentinian artist decided to recreate the atmosphere by painting the houses of one of the streets closed to the docking area, and it caught on. For more information click here.
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| The painted houses of La Boca |
The street was definitely very charming, but very touristy and it would have been better appreciated without the horde of touts. On the positive side, this also meant that there were plenty of souvenir shops selling Boca Juniors' (the local team) t-shirts and other accessories, paintings, postcards, CDs. John bought a Boca Juniors t-shirt and I chose a picture of tango dancers. The touristy area of La Boca was only two blocks long and two blocks wide, and it didn't take us long to walk around. We were told that the rest of La Boca was unsafe for tourists, so we took the bus back to the apartment.
In the evening, our last night in Buenos Aires, we cooked some empanadas. We bought the dough from the supermarket, which saved quite a lot of time and hassle, and filled them with vegetables, meat, and cheese. We also prepared a few with fruits (a compote of pear and apple, and blueberries). Although not traditional flavours, they were very tasty, and we should be able to prepare some when we are back in Europe.
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| Filling the pastry |
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| Ready for the oven |
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| Ready to eat, with a glass or two of Malbec |
Our final day in BA flew by. The morning was taken up with packing. We then headed north again for a walk around Palermo, but this time (on a tip from Angela) we strolled around the slightly more "up-and-coming" area. We found a nice place to eat, with a table on the side of the street where we watched BA go by for the last time. Then it was time to head back to the flat, collect our stuff, and take a taxi to the airport for our flight to San Francisco.
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