big city-ness, Buenos Aires style

I'm sitting outside at 8pm, there are sparrows chirping merrily in the background as they feast in the grove of trees behind me, and I can smell the water evaporating off the hot ground. The sun's just setting, and the whispy clouds are deepening from a coral to a vibrant sunset hue. It's a fairly far cry from last week, where we were cooking up a curry, downing a fair bit of wine and getting ready to hit the town!

I'm about 60kms out of Beunos Aires now, at an Eco Yoga Park – a loose community of permanent Hare Krishnas, volunteers, day visitors and other travellers. After 1 week in the big, busy and boisterous Buenos Aires, I've retired out to country life, and after a morning of gardening, afternoon of napping and yoga, have to say I'm happier here! But before I get more words in about where I currently am, I'd better recount my last week in BA.

Looking towards Palermo Soho at sunset

Coming in on the bus last Friday, BA really felt like another big Spanish city like Seville – and it sort of lived up to it's 'European-ness'. It's a bustling metropolis with different characterful neighbourhoods to wander through, there's bars and restaurants all around, highrise apartments, parks and monuments and people everywhere! I was staying in an apartment in Palermo with my high school friend, Sara and her friend Fiesal from Brisbane. It was lovely to stay in an apartment; complete with lovely big pool and even better – an outdoor parilla (bbq) where people congregated to eat and talk and enjoy life!

mmm....meat on the Parilla!

Essentially, my days in BA were a mixture of laying by the pool (a far cry from laying under the doona in a freezing Montana), walking walking walking, eating biscuits, dulce de leche (caramel) and hot empanadas, drinking very cheap yummy argentinian wine, wandering through tree lined streets in Palermo looking at uniquely outfitted stores (that really struck me – the stores in Palermo had different and interesting interiors – on par with Tokyo stores), basking in warm sunshine, lathering on sunscreen (always, first 2 days you're like GIVE ME SUN, then you're like eeek – where's the sunscreen), eating MEAT (more on that below) and the awesome dinners that Fiesal whipped up, delighting in a fragrant rose garden (and getting told off for climbing over the fence to get in), heading out clubbing, doing a spot on an indoor climbing wall and starting on my rather large pile of books to read. There's more in the Buenos Aires pics.

In Caminito

Fiesal and I showing off our moves

Out and yes a bit drunk in Palermo

Recoleta cemetary

That's a bit of a mish mash – but there's just 2 more things....

Grilling up a storm on our Parilla: Not knowing how the deal with booking the parilla area worked, Sara and I wandered down with a splayed out chicken and marinated vegetables (yes I know, not very argentinean but we had consumed a copious amount of beef the previous night, and Sara is vegetarian as well.) and a half drunk bottle of wine. We politely crashed a father/son boys night out – how awesome is this – every Thursday the friends of the son and friends of the father gather together to eat and drink), shared their grill and um, sort of ended up partaking in a little of their rather large cuts of beef and wine.

Seeing boys in action at a club in Palermo: For the early part of the night (we arrived about 12.30am and it was pretty empty), people just stood around talking, and not drinking. We finally worked out that it must be pretty expensive comparatively – after a rather hefty cover charge and an expensive drinks list, it was pricey even by our standards, so therefore people were happy just to stand around and eye each other off. By about 4am it was all on, and the dancers came out. And yes this was a gay club, and yes we were pretty much the only 2 girls there, but it was fun nonetheless!

So to sum up? It's an interesting place – definitely the rich are rich, and there are many expensive place to attest to that, and yet there's still a huge proportion of the population that is surviving at a very different level. My take? As a city, I can see how it's pretty awesome. Only thing is that I really don't want to be in a city at the moment and having just come from London and Europe, it's not really for me. Perhaps after 8 months of remote towns and hostels, it'll be a different story, but for now I'm happy to be listening to the cicadas competing with some chanting in the park.

Next entry will be more on that – I plan to stay here for a week or so and work out my route through Patagonia for the summer months. Till then!