A Day in BA

Saturday begins with brunch at Oui Oui, a cute little French-ish cafe close to my flat on Nicaragua. There are tons of brunch places and cute cafes along the same street but Food Factory, directly opposite, doesn't have a chance against Oui Oui, where it's hard to even get a table. 

Brunch at Oui Oui

We flukily manage to get a table on the street and I tuck into omelette and salad while the Irishman feasts on scrambled egg, smoked salmon and grilled asparagus. We finish up with freshly squeezed juice and a pot of tea.

Scrambled egg, smoked salmon and asparagus

The sun is out and the Irishman and I decide to head to the Bosques de Palermo for a walk around the lake. The place is packed on weekends with roller-bladers, runners, dog-walkers and sunbathers alike, and it's a real pleasure to just go for a stroll. I normally come running here so I don't have time to appreciate the views. We walk through the Rosedal, a beautiful rose-garden in a park next to the lake, and afterwards we hire a pedalo.

Pedalo in the park, Bosques de Palermo

After the pedalo session, we decide to hire some bikes and we ask a few different people where we can do this. A few people tell us different things and we go on a wild goose chase for an hour or so. We struggle to find any bike hire places so we go to the only one I know, which is back near my flat, on Avenida Bullrich. 

I have walked past the bike hire place many times and I've heard the bikes are free, so we walk into the little hut to ask about the Mejor en Bici (Better by Bike) scheme. After about ten minutes of negotiating with a fairly rude bike-hire guy, we are told we simply cannot hire bikes because we don't have the required documentation. A passport is not enough - we need some kind of proof of address for each of us and, as I don't have my DNI ID document yet, I class as a tourist and not a resident. We can't believe it's so difficult for a tourist to hire a bike here and it seems rather unfair. Finally we walk out but the Irishman cracks a smile from the moody bike-hire guy after he spots he's wearing an Irish rugby t-shirt, thus they have something in common.

After a little casual Googling, we find a place called Bicicleta Naranja on Nicaragua street in Palermo. We go there expecting to be turned away again and it's getting late in the afternoon so we know we won't have much time to hire the bikes. Once we get there, however, the bike-hire people turn out to be as friendly and relaxed as anything and they say we can hire bikes in return for me leaving my driver's license as a deposit. They don't take any money upfront and they quickly and efficiently issue us with helmets and bright orange bikes before sending us on our merry way, telling us to be back for 7pm.

Bicicleta Naranja bicycle hire, Buenos Aires

Cycling in Buenos Aires is brilliant fun. There are cycle lanes that go all the way from the centre and back to some of the neighbourhoods like Palermo and it feels truly safe as the cycle lanes are protected by huge bollards so the cars can't even cross into them. We cycle to Palermo Soho and stop for coffee and ice cream on Honduras and then cycle all the way to the centre and back. The traffic is heavy in places and I'd be scared doing this on my own, but fortunately the Irishman is a little more confident and gets us back to Nicaragua in one piece.

The bike shop is just closing up and they take our bikes back in exchange for our money - it's cheap as chips. Who needs free government bikes anyway?!

Buenos Aires Dining: El Obrero

The Irishman arrives on Friday morning - his 40th birthday - and, typically, for the first day in ages, it pours with rain. He wants to go clothes shopping in Palermo Soho because he came to Buenos Aires four years ago and remembers it as being cheap as chips. I have already assured him about massive inflation and that it's more expensive to buy clothes in Buenos Aires now than it is in London, but he doesn't believe it until he returns to the same stores he went to a few years ago and sees the price tags for himself.

We wander around in the rain for hours and get soaked but we find him a few cool shops, make a few extortionate purchases and finally head to El Obrero for a birthday dinner. El Obrero is one of the more famous restaurants and adorns the pages of every guidebook I've seen, but we've had it recommended to us by various people and we can't wait to try it. We've made a 9pm booking as it books up fast.

We get a taxi to La Boca, which is essential since the area isn't safe to walk around at night. I am way too dressed up for this place in a long, silky, colourful dress but it's a special occasion. El Obrero is packed to the seams, half with tourists and half with the locals. The walls are covered in football regalia, menus and posters and it has a cosy feel.

The photo is from the restaurant's website as I didn't take many of my own

We order celebratory champagne, followed by a bottle of delicious red, and a couple of steaks, medium. We have several enormous side orders and proceed to stuff our faces. The service is simple but the food is absolutely delicious - certainly a perfect 'Welcome to Argentina' meal for the Irishman, and extremely affordable. 50 British pounds for two steaks, one portion of mashed potato, one portion of chips, a salad, two glasses of champagne champagnes, water, bread and a bottle of wine.

Attempting to Bake in Argentina

Cooking outside your own country is never easy. The Irishman was on his way to visit me in Buenos Aires, arriving on his birthday, and I wanted to bake him a cake. 

I set out looking for ingredients in one of the biggest supermarkets around, but came a cropper as I got to baking powder and icing sugar. After about an hour pounding the aisles, I eventually found what I believed would be baking powder, purely because the logo looked familiar. 

Icing sugar, on the other hand, was a different story. It doesn't exist here. After much searching, I found some rock-hard packets of hardened chocolate and knew this would be the closest thing. Basically, you boil some water and then put the closed chocolate packet into the bowl of hot water so that it melts. Then you squeeze it out of the packet to cover the cake. Not exactly icing - just plasticky-tasting melted chocolate, but it was better than nothing.

Contending with my oven is hard at the best of times, but it was only when I came to bake the cake that I realised the knobs have no temperatures on them, so I pretty much guessed the temperatures. I also had to guess the weights and measurements of the flour and the rest because it was only at the last minute that I realised I had no weighing scales. I'd already spent a fortune buying baking tins and other equipment. Do men realise the lengths we go to?!

Makeshift cake icing...

I just about managed not to burn myself lighting the oven by sticking my hand into the gas chamber with an enormous matchstick and the cake came out 20 minutes later looking vaguely reasonable. I covered it in the weird melted chocolate stuff and finished off with chopped up minature alfajor biscuits. Well, beggars can't be choosers!

Ok, it's not exactly Hummingbird Bakery standards... But it's the thought that counts, right?

Fancy Fingers and Lady Gardens

Not a day goes by without another #BuenosAiresWoe. This time, entirely self-induced. I lost my debit card. Well, actually, I realise now I paid for those earrings with it last Friday and never took it back from the shop assistant. #Schoolgirlerror...

It turns out my bank can't post my new card out to Argentina because my address is still in England, so I'm one card down for another month or so until I go home for Christmas. Doh!

In other news, I'm long overdue a bikini wax and, incredibly, Steel Drama Queen knows a British girl in Buenos Aires who can do the job. With a business ingeniously called Fancy Fingers and Lady Gardens, she's a gorgeous, bubbly, bright English chick who does all manner of waxing and grooming for ex-pats and locals alike.

I hotfoot it to her temporary salon in the loft of her Palermo apartment and we banter like true Brits for the next 30 mins or so, while I whip off my undercrackers for her to do the honours. Miss Lady Gardens, it turns out, is also a long-sufferer of the Argentine boyfriend and regales me with tales of jealousy and possessiveness until it's time for me to go.

I head to Don Zoilo, a parrilla restaurant full of locals on Luis Viale with Honorio Pueyrredón to meet the news bureau for a special dinner. The restaurant is simple and gives the real local experience. My Argentine workmate introduces me to a starter dish called molleja. Despite the fact that mollejas are actually part of the neck or throat of the cow, I find them delicious - fatty, yes, but mouthwatering. After an enormous portion of steak, plenty of red win and some incredible-tasting chorizo, I head home. People eat way too late in this country and I'm exhausted.

Lost in Santa Fé

God, I hate conferences. When I'm a multimillionaire with my own successful business, remind me never to give a boring speech.

I was sent to Santa Fé to cover a conference about corn and wheat and agribusiness. The conference centre down at the port looks to be about 10 minutes walk from my hotel, so I set off walking with plenty of time. Predictably, within 15 minutes I'm thoroughly lost on the wrong side of the river and my requests for directions from the locals are met with blank faces. Nobody has heard of the conference centre, which is apparently at a shopping centre.

I'm wearing a grey, woollen, short French Connection dress and I clearly stand out in Santa Fé city like a sore thumb. It's boiling hot by 8am and I'm lost ambling along dirt paths on the riverbank like a real numpty. Finally I meet some industrial types working on a ship and they point me to the other side of the river. The trouble is, the only bridge to cross the river is another 10 minutes walk back in the direction I came. Sigh...

Another 20 minutes later, I arrive at the conference centre, still with plenty of time as I'm British and like to arrive ridiculously early for everything in life. The view of the river and ships is pretty cool:

Ship at Santa Fé

The conference bores me to tears. For starters, I'm supposed to blag some exclusive scoops from the corn and rice industry bods during the reception breakfast, but I'm confronted with a vast sea of grey-haired, middle-aged men with beards and I simply have no idea who anyone is. Rookie error... 

I stand there with my Crackberry, Googling images of the men I want to interview, and finally pluck up the courage to walk up to one of them who I believe I've correctly identified. It turns out he just looks like the dude with the specs and grey beard I wanted to interview, but in fact is an entirely different dude with specs and grey beard. I pretend I am not a complete and utter numpty and give him my business card and make some idle chat about the Falklands or something.

At the morning break, after an hour or so of dull presentations about corn and wheat, I finally see a familiar face - a female press officer I was introduced to a couple of weeks ago in Buenos Aires. I pounce on her and ask her to introduce me to some industry bods. It turns out virtually none of the grey-haired old men I'd Googled are actually present at today's conference, but she agrees to introduce me to some others.

I conduct a couple of pretty lame-ass interviews and set about trying to make a readable news story out of them. I send a couple of paragraphs to the wire to bore a few unsuspecting readers to death.

Finally, it's lunch time. I am notoriously crap at networking so I wander out by myself into the shopping centre. It's a pretty rubbish shopping centre and the food court consists of the likes of McDonalds and Burger King, but I head out onto the varanda by the river and stumble upon a lovely, empty fish restaurant called Pacú. I order fried fish, which the waiter says is called Boga fish. I Google it and find it's an authentic river fish found in Argentina and the Southern Cone. I'm thrilled, and it's delicious. 

Boga fish at Pacú restaurant

As you can see, I polish off every last bite, leaving just the fish bone for the flies to feast on... This is definitely my highlight of Santa Fé!

Nom nom nom

After another afternoon of dull-as-dishwater conference hell, I spent about an hour waiting for a man who said he'd give me an interview but has subsequently gone AWOL. I stand waiting for him while he talks to every single other person in the entire conference, knowing that I'm waiting for him, and in the end I give up - I have stories to file and I'm sick of waiting.

I return to the food court to go on Skype and type up my work. I file a couple more short stories and relax a little as I have an hour or so before my evening flight back to Buenos Aires.

At 8pm, I arrive at the tiniest, most ridiculous airport I've ever been to in my life - even smaller than the one in Palmas, back-of-beyond northern Brazil, where I used to live, which is really saying something. I always leave a couple of hours for a flight, so I'm a little frustrated when I realise there is only one single member of staff in the miniscule airport and it will take me all of 3 minutes to check in and board the plane, which obviously hasn't arrived yet. 

Even more frustrating is the fact that I haven't brought anything to eat with me and only thing in the airport is a tiny kiosk shop selling disgusting-looking packeted sandwiches, gummy sweets and packets of Cheetos. I have no choice but to purchase one of said grim sandwiches, though by the end of my wait I realise I could've got a taxi back into town, had dinner at a restaurant and got a taxi back again and still had plenty of time before my flight. Serves me right for being British...

A couple of hours later, I walk out onto the tarmac and see the miniature propeller plane that is going to take me back to the capital. Oh, Jesus Christ. It is tiny.

I get onto the 20-person propeller plane, fearing for my life. There are 10 rows, with just one seat on each side. And guess who's in the seat next to me? None other than the guy I was supposed to interview earlier but got sick of waiting for... Ah, jeez. Embarrassing.

Fortunately, I make it back to Buenos Aires alive, despite the rattling and shaking of the little toy plane for the entire journey. Santa Fé was quite an experience.
 
 

The Road to Santa Fé

I had to travel to Santa Fé city in nearby Santa Fé province for a conference - my first real adventure outside Buenos Aires. The trip starts with a taxi after work to the local airport, Jorge Newbery. The taxi ride immediately reminded me of the marathon, as it was around the back of this airport that I ran, somewhere around kilometre 22...

The view from the departures area is the first glimpse I've had of the Rio de la Plata, or River Plate, since I last came to Argentina in 2008, and it's awesome. It seems to go on forever and could easily be mistaken for the sea, were it not for the murky brown colour.

The River Plate

I arrive at my hotel in Santa Fé at around 6pm after the short flight and marvel at the view from my window. The city is dilapidated with way fewer high rise buildings than Buenos Aires but it has its own character. It's a scorching day and I'd like to venture out but it'll be getting dark soon and I have work to do.

Early evening - Santa Fé city

I work for a few hours and then go to the hotel 'gym' for a workout. I say 'gym' because it's just a tiny, cramped area on the top floor with two old running machines and a rowing machine and little else. The air conditioning is also on extremely low so I'm sweating like a monkey by the time I finish my 5k run on the treadmill, but the view is awesome. 

I change into my swimming gear in the tiny little restroom and head out onto the rooftop terrace to jump in the small, round pool. One man is just getting out and I have the entire place to myself as the sun sets. The pool is just big enough to swim about three strokes from one side to the other, or swim around in a circle if so inclined, so I do that a few times before floating on my back in the warm water and gazing at the stars. This is the kind of thing I imagined when I dreamed of coming to Argentina and, for the first time in ages, I relax.

Santa Fé by night

Finally, I order grilled chicken on room service and head to bed. Tomorrow I have a conference to go to.

The McDonalds 5k Run

I head down to the Bosques at 9am for the McDonalds 5k run. The atmosphere is fantastic - a sea of pink-clad women raring to go, with a backdrop of perfect blue sky and hot morning sunshine. 

The run is great fun and I complete it in 25 minutes. It would've been much more fun if I'd had a friend, but hey ho, I enjoy the atmosphere and relax with a few stretches in the park afterwards.

After the run. Note, none of these lovely pink ladies is me.

Snapped on the grass - my medal

Coca Cola truck in the park

The lake - an urban paradise

After the run, I meet my neighbour and her English friend for lunch at an organic café called Artemisia near our place on Gorriti with Cabrera. We go for a salmon wok and share this dessert:

Dessert at Artemisia

As the sun goes down, we walk my neighbour's dog around Dorrego and I snap a load more graffiti:

Scary

Freaky...

Cool