Interlude 11: Tourist

Last week, my parents came to visit from England. After having lived here for coming on 4 months, I took the week off work and suddenly I was a tourist again, mixing in with the non-spanish speakers and feeling like it was a totally different city.

The thing about working is that you get into a routine and you cant really go sightseeing because by the time you get home its getting dark, saturday night you go out, get back late and therefore sunday you are exhausted.

Thus, having been a beady-eyed tourist for a week, here are  5 smaller things I havent already mentioned that are worth seeing in this suprisingly enormous city:




1) Cafe con peron - There is a cafe in Recoleta with a statue of former President Juan Peron sitting at one of the tables. In general its just a regular cafe, but if you ever feel you need to have  a conversation with an inanimate object - this is the place to go.








2) The tourist bus!
Yep, the big yellow bus driving all around the city with its terrible audio quality and options for even hebrew and chinese which turned out to just be in spanish anyway. However, if you end up here you can see the major city sights in the 3 hour trip and its massively worthwhile - just never get off or you ll probably never get on again!





3)Tigre/Tren de la costa

We took the (slightly over hyped) coastal train out to Tigre, where I'm told tigers used to be hunted. Nowadays theres a funfair and lots of boats (it looks a bit like a nicer Camden Loch if you've ever been there...) - worth a day trip.

4)Flor de Metal
Located in the north of BA, this interesting piece of architecture opens at dawn and closes at dusk - it can normally be found shimmering away in the sunlight and blinding drivers on the nearby Libertador mega-avenue. A great place to go and drink cold mate on a sunday afternoon.

5)  La Bomba de Tiempo

Ok technically this was just after my parents left, but every monday night on calle Saremiento they have the alternative drum/percussion show by these guys in red. Its in a massive courtyard in the open air, starting just before it gets dark and using the changing daylight to build up momentum. It was, by all accounts, amazing! Someone told me they don't even have a set schedule and just improvise, which makes it all the more impressive. Well worth the 50 pesos entry.