Day 3 – Buenos Aires a thriving metropolis encrusted in contradiction

Its day 4 of my long journey, I had everything planned, go get breakfast at this cool cafe, move on to Recoleta Cemetery then on to the Echological Reserve in Puerto Madero, i didn’t make it further than the cafe as the rain set in, ohh well, I still have two more days here after I get back from Mendoza, so I guess they are going to be pretty full on.

Anyway as the title suggests, this town confuses me at every corner, one minute it looks like we are living in a modern 2014, fancy unit blocks with a Concierge desks, funky lighting and generally a high end apartment block then next door we are back in the 60’s even 50’s, colours bright colours, than bland white, brown, black, wild forest like parks to dense concrete structures, odd buildings that really dont fit, by odd I mean picture a chalet in the swiss alps, now put that in a concrete jungle, odd, really helpful friendly people who speak a little English, enough to make me feel comfortable to not so much, maybe that’s why people like this city so much, the diversity makes it intriguing, I must say it is as you just don’t know whats around the corner, literally, lets not forget the dogs, it seems every second person has one.

This park really intrigues me, it just pops up out of nowhere, walking through dense concrete structures then this hits you in the face, but its locked, i found four entrances and they are all bolted shut, wonder what goes on in there.

There is a huge amount of graffiti around Buenos Aires, there are even paid guided tours of all the artwork, you don’t really have to go far to check it out, its on pretty much every block.

 

Got to love how Facebook even makes an appearance as a hand painted link.

Then there are all these different street vendors, a lot of little newspaper/magazine/traditional style stalls, there are also quite a few what I would call florists, then random kids toys, phone accessories, then all of a sudden two books stalls, I am not sure if you can see it in the second shot on the far right down the bottom there are people sleeping, at a guess they did look homeless, but this particular area had about 150m long centre reservation in between 6 lanes of traffic which housed all these little lock-up stalls, most of them were shut and it was about 10am, so not sure if they open later or specifically on other days.

We are in Melbourne, quite a popular street, some cool cafes and hotels.

These trucks pop up everywhere, Buenos Aires reminds me of images I have seen of places like Mexico and Columbia, its interesting as I had never pictured that for BA in my head, this was probably the most decked out truck I had seen thus far.

Car Art, not sure if it was on purpose, still very colourful all the same.

There are a number of these types of buildings, I am not sure what the reason behind it is, but it looks like more than just graf, but there are so many places like this, practically a building painted like this on every block, not exactly like this but you get my drift.

I spent this morning in another cool hangout as recommended by the foody blog pickupthefork, in Bocca al Lupo Caffè, very trendy, staff not so attentive, that’s one thing I notice here is customer service, there isn’t any, my empty coffee cup, empty glass of juice and plate sat on my table for a good 2 hours, it wasn’t until I ordered another coffee that they took it away, and staff stand around on their phones, or chatting, even playing a game of cards, ohh well each to their own, it didn’t bother me in the slightest but to some it might. My only issue here was the menu being in mostly Italian, great I cant read Spanish now you throw this curve at me ;).

Irish pubs, there is always an Irish pub, this is actually the third I have seen.

The rubbish service is interesting here, while I think its a great idea and does seem to get rid of a lot of rubbish you might see on streets, these things are butt ugly, and they collect the rubbish at odd hours of the day, yesterday was 2am, the day before about 11pm and they have just come past now and its 7pm, and lets just say they are not quiet collectors.

Its 2014, are you serious, just as he crossed and I took the shot a new Merc Limo drove past.

Cool little corner cafe.

These are everywhere, this one however had everything perfectly laid out, hell I didn’t even see the black cat there when I took the shot.

What interesting trees, just in the middle of this street, no other street had them in all the 12km of walking I did today, strange.

Cool little Mexican bar in the middle of knowhere, they were just setting up shop.

A cool bit of street art, no idea what it is, but it has door hinges for eye or sunglasses, thats cool in my book.

So welcome to the contradiction that is Buenos Aires, every block different, every corner different, its all very different.

Off to Mendoza tomorrow and the Andes, cannot wait.