A visit to the Feria de Matadores

Corrida de sortija, Feria de Matadores, Buenos Aires

One thing that we had meant to go to previously, but hadn't got around to, was the Feria de Matadores. This Gaucho market is held in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, about a forty minute bus ride out of the centre.

There are lots of market stalls, some of which are very generic, but others have some good authentic goods, including mate cups and bombillas, and some - though not as many as we had expected - gaucho related items. There were certainly a lot of knives on sale.

Feria de Matadores, Buenos Aires

There are also food stalls, where we had a few more decent empanadas, but you could also get other traditional fare like locra, and there are a couple of nice old fashioned places to eat.


The locals enjoy the market, with live music and traditional dancing in the square, which generally draws a small crowds of onlookers, and a few hapless tourists may be tempted to join in.

Corrida de sortija, Feria de Matadores, Buenos Aires

But the main reason that we had come along was to enjoy the spectacle of the corrida de sortija, a gaucho sport that involves galloping your horse along and trying to collect a small ring, that is dangling at about head height, on a little stick.

We watched this for quite a while, and it is clearly not easy at all. Most people failed, either missing the ring altogether, knocking it off, or managing to collect it, only to drop it afterwards. But some did get it, and trotted back, proudly showing off the ring.

Child's play? Corrida de sortija, Feria de Matadores, Buenos Aires

They start them early at this sport, and we saw a kid of about twelve, (maybe, I'm lousy at judging ages,) and another that can't have been older than two, having a go at a lowered ring.

What is nice about this market and the corrida de sortija, is that whilst there are obviously tourists here, being a bit further out of town, the numbers are rather less than at San Telmo for example. Of course the vendors are used to visitors, and cater to them, but this is predominantly an event for local people.

Starting them young at the Corrida de sortija, Feria de Matadores, Buenos Aires

There were comparatively few people watching the gauchos tilting for their rings, and it was evident that they were doing this for themselves, not to entertain a crowd. In our eyes, that made this a very worthwhile trip out of the centre.

 

Corrida de sortija, Feria de Matadores, Buenos Aires

Success! Corrida de sortija, Feria de Matadores, Buenos Aires

Corrida de sortija, Feria de Matadores, Buenos Aires

Success! Corrida de sortija, Feria de Matadores, Buenos Aires

Success! Corrida de sortija, Feria de Matadores, Buenos Aires

Corrida de sortija, Feria de Matadores, Buenos Aires

Success! Corrida de sortija, Feria de Matadores, Buenos Aires

Feria de Matadores, Buenos Aires

Mate cups and bombillas, Feria de Matadores, Buenos Aires

Feria de Matadores, Buenos Aires

Feria de Matadores, Buenos Aires

Feria de Matadores, Buenos Aires

Feria de Matadores, Buenos Aires

Back in Buenos Aires ...

Soda siphons at San Telmo market

From Rosario, we took the bus to Buenos Aires, and then a cab on to our Airbnb place in our usual neighbourhood, Palermo.

Being back here was always going to be a risk for our diets, but we love the city, so it was a risk worth taking, and anyway, we had to come here to catch our plane home.

We did mitigate the risk by joining the local gym, and getting ourselves along there at least four times a week.

Café Bar Plaza Dorrego, San Telmo

As it was to turn out, our time here wasn't too bad, and we may even have lost a pound or so. It helped that, much to our disappointment, our favourite little dulce de leche cake shop had closed down.


We also strictly limited our intake of ice cream and wine, and ate plenty of lovely steak. The latter at least, was no hardship!

We did give in to a few empanadas though, including our favourite ones from last time, the fried ones from L'Escondida. They didn't let us down, they were still delicious. Some others that we really enjoyed here were from La Cocina, which is a lovely traditional place, but really quite tiny.

Buenos Aires

And then there was a more unusual, but incredibly tasty, lamb version, in a place in San Telmo, called El Banco Rojo. They also had a really excellent burger. I'd had no intention of having a burger, but when I saw the ones being delivered to other customers, I succumbed; I didn't regret it at all!

We didn't only eat while we were here though. We did quite a lot of walking around, not necessarily to anywhere in particular, just to get some extra exercise in to burn off those empanadas.

Whilst in San Telmo, we popped along to the market there. We had been there previously, and had loved some of the stuff on the stalls, so we were fully expecting to fill up the remaining space in our rucksacks with nice things.

Palacio Paz, Buenos Aires

Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be that many stalls around this time, and so we only ended up buying one of the lovely old coloured glass soda siphons that we had admired last time around, but had to resist because they were too heavy to carry around or post back.

Palacio Paz, Buenos Aires

We also took a guided tour around Palacio Paz, which was the private mansion of the very wealthy founder of La Prensa newspaper, Jose C Paz. He commissioned a French architect called Louis Henri Sortais to design it, and had most of the materials imported from Europe.


It is said to be the largest private home ever built in Argentina, and some suggest that Paz had ambitions to become President, and intended to use this as a place where he could entertain and impress important dignitaries.

However, Paz never actually got to live here. The work started in 1902, but wasn't completed until 1914, two years after Paz died.

Palacio Paz, Buenos Aires

The family did move in, but even that was short-lived, as the financial difficulties of the 1930s led them to sell the building to the Military Officer's Association, which now uses it as their clubhouse.

They offer guided tours in Spanish or English, where you can see the main parts of the elaborately decorated house. The tours are good, with lots if interesting facts, but much of the decoration isn't really to my taste. It is an interesting visit if you have spare time, but probably not a priority otherwise.

Fortabat Art Collection, Buenos Aires

We even managed a quite cultural outing to the Fortabat Art Collection. It was opened by the Chairperson of the second largest cement manufacturer in Argentina, María Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat, using a portion of her vast personal art collection. There is a lot by Argentine artists, as well as international names, including an Andy Warhol portrait of the owner.

Fortabat Art Collection, Buenos Aires

It wasn't quite what we had expected from the write up, and most of it we wouldn't have considered hanging on our wall if you'd given it to us free, but it made a change from the usual stuff you find in many galleries.

We did quite like some of the rather whacky pieces on the top floor, although we were a little dubious about whether the artist was being a bit cheeky in the way he was rehashing a lot of other artists work.

We may not have done a lot here this time, but it was a great way to end our trip to Chile and Argentina. But first we have one last post, for our trip out to the Feria de Mataderos.

Fortabat Art Collection, Buenos Aires

Palacio Paz, Buenos Aires

Palacio Paz, Buenos Aires

In the UK

From Antarctica we made the journey back to UK via the same long route which we had arrived.  We had a few hours before our flight from Ushuaia to Buenos Aires, but that was easily passed with some practical stuff and playing cards, when we weren't talking to others from the ship.
 

We stayed in Buenos Aires for a couple of nights over Nic's birthday.  We didn't do much there, but we did go back to what does seem to have become a firm favourite restaurant, Minga.  Nic likes the chicken caesar salad, I like the empanadas, and we are both rather partial to the large, excellent steaks and the wines. 

From BsAs we had a connecting flight to London via Miami.  I say connecting, but it isn't connecting in the conventional sense, where your bags are transferred to the next plane and you stay airside.  No, here you have to get off, go through immigration, collect your bags and go out through customs, then drop our bags back off again, go back in through security and get to your gate.

We had just under two hours.  Our flight was at 8pm and we were supposed to be at the gate by 7pm.  At 7:10pm we were still waiting in the immigration queue and, when we asked if there was any arrangement for those with connections to get through quicker, we were told 'well you'll just miss your flight'.  Great, thanks!
 

Once we got to the desk, the guy was at least helpful and pushed us through quickly, and thankfully there was a connecting flights queue in customs, which was shorter than the normal one.  We belted it around the corridors to get tithe bag drop off area, then to security.  And we saw a huge queue, which we knew we had no chance of making through in time for our flight.

Luckily though, having made enough flights last year to qualify for the bronze level on the BA executive club scheme, I had priority access on my boarding pass, so they directed to a different security queue which was much shorter.  We made it through that in time and got the flight.

We won't be doing a connecting flight at Miami with less than a three hour changeover in future though.

Obviously given the circumstances of our being back, we weren't really doing anything very bloggable.  But I did go up to London during the run up to Christmas, so I thought I'd post a few pictures of that.

 

There is a Winter Wonderland every year in Hyde Park, where they have a ferris wheel, some other rides and an ice rink.

They also have lots of the German style market stalls, where they sell Christmas decorations, lights, candles, jewellery and all sorts of other things.

And of course there are plenty of food and drink stalls.  Again the german influence is there with Glühwein, Bratwurst and lots of other goodies.

Oxford Street had a Marmite theme for its Christmas lights this  year, which did seem a bit strange, but it looked quite good still.  I can't say I either loved it or hated it though!

Selfridges always looks good with its fantastic doors, but it does look even better in its Christmas get up.

And then there was Covent Garden.  I thought the giant Rudolph was quite an impressive but still tasteful adornment for the old marketplace. And the barrel Christmas tree was a bit of fun too.

Also rather impressive was the lego advent calendar.  It was entirely made from lego and when opened, each door revealed a little christmassy scene.  The turkey dinner was good, as was the wreathe, but I particularly liked the snowflake.

Off to the White Continent again

With my sister having been over from Hong Kong for the funeral too, all three of us were flying out on the same day, so my mum drove us up to the airport.  With only going for the couple of weeks this time, we had lighter than usual rucksacks which was rather nice. 

Our route through to Ushuaia was in three stages.  The first was a ten hour flight to Miami.  We arrived there at 16:05 local time, which is 21:05 UK time.  But then we had to get through immigration and customs.  It seemed to take forever to walk from the plane to passport control, but we were pretty lucky once we got there as we got moved over to a shorter queue.  It still took forever, but not quite as long as it might have done.  We went through the rigmarole of fingerprinting and photos being taken, but made it through OK.

We then collected our rucksacks and joined another queue to pass through customs, before making our way outside to try to find the shuttle bus to our hotel.  Just about every hotel's bus passed us at least twice before ours finally turned up, and then it was a good half hour out, so by the time we actually got to our hotel it was about 8pm, or 1am UK time.

The next day was Thanksgiving, but we didn't get to see any of it as we were straight back to the airport for our next leg, a nine hour flight to Buenos Aires.  Because we we flying on a connecting flight the next day, we had a free transfer to our hostel, but it was slow going.  The bus from the airport to town was OK, but then we had to wait quite a while while they ferried us all on to our final destinations in taxis.  So having dropped off our bags and washed up, we were just in time for an argentine time dinner at 10pm.  We decided to hit one of our favourite places from before, so walked the few blocks over to Don Julio and enjoyed a good steak.

 

In the morning we took a cab to the airport for our very early three and a half hour flight down to Ushuaia.  A quick cab to the Antarctica hostel which we had used before meant we were soon relaxing in the same room that we had last time.

 

It was a long trip, but it was made much easier by the fact that we knew BsAs and Ushuaia, so we could relax and just fit back in to those places.

 

We went back to a couple of good places we'd been to before in Ushuaia, a buffet asado and a nice bar, and then in the morning had a long relaxing brunch and a few beers in the hostel before walking down to the docks in the afternoon to pick up the Ortelius.

On board we found we had been upgraded into a suite which was rather nice, and soon discovered that we had three of the same staff on board as last time, Delphine, Jim and Katrine.

Highlights

I said in an earlier posting that both while we were travelling, and since we have been back, we frequently have been asked which was our favourite country or place.  I also said that I find it impossible to give a single answer to that question as I don't feel I can reduce such a fabulous year down to just one 'best' thing.

So instead, we have come up with a short-list of our highlights from this first year.  In no particular order, it would have to include:
* laid back and gastronomically fabulous Palermo area of Buenos Aires, not least for its cafes, cakes, steak and wine.
* amazing scenery on the Bolivian Altiplano between the Atacama Desert and the Uyuni Salt Flats;
* satisfaction at managing a proper conversation in Spanish with our home stay host in Raqchi, even if our teacher would have been horrified at all of the mistakes;
* exhilaration of adventure activities, such as ziplining, white water rafting and sand boarding;
* relief that we all made it safely out of the fire at Shangri-la
* unconditional friendliness from Colombians who were so pleased to welcome us as tourists to their country;
* seeing the moai left as they were abandoned in the quarry on Easter Island;
* watching - and more particularly hearing - chunks of ice cleaving off the vast and beautiful Perito Moreno glacier;
* grandeur of the fjords, lakes, mountains and volcanoes of southern Chile;
* experiencing the strange feeling of being in a village in England despite being 8000 miles away in the Falkland Islands and having the chance to talk to the islanders first hand about how they feel about the question of their nationality;
* being pecked by penguins and watching their comical antics in the Falklands and Antarctica;
* simply being in Antarctica, the coldest, windiest, driest, and highest place on earth;
* getting wet at the spectacular Iguassu Falls;
* meeting some fabulous people, some fleetingly, some who have become friends and we will hopefully be seeing again sometime, somewhere in the world!

Over the coming weeks I may add a few posts about some of these highlights and what made each of them so special.

Boca and Caminito

When we were here last time we didn't make it to the area of Boca. Boca literally means mouth and it is the part of BsAs that sits at the mouth of the river. It is a run down part of town, that is not regarded as a particularly safe place for tourists, so is generally to be avoided unless as part of a tour group.

However it does have a little street near to the water edge, that is famous for its colourful buildings. So we left out valuables at home, got on a bus and paid a visit to Caminito.

We were immediately greeted by a Maradona look(a bit)alike, offering to have his picture taken with us, for a price of course. We declined. Next we saw a couple of tango dancers. They didn't really seem to have a great deal of enthusiasm for it, so we passed on them too.
On the bus on the way through Boca to get to and from Caminito, we could see that some of the houses really are painted in bright colours, and have moulded reliefs on the walls, albeit that they are now a little past their best and faded.

So the brightly coloured buildings here are authentic in style but like many tourist sites, they keep them repainted and perhaps over emphasise the reliefs of the likes of Maradona and the Perons for the benefit of the visitors. Still it is interesting to see.

What we could have done without are the additional tourist moneymakers. The Maradonas and the tango dancers are one thing, and you expect the somewhat tacky souvenir shops and the waiters trying to get your to eat at their place.

But really, do you absolutely need to have a dozen of these horrible pictures with holes for you to put your head through and have your photo taken? You could be a tango dancer, or you could be an Argentine footballer with your arm around Maradonna, or be another tango dancer etc. Really? Does anyone actually do that?

Is Caminito worth the visit? I think so. We didn't spend long there but it was only a 17p bus fare each way and you don't have to spend anything there. It is more touristy and tacky than it should be, but it is interesting even so and it does have genuine roots, so is an indicator of the true nature of the area. Just don't go off wandering around the rest of Boca unless you're feeling lucky.