The Trip: Buenos Aires

• 26 April 2010 at 22:47
• Traveling

I was hosted in Buenos Aires by a charming gay couple (Fernando and Rodrigo), their friend Federico and their kitten Maquiavel (who played with my beard a lot). They have been very nice :)

The first thing that struck me in BA, was how it looks so much like Europe's big towns, especially London. I nearly felt at home.

I could visit the tomb of General Saint Martin, Argentina's liberator, inside the Cathedral...

enter a presidential palace for the first time, in that case, the "Pink House", where Cristina Kirchner governs...

wow, I'm posing with a member of the presidential guard...

as well as the Obelisk.

When the country was under a military rule in crisis, the Head of State tried to rally the whole population behind him by invading the Falklands Islands, who were british. Unfortunately for him, Margaret Thatcher had just come into power and she was definitely not going to let it go. With help from France, the chilean dictatorship and others, she took back the islands with the iron hand we know. Argentine people are still bitter about it. Many monuments are dedicated to it.

There's an ecological reserve downtown, I mean, by the coast.

I also saw Evita's tomb.

I went to super touristy Caminito, a place where you can find lots of expensive restaurants where professionals dance tango. I tried the legendary argentine meat and I was drunk very quickly. there was a very very sexy gaucho.

When a pair of dancers asked who wanted to pose for a picture, I said yes.

Then I went to Fundacion PROA where, slightly drunk, I couldn't really enjoy, but I bought Copi's La Guerre des Pédés (Fags War).

I also did the Museum of Latinoamerican Art of Buenos Aires (Malba) but I wasn't amazed either.

Still drunk, I even did some bollocks in the toilets.

I saw a protest to support the gouvernment's Medias Law. Seeing people mobilising made me glad.

With my hosts, I went to the festival of independent cinema where we saw Camila desde el alma, a documentary about an argentine transvestite who also happens to be a comedian. Thanks to her intelligence, her culture and her thetrical performances, Camila could deliver a very interesting and very strong testimony on her condition.

On Saturday night, I wanted to explore the argentine gay scene but I got some bad news from France and my hosts were not in a party mood. I considered going alone but I thought that, Buenos Aires being just like Europe, that wouldn't be very interesting.

I played Monsieur Tartflette again and I prepared this delicious dish to my hosts (after spending fuckloads of money on cheese). Rodrigo's mum happened to be here and she was highly interesting. We could then talk about loads of things for hours and I noticed I improved in Spanish a lot.

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