La Boca, Cerrado Puertos and Paragliding

It is now Friday and we decide to explore the neighbourhood of La Boca. The lady at the hostel had drawn on the map a certain area to visit and sternly advised that we kept to this area as the rest of La Boca is not safe.The story is here that the inhabitants of Boca were forced there by wealthy immigrants wanting to live in their area, Boca was a shipping yard and this is the only place the poor could live. Having no money to paint their houses they took whatever paint was left at the local yard used to paint the ships, ending up in multicoloured houses which is what Boca is famous for now.

We were advised to only go to one street. However, Jo and I decided to walk there as it wasn't too far, we ended up at the local football stadium, which was huge and then ended up getting lost on the way to the main tourist area. Let´s just say it was quite scary, all shops had bars on them, lot´s of people hanging around! After a very pacy walk by chance we made it to the safe street, where all the tourists are.There is one safe street which houses all the tourists, surprisingly it is also the most coloured!It was full of tango bars, tacky shops and impersonators! But all round still a good experience! 

In the evening I had booked a meal for us at Casa Felix, which is one of the five ´Puerto Cerrado´ restaurants in BA.  ´Puerto Cerrado´ means closed door in Spanish, its basically a restaurant hosted at someones house. I had read of it on the Internet and thought it would be a nice unique experience. So we jump in a taxi after finally getting the address, they only give it last minute to ensure complete exclusivity. The concept here is that a host will cook food for around 8 people in their home. Unfamiliar with this concept, I wasn't expecting much.

Well my expectations were left behind as soon as we walked into the home. WOW, what a place, decorated in stylish french furniture and elegant paintings on the wall with some classical Argentinian music playing in the back ground! I wish I had made more of an effort with my clothes, but to be honest I had my best clothes on that I have with me so I could not have done any better! We walk through the house and into a small terrace lined with intimate tables lit with candles, out the back is a small garden with all sorts of plants, flowers and vegetables growing! I was definitely looking forward to the food now!

Our host, Diego (he is the one with me and Jo), a local Argentinian was our chaperon, cook and guide, very nice chap who was very passionate about the night. We met a few nice people from New York, Paris, Sweden and a couple of local Argentinians who all spoke good English. The food was great, all local produce, all handpicked by Diego and cooked by him . Very fresh, mixed flavours that I have never really tasted before. He definitely knew what he was doing and not just some wanna be! 

On the Saturday we went Paragliding which was wicked! Marcos, the chap who Jo arranged the day with picked us up in a battered Peugeot 407, which wouldn't have looked out of place on a scrap yard! We take an hour drive out of BA  to Escobar, where Marcos owns a farm who he rents out to Gauchos (cattle farmers). Flat land as far as the eye can see and cows all over. We had to wait a couple of hours as there were a lot of people there having their turn. Strapped on a trailer was a trailer with an engine hooked up to a home made winch, now I knew how we would get in the air. 

Having seen people go up I was a little disappointed, they get winched up and then fly round and land, max 5 minutes  It came to my turn, luckily my instructor who I was strapped in front of could speak English, I´m given my stringent health and safety spiel, instructions and ex claimers and waivers, actually I´m lying here, that is how it would have happened in England! He could speak English, but all he said to me was, first you run, then when we fly you lift you´re legs and then we are good! That was it and all that was needed. We start to climb quite quickly as the winch winds in, I can see the trailer about half a mile in front of us, and the nearer we get to it the higher we go. POP goes the rope attached and we are free, expecting to come down straight away just like the others I hear the guide say lets go higher, so we did. It´s amazing how you can go higher without an engine, it has to do with hot air rising from the heated ground. So we fly around for 10 minutes and then it is time to land which we do smoothly. Strange how relaxing the whole thing was, I didn't feel scared at any point! 

Jo´s turn now and she gets strapped on and off they go, I can see Jo is trying to run but they topple over on the ground with Jo sliding on her bum for a couple of yards! I was pissing myself laughing whilst everyone around me had there hands to their faces! Jo gets up straight away and says to the guy "was that my fault" (she is laughing too now) and the guy says no I am sorry it was mine. Second time round and up up and away they go. Well maybe it was because Jo was light, or the guy fancied her, probably the latter, they went up higher and higher, around and around and only after about 20 minutes did they come down! "flight of the day" said one of the other Argentinian instructors, it certainly was! I think they would have stayed up there all day, had it not been for Jo saying no to when she was asked whether she wanted go higher! 

Today we have an 18 hour bus ride to Puerto Madryn on the coast, we have a hostel booked there for 2 days. We can go whale watching, see the penguins and go hiking near by. A complete change from BA and we are really looking forward to it! 

Overall BA experience?

Well, you cannot argue that it is a truly beautiful city. Its a far cry from being an impoverish country, its European influences are very prominent in the culture and architecture. Much like the buildings, the residents of BA are beautiful, classy and colourful. You walk down the street and your jaw drops at how good looking these people are, long blond hair, lightly tanned complications. The men and woman a like are just stunning!

You will also notice that they love their dogs, in the morning you will see many dog walkers walking 20 dogs at one time. They don't even bother walking the dogs themselves! You will find that most people do not speak English, they are very proud of their culture and I get the feeling that they don't feel they need to comply with speaking English, they speak Spanish and you need to speak it too. Don't get me wrong, we have met locals wishing to speak English with us along the way but the majority will look at you blankly so you better learn the language fast. 

Although beautiful, there is no denying that this city is polluted, on the way to paragliding we past by the sea the local we met, Patricia said there is the sea but its very polluted. The sea colour was brown! The streets are lined with rubbish, as you walk pass the streets you will gets whiff of rubbish smell which pongs. We walked to the shops this morning and the streets where actually clean, perhaps they clean it once a week?

You will also find a great contrast between rich and poor, when we have walked around in the evening in both Palermo and San Telmo you see families routing through the bins collecting cardboard. They must get money in exchange for these materials. With this I have mixed feelings about BA, its certainly not as amazing as everyone seems to think in Europe. Maybe its gone downhill since their visit  but I certainly hope it can find itself back on its feet sometime soon.