6 Days in beautiful Buenos Aires, living it up.

From the moment we set foot in South America I think we had both been looking forward to our last stop, Buenos Aires, quite a lot of the travellers we have bumped into on our way round have told us how great it is although I should counter this by saying that several other people told us it was their least favourite place in South America.

The city itself is fairly modern, especially in the centro area where many of the government buildings and shopping streets reside. At times the buildings could be anywhere in Europe and many of the buildings with their grey slate roof tops would not be out of place in the center of Paris.



We stayed on the edge of centro, next to the business district, Puerto Madiero, which you could easily confuse with Canary Wharf, sky scrapers rise out of the old wharf which banks the river. Our first taste of eating out in Buenos Aires was here at a restaurant called "Porteno" (fittingly what natives of BA call themselves). This was an all you can eat (and more) steak/grill restaurant with a magnificent salad bar and made while you wait sushi, all for a very reasonable 160 pesos per person, which works out at something like 20 pounds (depending on the exchange rate you use). Obviously this would be blowing our original budget but for the last week we decided that we had enough money to survive (and pay for out impending wedding) so we decided to go with it and worry a little less. As you would imagine the steak and meat in general was excellent and the sushi and salad bar were sublime, however I think you could probably get a similar experience in several of the Barbeque/meat restaurants in the area as I think in my entire time in .

As well as lots of places to eat out at night Puerto Madiero is a good place to spend a sunny lunchtime or afternoon, as you can probably imagine a number of cafes and restaurants catering to the high footfall of businessmen from the surrounding high rises stretch along the waterfront. We sampled a couple of these and found that the sushi in particular (pictured right) was excellent.

We also headed to the more expensive Palermo area (which is only a few stops on the metro, or a comparatively expensive trip in a taxi) to try a bit of the cafe culture there. Palermo is split into two sections, one is all about the cafe's, shops and night life and the other is all about restaurants. By day the shops bustle with people looking for new clothes and the latest fashions, we found a busy cafe on the edge of a square to sit and watch the world go by, the food was as you would expect in such a cafe, fairly tasty with pretty large portions to attract passers by along with excellent coffee.

A night out in Palermo is a bit complicated if you want an aperitif, we were planning to eat at Osaka, which is a highly regarded sushi restaurant in the middle of the restaurant area in Palermo but before sitting down we wanted a quick drink to experience Palermo after dark, sadly this is a little tricky, our hotel recommended getting a taxi to the bar area then getting a second taxi from there to the restaurant. In the end we decided to chance our arm in the restaurant district but we found bars were indeed fairly difficult to come by, in the end we sat in an outside area of a restaurant closed to our final destination, it was nice and the sparkling wine was lovely but I wouldn't say it was a taste of a night out in Buenos Aires we were looking for.

Osaka itself was a great, walking in it is a stylish and modern restaurant which was very lively (we instantly wished we spent some time drinking in their bar rather than the one we went to). The cuisine is South American style sea food with lots of cerviche, sashimi and sushi, everything looked and tasted great, the fish was fresh and the wine list was well priced and encompassed a selection of wine big enough to keep my friend the GrapedCrusader happy.

I have included some photos, although they are a touch blurred as the one thing I would say about the general ambiance was that it was a touch on the dark side.

Looking back now I would say that Buenos Aires is a must stop location at either end of any trip around South America, as a first stop it would probably count as a good way into the South American ways without being too different from Europe, but at the end it excels as a place to have a splurge, either in all of the stores and especially the leather shops, or going out for some great food and excellent night life. By the end of our time their both my stomach and our suitcases were heavier than when we arrived.