Edd's Travels: Buenos Aires, Argentina (again)

After two nights in Montevideo I came back to Buenos Aires the same way I’d gone out. A late highlight of this journey was the sunset visible from the ferry: I don’t think I’ve ever before seen a sunset completely unobscured by clouds. As always, neither my camera nor my photography skills were equal to the event, but see photos anyway.

Having now spent more than a week in Buenos Aires, across two visits, I think the place is definitely growing on me. If I were to stick around here for another week then it might well ascend into my top ten favourite cities worldwide. There are a few difficulties: the heat and humidity are oppressive for a sweaty pale-skinned gringo like me, and also like all big cities it can be very rough and ready in places. I’ve been verbally abused in the street twice, once by a tramp for not giving him a hand to help him stand up, and once by a drunk for not giving him a drink from my bottle of water. My conscience is clear: the tramp stank of piss, and the drunk had just been vomiting copiously against a wall, so I think I was more than justified on both counts.

I’m now fully au fait with the subway system, which is dirty and hot and sweaty but ridiculously cheap (you pay about 40p to get into the system and that gets you anywhere, you can change lines as many times you like). At one point I found myself a few yards from the Once train station, where a train crash killed 51 people just a few weeks ago. I didn’t go in for a look. I did visit Ground Zero when I was in New York a few years ago, because the historical significance of the place was undeniable, and also because that site was being prepared for consecration and so I thought it was not inappropriate to pay my respects. But to have gone nosing round the crash site at Once would have just been macabre.

My daily diet continues to consist of steaks…and not a whole lot else, apart from jam on toast at the hostel for breakfast. And a lot of ice cream. Ice cream has become something of a passion, indeed an addiction, for me in recent weeks. However I’m confident that I’ll be able to kick the habit when I’m back in England, shivering and getting rained on.

One last thing: at the bottom of today’s photos is a short video compilation of the clips I’ve filmed out of bus windows during this trip. I found it really hard to get good photos when shooting out of a window, but a bit of motion blur and window glare doesn’t matter too much in a video. Apologies for the low-res format – this website insists on cutting me down to size - it's best viewed as it is, rather than going full-screen. However HD versions of this and my earlier Boca Juniors video are available to download here.