Necochea

The initial reason for our trip was to attend the wedding of a friend in seaside resort town Necochea. It is a 6 hour drive out of Buenos Aires. We travelled there overnight on special coaches which had EXTREMELY comfortable seats. If only airplanes could be like this. We slept well & woke up several hundred kilometeres from where we left!


It was high summer in Argentina & Necochea is a holiday town. Since we arrived so early in the morning we got to the beach around 9am when it was empty but by midday it was packed & the temperature had risen steeply. My Dad & I had never experienced heat like it & had to buy a sun umbrella to shade us before it was all too much & we retreated to the shade of a seafront cafe for a cool beer.


The wedding was in the evening & that night there was a freak storm, the heavens opened & torrential rain hammered down for a couple hours. We had a crazy taxi ride to the church with a local cabbie who saw nothing wrong in driving on the wrong side, driving up grass verges, cutting diagonally across cross junctions through traffic to get us to the church on time!

Cucaracha!

Every evening when we got back to the hotel we'd find this guy in the bathroom!

La Casa Rosa where Eva Peron made her speech on the balcony.

Argentinian art

There are fantastic, dynamic sculptures in the streets of Buenos Aires.



We visited the Museo Bella Artes, Buenos Aires' museum of Fine Arts. A wonderful & varied collection housed in a spacious & cool building that was a sanctuary from the searing heat outside.


The museum was holding a special exhibition of Emilio Pettorutti's art. He was a new discovery for me- what a find! I was really impressed by his graphic, almost cubist renditions of harlequins & musicians.



This is some of the more avant garde artwork from the gallery & the streets of Buenos Aires.



This terrific bronze was keeping guard outside the main military headquarters of the city (below where real soldiers guard the entrance)



More military might was on show at the Museo de Armas de la Nación.

Zoo

The day we visited the zoo was so damn hot we couldn't stay more than an hour! We tried to keep to the shade which is exactly what most of the animals were struggling to do too! Even the Indian elephants were struggling with the heat! Too hot to do much sketching but I got these down-

Recoleta Cemetary

A magnificent cemetary, an exclusive resting place for the rich families of Buenos Aires, and of course the site of Eva Peron's tomb.

LaBoca

The LaBoca district of Buenos Aries is the poorest neighbourhood yet it's found a unique way to attract tourists. All the houses are painted in vibrant hues, many are decorated with carved figures & elaborately hand painted signs. It's possibly the most colourful neighbourhood in the world!




Diego Maradona grew up in this area & it's home to the Boca Juniors football team & their stadium.

These pathetic critters were hanging on the wall of a LaBoca restaurant that we ate in. Meanwhile a couple danced the tango on the street outside for money.



Teaching the tango

Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is an enormous urban sprawl, one of the biggest cities on Earth. Population: 13 million. It' was high summer when we visited & sweltering hot. We stayed at the Hotel Goya on Suipacha St. The room is small, very stuffy & cockroaches come up through the bathroom floor!








Argentina is renowned for its beef & we made sure we found a traditional steak-house to sample the meat.

The trip

In January 2005 my Dad & I visited South America on a 3 week trip to Argentina & Peru. It all came about after an invite from a friend to attend his wedding in Buenos Aires. I wanted to combine this with a trip to Peru to see Macchu Pichu, the famous Inca city in the clouds. When I told my Dad about my plans he said he'd always wanted to see Macchu Pichu too so we agreed to go together.
We both took hundreds of photos & I kept a sketchbook of the entire journey. This blog will be a selection of photos & drawings that show the highlights of our South American odyssey.
We leave London Heathrow at 7.15pm on January 4th, 2005. The flight to Buenos Aires goes via Madrid. We depart Madrid at 11pm & cross the Atlantic through the night.
Wednesday morning we fly in over Paraguay & the Tigre Delta into Buenos Aires Airport, Ezeiza.