Tango and hangovers

Having gone out the night before, I woke up at 3am. My new friend and me went for lunch at a place close to the hostel. We changed money in yet another sketchy way - Buenos Aires really was the place where you had to do really shady things to change your dollars on the black market - as the real rate in official changing places was 30% less than what you got on the black market. 

In the evening we went to a Tango show. They were the funniest marketers I have ever seen - the organizers of this show. We were not allowed to take any pics during the show. On your way into the show, you got to pose with the dancers and then buy the pic from them. As you attempted to get into the room for the show, you first had to pass through their shop where they had all sort of merchandise. 

The venue was amazing. As soon as we got in we realized that we looked like a lovely lesbian couple - the lights were dim, the setting was romantic and most people were in couples. It was a bit funny actually. The dancing was AMAZING - I don't know what muscles these people were using to be able to do some of the amazing things they did. 

After the show we went home, I packed and woke up the next day at 9:30am to make it to the airport for my flight back to Nairobi. Just like that 2 months of an amazing backpacking experience in South America was coming to an end. My flight was crazy long. I flew from Buenos Aires to Porto Allegre in Brazil to Rio to Dubai and finally to Nairobi. 

Of course my adventures were not to end there. I stayed in Nairobi one week, then moved to Abidjan for 2 months to learn French. Those are adventures you will read about soon - but next let's go back in time......to Ghana!

:-)

The World's most beautiful cemetery, Tibetans in Switzerland, Steak and more steak

We had lunch yet again at Don Julio - the amazing steak restaurant just down the road from my hostel. Delicious!

In the evening we attempted to go for a Tango show at Cafe Tortoni - Argentina's oldest cafe - having been established in 1858, but when we got there, the show was oversubscribed and we couldn't get in. I did however get a free history lesson from a Tibetan-Swiss guy with us. Apparently Switzerland has one of the largest Tibetan communities out of Tibet. In the 1960s, Red Cross resettled 300 Tibetans in Switzerland and an additional 150 orphans were adopted by Swiss families. 

The next day I finally made it to Recoleta cemetery, and I admit, it is the most beautiful cemetery I have ever been to. It was almost like visiting a museum - amazing sculptures, beautiful tombstones etc. It was the first time I had seen bodies buried above the ground. I always assumed that "six feet under" was the norm, but apparently in some places, people are buried at ground level. Most of the bodies were in mausoleums. 

I got to where Evita was buried and there were people crying at her grave. It was quite touching given she died in 1952. I recall asking someone who worked at the cemetery to direct me to her grave. He started hitting on me and I remember thinking "how inappropriate is this? Should you really be hitting on people at a cemetery?" The cemetery was huge - I walked around for hours and i'm not sure I got to see everything. Some of the mausoleums were in disarray - perhaps a wealthy family that no longer had money. In some, you could see bones falling out. Some were so touching because of the melodramatic sculptures - the wailing maidens were a fixture throughout. 

There was one mausoleum that had a sculpture of a woman and a dog. I wondered - was her dog buried here? Did she die of rabies that she contracted from the dog?

After the cemetery I went to a brewery down the road where I had a few beer samplers. In the evening I went for dinner with a friend and her friend. After that we partied the night away - highlights include meeting a long haired Chilean artist who played Mulatu Astatke - the godfather of Ethiojazz. It was a great day and night!