I wake up to the sight and sound of Latin American pop videos on the bus TV – all synthasised Reggaeton beats and tanned flesh. For once, I can’t see any signs of poverty. Highways snake from one side to the next, flanked by skyscrapers. Occasionally, a gleaming football stadium passes by. Down below, life spills onto the streets as Buenos Aires comes to life for another day. I would soon find it never really falls asleep.
About 50 minutes later, we finally make it through the choked roads to the bus terminal at Retiro. A few minutes later, rucksack once again firmly attached, I’m dodging street vendors hawking sunglasses, cheap books, clothes and DVDs on my way south to the bohemian and stylish barrio of San Telmo.
I had been recommended a stay at the Hostel of San Telmo, supposedly Buenos Aires’ original. It takes a good hour to make my way through downtown, stopping off for a rest in the sun-kissed Plaza de Mayo, and into San Telmo. Its full of elegant restaurants and crumbling colonial edifices, and is a popular spot for backpackers.
I check out a few other hostels but finally plump on the recommended one, as its said to be one of the friendliest in town. Its nothing special to look at, but the welcome from the staff is genuine and disarming. We’ll give it a whirl – the boutique hostel I saw a few streets away can wait until another night.
Its pretty quiet, and my dormitory seems empty. Then I meet Jag, a guy from Birmingham with Punjabi roots who has also just arrived.
Little did I know in a few days time I would be beat-boxing with him through downtown at 8am in the morning.
I cook up some pasta and there a few more guys milling around. The weekly game of football is kicking off in an hour and my name is on the team sheet. It’s been more than four months since the last game of five a sides, in Madrid, and I can’t wait to have a kick around. The fact it’s in Buenos Aires, the home of Boca Juniors and River Plate, with a cosmopolitan mixture of players from Argentina, Chile and elsewhere, only makes it better. And one of them is a spitting image of (latter day) Maradona.
It’s an indoor game with a small football – proper Latin American style. I manage to grab an early goal and then disaster strikes – the sole of my trainer, which has made it through the jungle of Bolivia and across the volcanos of Guatemala, comes off completely. I change into my walking boots in the hostel and make it back for the last half hour.
After taking a shower I take a walk around San Telmo, which by now is getting dark, so I duck into that institution of overseas drinking – Molly Malone’s – for a pint. Later that night I cook up some steak from a nearby “Chino” (Chinese-run store), where I get into a very confused conversation about whether there is still a coin shortage in Buenos Aires. Whether its my faltering Spanish, or the Chinese guy’s understanding of the language, I don’t know, but before long I’m trying to make myself understood before a whole crowd of puzzled looking people.
Then its time to taste the legendary Buenos Aires nightlife. A crowd of us from the hostel kick off with a bottle of whisky and some wine in nearby Plaza Dorrego. I get talking to a Colombian, who asks me, straight faced: “Que piensas de la muerte?” Hmm, did he just me what I think about death? After some prevaracation, I turn to Max, the German, and bounced the question onto him. His look of complete bewilderment and shock has us all in stitches. It’s an expression that I would see on Max’s face often – he does befuddlement very well. Maybe it was just the whisky.
