Sunday Markets in San Telmo

After breakfast, we headed downtown. This was our first ride on the BA metro, or Subte as they call it. The cars on the trains are completely covered with street art and I'm not sure if the artists were commissioned or if they just hit the cars when they're parked in the depot overnight. Either way, each car is unique and I think it's fun. The only downside is that the windows are also spray painted so from the inside, you can't see out through them. As a result, all the windows are open, which is a little weird for a subway.

Images from BA are in the album.

Our first stop of the day was the rose house. This is the seat of the Argentine parliament and it's a large, pink building. We took a tour, which was bilingual and quite informative. The building itself is styled just like the castles and manors in Europe, especially southern Europe. It is very ostentatious in places, especially the president's office. Also, there were a number of new installations because Argentina had its bicentennial in 2011, so they did a lot of refurbishing and commissioning of new work all over the city, but especially at the rose house.

After the rose house, we headed for the San Telmo district by walking along Defensa street. Defensa is a pedestrian mall (at least on Sundays) and it was one gigantic market. At first the stalls were similar to the artisan market we went to the day before, but as we kept walking, it slowly changed. Around the main square in San Telmo, there are a number of antique markets in the buildings and some of that spilled out into the street market. For example, we saw at least 3 different soda siphon vendors and Catherine found an antique necklace made of coral and ivory with pictures of elephants carved into it.

Another highlight of the market is the street performers and especially, the tango dancers. We saw a number of different tango exhibits. The first one was when we had lunch. Catherine had found a vendor selling arrepas and colombian (corn) empanadas, so she at that while I got a choripan, or sausage sandwich. While eating, we watched some tango.

A little while later, we stopped at a cafe for tea and people watching. We ended up meeting a guy from the US who winters in BA every year, but he doesn't speak any spanish, so Catherine was translating for him since he wanted to find out when a certain show was on. I don't know how you can spend so much time in BA and not have at least picked up some rudimentary Spanish!

After the cafe, we walked around the market some more and ended up going into one of the little villas attached tot he street that have since been turned into multi-store markets. It was really interesting because it had a courtyard and was two stories. You can totally see a rich family living there, but something must have happened. Catherine thinks that part of it might have been an epidemic of yellow fever that swept through the neighbourhood at some point.

We also found a vendor that had a number of antique copper pots for great prices, so I bought a copper saucier originally from the 30s. It should be perfect for making sauces or whip creams.

Our last stop in the market, we circled back to the main square and sat down in a cafe for drinks. I had a beer and Catherine had a great camprania. After sitting there for a while, a couple showed up and did a tango performance. Completely unexpected, but fun.

After stopping back at the hostel, we went out for a ginormous parilla meal. This one wasn't as good as the one in El Chalten, but it was still pretty good. We had a grilled cheese with tomatoes and arugula to start, which was mouthwatering. Then we had the main course of roast vegetables, chorizo, blood sausage and steak. To finish, Catherine had a flan, while I had a lemon sorbet like thing with champagne drizzled on top. They called it a sorbet, but I'm pretty sure it had dairy, so it might have been closer to a gelato.

After dinner, we waddled back to the hostel to sleep.