The Perfect Day

Our last day of our trip in our favorite city of Buenos Aires. We began the day by going to the Mercado de Caminito in La Boca (Thanks Matias for the tip on that, it truly was a photographer's heaven!). La Boca is considered a rough neighborhood of Buenos Aires, I guess what some might consider the Bronx to be. La Boca has the Boca soccer team and stadium right there and is a little rough around the edges. But the market on Saturdays down by the water was beautiful! The buildings are all so colorful and vibrant. There's tango music playing everywhere and people dancing in the street. It's a little touristy, but you honestly don't mind bec. of how lovely the atmosphere is. We strolled around for a couple hours taking pictures and watching people dance and then headed back to the Recoleta area to check out their arts fair. As we were strolling up towards the Recoleta we had the craziest run in of our trip. We ran right into our 2 Columbian friends from the hostel in Arica!! it was the most bizarre thing! All 4 of us did a double take and literally stopped dead in our track in disbelief. With all the people in Arica we didn't get to talk to these guys as much as we would have liked so we had no idea they were going to Buenos Aires. But low and behold we all happened to be walking on the same street at the same time. I'm telling you, it was our good Kharma, which was truly the theme of the trip; the good kharma trip. Anyways, the guys were so lovely and treated us to icecream at Freddo. (shocking that we were eating icecream again! haha) After sitting and chatting for a while we strolled through the arts fair which was really terrific. I could have spent even more time there if we had it. But the jewelry and art was just beautiful. After strolling we sat in a park where our friend showed us his hammock he travel with from Columbia. He takes it with him everywhere and just attaches it to 2 trees and naps where he pleases. Talk about a great way to travel! But the best was he pulled out this musical instrument, similar to a tambourine, and started playing it and singing songs. His voice was so so lovely and the music so fantastic. I can't even begin to tell you how perfect it felt to be sitting in a park in Buenos Aires listening to him sing. Stephanie and I truly were in heaven. It was the perfect day. We finally had to go our separate ways, the guys were going on a 26 hour bus to Iguazu and we had to have dinner before our flight. Though it was terribly sad to say goodbye to them (even more so bec. we knew in a way we were saying goodbye to our trip) but we knew we'd keep in touch with them and hopefully see them again soon. Guys, you truly truly made our last day amazing! Thank you so so so much.
We headed over to La Estancia a big steak restaurant for our final meal: steak and a nice malbec wine. It was perfect, as everything was that day. Full from our meal and the best day we sadly hopped in a cab to go to the airport. Our trip last year was great, but i don't remember dragging my feet or being in such complete denial as I was this year. I really and truly did not want to nor did i believe I was actually leaving. I could hardly look out the windows of the cab and definitely couldn't turn to look behind me as we left the city.
I am head over heels in love with Buenos Aires. As you all know my heart has always belonged to Paris, and of course New York, but I now think Buenos Aires has snuck in there as the third contender. Fantastic food, wine, architecture, shopping, people, culture, dancing...etc. etc. etc.
love love love it.