San Telmo Sunday Market

One of the main reasons I wanted to start off our stay in Buenos Aires in the San Telmo neighbourhood was proximity to the San Telmo Sunday Market. It is mainly an antiques market, but it has so much more than that. There was a wide variety of artists, musicians, street performers, artisans, and street food vendors. It starts at Plaza Dorego and fills the whole square. 

After we checked out the main square we thought we were done - but no! It continues on for at least a dozen blocks all the way to plaza de mayo. 

We spent the whole day wandering around! The antiques stalls are mainly in Plaza Dorego and when we started up the street we were greeted with more handmade items, trinkets, and street food! Some of the more interesting items were entire stalls of small hand painted model soldiers and tanks, stalls full of crystal, stalls with records, and barbies, and hot wheels, and shoes, and I could go on! The strangest thing was that more than one stall had Nazi paraphernalia - like actual SS badges and pins. It was very shocking. 

We stopped for lunch at this Parilla (Argentine BBQ). 

(I was clearly unaware that this photo was being taken...) 

They had Lomo (steak) and Choripan (pork sausage) on buns. It was grilled right in front of us and we topped it off with some chimichurri! So delicious!! And while we ate there were two guys playing tango music. A great experience!

After lunch we continued wandering! I got a handmade brass bracelet that I love and Brad got some churros! 

This is actually Brad's second churro experience. We didn't catch the first one in a photo because we were getting verbally accosted in Spanish by a man wearing his baby and demanding that we give one of our churros to his other child. But since we've been here that has been our only negative encounter! The Argentine people are very open and welcoming! 

We had some time to kill so we found a nice little courtyard and had a bottle of wine. (Despite the sun... It was really chilly... Hence the blanket-like scarf!)

Fuelled by liquid courage, Brad and I went back into the market for some real negotiating and purchasing! I got a painting: 

I think it's wonderful!!! I got a picture with the artist too, who was a lovely woman who really didn't speak any English. 

Brad got some cuff links that he had been looking at earlier in the day. Brad was able to talk the woman down on the price despite the fact that she didn't speak any English and was very hard of hearing! So at times we thought our Spanish was bad... But it turned out that she just couldn't hear us! 

Overall a very successful day and our last day in Buenos Aires for about a week! I can't wait to go back.