Culture vultures!

This is the first blog entry from the UK representative on the tour! 

The first challenge on Saturday was to buy bus tickets for our 13 hour bus ride to Mendoza on Monday. Buying bus tickets should be simple, but after failing to crack the website, finding the first shop closed and our limited Spanish it was all a little challenging! However, after two trips through a locked door that was buzzed open at the whim of the lady sitting behind a glass screen allowing us into a space that was barely big enough for two people we secured our tickets and set off exploring.  

We headed to El Anteneo, an old theatre built in 1919 that was converted into an elegant bookstore in 2000. It previously appeared in the list of The 10 best independent bookshops in the world  in the Guardian (a UK national paper). The building has all elements of the old theatre, minus the seats, and the stage now holds the cafe and the boxes are cosy spaces for customers to sit and read. The practical part of me wonders how many books they have to sell the maintain the building, but the book lover in me thinks it is worth every peso!

Our next stop was a tour of Teatro Colon, the city's opera house, among the finest in the world based on design and acoustics. The main entrance and rooms were opulently decorated with gold leafing, Italian marble, English mosaic tiles and stained glass windows. To prevent any old sole entering the golden hall, the secret way to gain entry was to talk about the furniture. The main hall itself has seven levels of seating and holds over 2,000 people. There are also three floors below the building which house rehearsal rooms, costume designers, prop makers and even the opera house's own doctor. 

On our way out we purchased standing tickets for the bargain price of GBP6.90/USD8.73/CHF8.90 for the performance of Porgy & Bess for later that night. 

There was then time for a quick tourist stop at the obelisk, which calls for a quick shout out to my grandmother, affectionately known to everyone as Ba!

And then it was time for some take away empanadas, but sadly there was no time for a nap before we headed back to the opera house.  We walked the six flights of stairs to the very top for an overhead view of Porgy & Bess performed by the Cape Town Opera Production. We decided we had received our money's worth by the interval and went home for more ice cream!

- Jess