Fresh off the plane, our Porteño friends Pablo and Gustavo welcomed us, and took us straight to the Pepo Pepona gay restaurant in Palermo so we could have our first taster of the famous Argentinian steak.
Just as we were tucking into our bife de chorizo, the restaurant’s entertainment started: a handsome (extremely well endowed!) Argentinian lad came gyrating from table to table, quickly loosing all his clothes. At that moment we knew we were going to enjoy this city a lot!
WHY IS GAY BUENOS AIRES SO GAY FRIENDLY?
Argentina is extremely progressive with LGBT rights. It was the first country in Latin America to legalise gay marriage in July 2010, which included full adoption rights. The right to change legal gender has been in place since 2012 and anti discrimination laws are in full force in Rosario and Buenos Aires. Even the more conservative city of Córdoba has an active gay scene.
By Stefan Arestis – Full Story at the Nomadic Boys
Argentina Gay Travel Resources
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Romance is everywhere in gay Buenos Aires. The Porteños (local folk of the big capital city) are extremely passionate – and boy do they know how to celebrate being in love. Whether it’s taking a stroll in charming Puerto Madera, getting intimate while dancing Argentinian Tango or taking a picnic in one of the many beautiful gardens, the opportunities to spend a special moment with you lover are endless. Here are our top 5 romantic things to do in Buenos Aires.
#1 WATCH A TANGO SHOW
Tango is the romance of Argentina. This sensual dance which originates from Río de la Plata is so mesmerising that you could watch it for hours and not blink an eye. A candlelit dinner while watching a tango show is one of the best memories we have of Buenos Aires. There are plenty to choose from but our favourite which we absolutely recommend is Rojo Tango.
The setting for this intimate experience is in the luxurious Faena hotel in Puerto Madero. The dinner includes a three course Argentinian meal with drinks followed by an unforgettable show. Rojo Tango dinner and show starts from $298 per person.
Periodically we’ll feature one of our properties here to let our readers know about some great gay friendly places to stay:
Argentina is a fiery beacon of fabulousness in Latin America, which really embraces LGBT travellers. Perhaps our biggest test of how gay friendly a destination is: the response when we initially make contact with a few of the hotels and ask them if they’re ok hosting a gay couple, who want to sleep in a double bed.
Awkward silence? Straight out “no thanks we don’t do any of that here!” (yup – happened once in Crete, Greece). Or instead, a positive, welcoming response, baffled at the need to even ask this question in the first place?
Fortunately in Buenos Aires, we only ever got the latter response. Here’s our 5 favourite and unique gay friendly hotels to stay in Buenos Aires following our 2 months visit in this pink friendly city.
Poor Niagara!”
…so said the late Eleanor Roosevelt when she first came face to face with the almighty Iguazú Falls back in 1944.
The famous Falls are a bucket list destination for pretty much all travellers visiting Latin America. If it isn’t, it sure as hell should be. You can stand for hours marvelling at this sheer force of naturhere – spell bound, your hairs standing on end, getting completely soaked from the powerful spray, but without a care in the world.
It’s truly a mesmerising experience.
The Iguazú Falls are located in Northeast Argentina in the Misiones province, straddling the Brazilian border. Most visitors to Argentina make this their main destination after Buenos Aires, only spending 2 or 3 nights in Puerto Iguazú before moving on to another destination.
PHWOOOAAAR Argentina – all that delicious meat…you truly spoil us! Steak hunting became a daily pastime in Buenos Aires… “Which parilla shall we hunt out tonight my greedy Frenchman?” The Argentinian cuisine has a lot to offer, but for us meat lovers, we get particularly excited by the different meat cuts, styles of cooking the meat, accompanying sauces for the meats…and and…more and more meeeeeat!
Here’s our 10 favourite foods in Argentina, starting with the most famous, the tastiest, the best and one of the main reasons we were so excited to come here.
#1 MEAT! STEAK!! BEEF!!!
According to The Cattle Network, Argentina is 1 of 5 countries in the world, which has more cattle than people. Uruguay, Brazil, New Zealand and Australia being the other 4. The best way to enjoy a (few) good steaks is at a parilla (pronounced parisha in the Argentinian dialect). These are the steakhouses, with some of the best found in downtown Buenos Aires.
The parilla is the name of the large iron grill in which the meat is barbecued, and the occasion of going face down in large plates of barbecued meat with friends, laughter and plenty of wine is called an asado.
Where did all the young pretty Argentinian gay boys go? Córdoba!
This is the geographical heart of Argentina, famous for having the country’s oldest university and one of the fewest offering free education for all. As a result, Córdoba has a large student population – some claim up to 20% of its 1.4 million residents. Córdoba’s second biggest city brings with it a fun and exciting, albeit small gay scene, especially in the very Bohemian neighbourhood called Güemes.
WHERE IS GAY CÓRDOBA?
Córdoba is located in the centre of Argentina, around 700km (435 miles) Northwest of Buenos Aires. It is surrounded by picturesque valleys and mountains, called the Sierras de Córdoba, ideal for us adventure seeking nature lovers.
The Córdoba Province is especially famous for having the best, most fresh air in Argentina, thereby making it a place where Argentinians like to come to relax.
Gay Rosario is ripe, ready and just waiting for the gay boys to head on over. Historically, there’s always been an active gay scene here and as a result, it’s a popular destination for the Buenos Aires boys.
Rosario rivals Cordoba as the country’s 2nd city. It has around 1.3 million inhabitants and has always maintained a very relaxed and tolerant attitude, which is what makes it so gay friendly. Bridezilla Stefan was so excited to learn that Rosario was one of the first destinations in Latin America to allow any gay couple from around the world to marry here, regardless of citizenship or passport.
Steak is big business in Argentina. There’s more cows than people here and as a result the Argentinians have made steak a work of art.
There’s plenty of excellent parillas to enjoy some of the best steaks in the country, particularly in Buenos Aires, but we also wanted to take back this little souvenir with us.
Chimi churri is a popular Argentinian parsley based sauce to accompany a nicely prepared steak. We’ve included a quick easy recipe for it here.
The meat we used was matambre, which is a very thin cut of beef taken between the skin and ribs of the cow, like flank steak. Other personal favourites include bife de chorizo (sirloin) and ojo de bife (rib eye).
Our recipe for Argentinian steak with chimi churri involved baking the meat for around 1 hour and served with potatoes and vegetables cooked with it.
Next to a photography exhibition of transsexuals, Ruben Forace touches up his black eyeliner with one hand as he holds a balloon with the rainbow flag in the other. “My identity is ambiguous. I’m not trans because I didn’t get a gender-reassignment surgery and I don’t consider myself as a normal gay guy. My partners are heterosexuals and I don’t like going out with gay men,” he says.
Forace, who works as a tourist guide and has identified as a female cross-dresser for the past 10 years, says his identity is fluid. “During the day, I’m a man and I wear clothes for men. At night, when I go out dancing, I am a girl.” Forace goes by Tati at night.
Forace is one of hundreds of people participating in Buenos Aires’ LGBTIQ festival, a week-long series of events to celebrate sexual diversity. Organized by Argentina’s Tourism Ministry, the festival features drag queens shows, queer tango classes, sports activities, photography exhibitions, and business networking opportunities. For a week, the city’s pedestrian road signs changed to two men and two women.
Salta is surrounded by mountains on all sides?–?it’s a beautiful city in a unique location.
There are about 1.2 million people living in the province, and about 700,000 living in the city of Salta.
I spoke with Sebastian Simon who works for the local tourism office. He’s a young, gay guy. In his view Salta is quite a conservative place, but that increasing tourism is changing local attitudes and increasing the confidence and visibility of the LGBTI community in Salta.
Maam Salta: Museum of High Altitude Archaeology
The empire of the Incas included the Salta region and the territories of what is now north-western Argentina. Mount Llullaillaco in the province of Salta was the setting of one of the most important ceremonies of the Incas?–?the Capacocha?–?in which offerings were made to the gods.