Back to blogging
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010Whistler, BC, Canada
It’s been more than two months now since my last entry so I guess it’s time to stop being lazy and update my blog!
Last time I wrote I was in Buenos Aires, a city with good weather, great food and all of those things that support a superb lifestyle. But I have written about that kinda thing more than often enough, so let’s write about something else; POLO!
Where football is the sport of the Argentine people, Polo is the sport of the Argentine elite. It’s big and it’s the best. People from all over the world come to Argentina to get polo classes and to visit polo games, preferably those from the Campeonato Argentino Abierto de Polo, world’s most prestigious polo tournament, held every November in the centre of Buenos Aires.
Can you imagine a sportscomplex 10 times the area of a football field (a polo field is 300×160 yards) in the centre of New York, Paris or Amsterdam? Polo has enough status to stay on the most expensive ground of Argentina…
We watched the quarter final of the Campeonato Argentino de Polo (Argentine Open Polo Championship) together with 30.000 other spectators including a good amount of European and American polo fanatics that flew over to watch the game.
La Dolfina, the team in white only had players with the highest ranking (10). A polo team has 4 players and if I remember correctly there were only 13 players with a 10 ranking in the world at that time, of which 11 were Argentine.
Because polo is very intensive for the horses, a player uses about 4 of them every game and switches every 5 minutes or so.
If you’re ever around Buenos Aires in November, definitely go watch a game. It’s impressive to see those guys hit a small ball with a stick while riding a horse going like 40km/hour?
And the game isn’t even the best part. After the game there’s a big after-party in the stadium bars, sponsored and named after Dom Perignon, Moet&Chandon etc, where the rich and famous Portenos see and be seen. So don’t go home after the game and have a glass for cultural experience’s sake 
After Buenos Aires I headed to Brazil for it’s beaches and world-famous New Year’s parties. We picked Florianopolis, a peninsula in the south of Brazil and that was an excellent choice. It’s the favorite New year’s vacation destination for the Brazilians from Porto Alegre and Sao Paulo and known as one of the best surf hotspots in Brazil. The place had a very relaxed beach vibe by day and was bumping at night with many parties in the clubs close to the beach. I’d love to go back some time to learn Portuguese.
Apartment view over Lagoa de Conceicao, the lake you see is very close to the sea that’s behind the mountains.
Praia Mole, one of Floripa’s most popular beaches.
We celebrated New Years at Reveillon Boutique, a huge tent build up at the beach. It’s nice to celebrate New Years with 25 degrees celsius, watching the sun come up in the early morning 
I’m planning to blog some on the Olympics and skiing over here in BC, so keep an eye on the blog…
Hope you’re all doing well,
V.