We arrived in Montevideo about 12 days ago via a boat trough the Delta from Tigre in Argentina to Carmelo in Uruguay. On the journey we noticed Tigre actually had a theme park (we hadn't done much as it had been raining) and saw lots of little houses dotted through the bush including little old rotting boat-houses with people putting out their washing and drinking mate. oh the simple life! We found our host family pretty soon after arriving as it had a giant Couch Surfer logo on the wall outside it and were greeted by our host Ramón who had [View Full Entry]

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Next Derick and I moved onto a Couchsurfers place out in Flores, a suburb just out of the city. We met our host Bent from Mexico and his French girlfriend, Cecile, on arrival and looked around the place. It was a bit shabby with outside-looking bricks on the inside and two Estonians were surfing there already so we had the floor. They had a great rooftop though and Parilla (BBQ machine) up top. We ended up hanging out with the large array of people which included Tolga from Turkey, Mel from San Fransisco (here to dance Tango) and Alfonso from Meixco. [View Full Entry]

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We then moved to Stuart and Ashley's place in San Telmo. They were Americans living in Buenos Aires working in wine tastings and buying and they had a really sweet pad. A nice house with a big sunny kitchen, three levels with a Parilla and a table up top for drinking wine. They also had flatmates from Germany and France so quite an international bunch. The first night we went and bought some meat and vege (meat was cheaper of course) and cooked an asado (the BBQ food), complete with good wine and salad. We chatted a bit about their experiences [View Full Entry]

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Just before I leave Buenos Aires alone I just want to note a few observations I made: 1. Argentineans love their sweets - there is a sweet shop on every corner and in between. They also have coffee black with sugar for breakfast and dulce de leche on toast- basically sweetened condensed milk! I have been consuming at least three times the sugar I normally do back home. 2. Portenos (people of Buenos Aires) are helpful if you are lost but always suspicious of others. 'go this way but be careful of the others' or 'that other way is dangerous'. They [View Full Entry]

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On my second day I headed out into this scary new city (not really but I am sometimes pessimistic until proven wrong) and walked from my hostel to the Plaza Italia and gardens and around there.. It was very pleasent, European with statues in Roman style. One that had me laughing was the statue of 5 people in a state of drunkiness and falling over. Now why don´t we have statues like that in NZ? Later I asked at the hostel what there is to do on a Sunday and they reccomended the San Telmo markets and to go by Subte [View Full Entry]

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So after much stress and running around and almost thinking I was going to miss the flight, amoung other things, and utilizing all of my Espanol I have arrived at my backpackers in Palermo, Buenos Aires! First of all my flight from Wellington to Auckland with good ol Jetstar was an hour and a half DELAYED. Aghh I heard they were delayed but you know when you have your fingers crossed that it isn´t you? We waited for ages in a hot room waiting to get on while this kid told funny and bizare stories to me and a group of [View Full Entry]

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