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Published: August 13th 2007
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Next was a return bus to Buenos Aires, where we treated ourselves to a boutique hotel for a night after the privations of the jungle. Life for the first week in B.A. was quite relaxed because it is not a city where there are lots of sights to rush around seeing but more somewhere to soak up the atmosphere. It is so cheap in BA we ate like kings. We borrowed the Wallpaper city guide, which in most countries would contain restuarants that are completely our of our price league, but are affordable in Argentina. We therefore had the most amazing meals, from champagne brunches at designer restaurants to superb bottles of Malbec with meat and cheese platters to sushi at minimalist Japanese establishments. Not forgetting of course the steak, which is the most amazing we have ever tasted in our lives and literally melts in the mouth. In fact most of the pictures we have taken in B.A. seem to involve some kind of eating! The only downside to this was that we only had a summer wardrobe when we arrived and it is winter in Argentina. The clothes there are actually the only really expensive thing and it was
hard for me to find any to fit me. I am therefore ashamed to admit that I went to some of the finer establishments in BA in trainers and an eight pounds C&A ski jacket! Fortunately there did not seem to be any pretension to these places and they welcomed us in . While we were there we also enjoyed browsing the famous San Telmo antique market and watching tango dancing in the streets. You may have also seen that we brought Garnham's Law with us to BA and they had snow for the first time in 89 years! Most people hadn't seen snow in their lifetimes and they were all just standing there looking at it in astonishment!
As those who know me well will testify to (particularly my Dad!), I like a bit of health tourism, and needed to find somewhere for my 3 monthly check up in BA: Some friends of friends kindly found a hospital that I could go to. I think I imagined them to speak slightly more English, however, and it made for an interesting discussion with me employing my best Spanglish and hand gestures to explain what I needed. We got there
in the end though and it was a pleasure to get a big hug and kiss from the Doctor at the end of the consultation, which apparently is normal here. In fact they are very big in to kissing here - although only on one cheek - an Argentinian had great amusement at Bruce´s expense when he tried to kiss her on both cheeks! I quite liked it, although it can be quite time consuming - when you walk into a room you are expected to kiss everyone present. It took Bruce a bit of time and lots of schoolgirlish giggling on my behalf to get used to men kissing him in greeting. Another cultural difference is the time they go out to eat - they won't normally go to a restaurant before 10 o'clock and if you turn up earlier than that you're eating with the waiters! We realised we had adjusted to this rather too much when we went to meet a friend for a quick drink at 1.30 in the morning!
We spent the second week learning Spanish and staying in our favourite part of BA, Palermo. It is the creative hub and is so individual.
All the shops are different architecturally and do different things like painting flowers all over the outside walls or having photos of models displaying the clothes rather than mannequins in the window. The Nike store there was nothing like the ones elsewhere in the world and was decorated to look like someone's home with sofas and coffee tables. There was also a phone shop (basically carphone warehouse equivalent) which was amazing. It was a long oval shaped bunker with antique furniture and lights, it was a great mixture of old and new which an art space in London would not even match let alone a phone shop!
While in BA we also took a day trip to Colonia in Uruguay. It is a really quaint village and it feels like you've gone back in time about fifty years. On arrival we decided to hire mopeds to get around on. Bruce got on his and darted up the road and back while the guy was explaining to me in Spanish how to drive the things. I must admit I didn't really understand what he was saying but thought I had the principle and knew where the brake and accelerator were.
I asked Bruce to get out of the way, which he was slightly bemused about as I was facing across the road rather than along the road. Not exactly sure what happened but I accelerated far too much and went darting across the road narrowly missing a lampost and the ''Welcome to Uruguay' sign. Fortunately I was not hurt, otherwise Bruce's laughing would have been deeply inappropriate! After this little incident I was not allowed to hire a moped and was ordered, suitably chastened, on to the back of my husbands bike! After lunch in the village, we had the most beautiful ride up the coast of Uruguay watching the sun setting over the sea.
Next stop after BA was Mendoza, a town in the Andes near the border with Chile. It was nice to get out of the city again and enjoy a different pace of life. There was lots to do there and we spent one of the days trekking and horse riding in the Andes. My horse reminded me of the Shetland pony I had as a child as he was black, small and extremely naughty. He was also the 'Bruce Garnham' of the horse world
in that he had to stop to eat every five minutes while all the others walked on and left us behind. For my early Birthday present we spent a day in Cacheuta, which has hot springs and the most amazing thermal baths overlooking the Andes and I had a one hour massage for a tenner! Bruce and I particularly enjoyed covering ourselves in the mud there, leaving it to dry and washing it off. Our skins were so soft afterwards, although I think Bruce´s motivation might have been more for the novelty of covering himself in mud and the subsequent photos!
We also did a tour of local vineyards by bike. Bruce bought a bottle of wine from one which then fell off the back and smashed. He then got a flat tyre but luckily the guy from the bike hire place passed in his van a little later and promptly swapped the bike for another one...also with a flat tyre!! Gracias amigo! We´d been to 3 vineyards by the time we stopped for a very late lunch. We were supposed to back at 6pm which seemed too much like hard work getting back because we were pretty drunk
and tired so a girl we were with phoned up the company and got us picked up like helpless children on a school trip!
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