Buenos Aires, Hazel and a MacbookPro

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I arrived in Buenos Aires a few days ago, and its a pretty nice place. Getting out from the airport into the the lovely warm sun, driving on a motorway with greeeeeen on the sides was heavenly after months in the bare Andes, seeing desert and rock everywhere. Its a proper massive city this place with 20 lane roads (widest in the world I think) and sex shops.

The spanish they speak here is a bit weird though, different from the parts of South America Ive been in the last few months, so understanding is a bit hard. I havent seen loads of the city yet, primarily because Ive been sleeping most of the time, not sure why. Ive got this theory that my body is now recovering from the excesses of Loki Hostel Lima, so guess this is detox time.

Hazel got here a couple of days ago as well, which was lovely since I havent seen her in months. She is also happy to sew up all the holes in my clothes which is good, was getting a bit worried about those for a while. She also brought along two lovely gifts. First my beloved laptop, which Im typing on right now, and I cannot explain how good it feels. Really. And second, another camera lense which is great since Ive been taking pictures for the last few months on a broken lense (in case that wasnt evident from the blog)

Ive also reached a new level of brokeness I didnt know existed. Put it this way, ATMs are refusing to give me more than 50 pesos (15 dollars or 7.5 quid). Apparently my "account has insufficient funds for this operation". Pah! Which is not helpful in a country that is a lot more expensive than I thought. Even cheap meals invariably cost around 15 pesos ($5), which for a man who has not spent more than 6 soles ($2) on a meal in the last month in Lima, is a bit of a problem. Coupled with a girlfriend who wants me to take her to five course meals every evening, Im having trouble sleeping at night.

I am also currently the proud owner of a return ticket Buenos Aires-Lima after the whole overbooking fiasco. We tried to be a bit cheeky and exchange it for 2 flights to Mendoza (a town in the west of Argentina) but the airline lady told us to piss off. Very politely of course, but she definitely said piss off. So we ended up having to buy bus tickets to Mendoza, but were leaving tonight which is nice, since Ive been in big cities for a while now and it would be nice to get out into the countryside again.

Thats about it really. Hazel is getting irritated with my blogging and wants to drag me off to some museum/art gallery or the other. Ive somehow managed with lots of blagging, whinging and complaining to avoid a museum visit with her in the last 2 days, but unfortunately its coming to that point where you realise that you have to resign yourself to your fate, and try and bear it with a smile.

Pics soon, must be boring reading all this text.

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Photos

One of those stand still like a statue dudes
except hes sitting on a camel..impressive stuff

9 de Julio obelisk
very famous

Doggies at the tube
In Buenos Aires you get loads of dog-walker dudes for people who are too lazy to walk their own dogs. So you see a little guy, normally smoking a joint followed by about 25 dogs. And as is evident in the picture, sometimes when he takes a break he ties them up to metro entrances.

Plaza de Mayo
The main square

A nice purple tree
See title

European style
Many buildings here could have been taken out of any old European capital

Walking out of the tube
Thats Hazel, I wasnt taking pictures of random women.

Haze
Doing her dontpissmeoff look

A shopping centre...
...though if you look carefully deep into the picture, you can see the SEX SHOP sign!!

My crocked camera lense
the reason why my pictures have been a bit messed up for the last few months