Buenos Aires - where have you been all my life?

---

Waking up with a dirty hangover and knowing you have to check out of your hotel, speed down to the bus terminal where you will await your 20 hour bus ride is never much fun.... we took quite a while to get going that day. We arrived down at the bus terminal. Leigh was in charge of getting us some iceblocks while i lay slumped over our bags.
The highlight of my morning was being in the kiosk at the bus terminal and the radio was playing "girls just want to have fun". I was paying for yet another ice block and the woman behind the counter bellowed out a line of the song. I burst out laughing, i just couldn´t help it.

There is actually an upside to 20 hours on an overnight bus though - i could sleep off my hangover and not feel guilty. We were interrupted every now and then with hot meals, snacks, champagne(!) and snoring. At one stage the snoring of the man across the aisle reached fever pitch and leigh reached over and gave his pillow a good tug which made the man sleepily punch the air a few times and then nestle back down and start all over again. Leigh told me she even beat his arm with her 7up bottle a few times throughout the night, wish i had seen it! Another bonus was i am now upto speed with every Roxette music video ever made. They seem to be a hit here.

We arrived in Buenos Aires the next morning with enough time to check into our hotel, shower and head downtown to the Day Spa we were booked into. We had booked this weeks prior, so were very excited. We were scrubbed, rubbed, wrapped, primped, preened, ponced & pimped. Heaven. And this place was flash.

We were now ready to hit Buenos Aires with a vengeance. We wandered through the streets gobsmacked at the amazing sights, people, stores, everything. Yes, we had arrived.

Now, the tables have turned a little. I am no longer being stared at. It is now me doing the staring! The people of Argentina are really an attractive bunch. They are well heeled and have an admirable air of confidence about them. I am truly intrigued...

I was having a good old peer at the table of men next to us in the restaurant that night only to be told by a guy we were having dinner with that one of the men was quite famous here in Argentina. I guessed football, to which i was right. One of the guys was a player for Boca Juniors, BA's biggest team. Thinking i may have been had on, we were shown a newspaper when we were back at the hotel and there was his picture, alongside the whole team, where they had won a local championship the night before!

The next day Leigh and I went to Cafe Tortoni, one of the oldest cafes in BA. It was just beautiful inside. Apparently they crank out a bit of tango on occasions. Did we see any? No.

We spent the rest of the afternoon sifting the streets, dodging traffic, taking everything in. I love it here.

Today was our first day of the tour, so that night was our first get together to meet our tour leader and the rest of the group. Our group is a mixed grill of Poms, an Aussie and some token Irish peeps.

We went to a Parilla (steakhouse) for dinner and then hit the streets of San Telmo, a funky area with plenty of bars and good nightlife. 4 of us ended up in a Nightclub called El Museo. Now this place was HUGE!. If anyone remembers the Gasolina song it was all that same sort of music (no idea what to call it), and the actual Gasolina song did come on. The music then turned into crappy techno around 4 am and we made our exit, grabbing a pastry from a man selling on the side of the road, and lurching home.

---

Photos

El Museo
Green tshirt man enters the scene... Watch the Argentinian charm his way in!