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Published: July 20th 2009
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Next stop on our magical mystery tour was Buenos Aires, Argentina, where we were meeting me old mukka from school Neil (aka Campdog, Coolio, The “big C”, Lumberjack Neil, etc). We arrived on a flight from Quito at 6 am in the morning, strangely via Panama airport (the things we do to save twenty squid) and jumped in a cab straight to the hostel. We decided to stay in the Milhouse, a party hostel famed because you get a free t-shirt if you can survive 7 nights in there. Anyway, as we rolled up at 7am, after 28hours on the move, we were gutted to find that there were no beds available until 1pm. The only shining light was the Lions second test match at 10am local time that would pass some of the morning. Camps arrived from Iguasso Falls at about 8am so we had a catch up over some brekkie.
As we sat in the communal area, people staying there started to come home from their night out. It was like a procession of the drunkest and most chemically enhanced people on the planet, all in one room! It set the scene nicely for 5 nights of mayhem
rarely seen since Magaluf in 1998. Campdog was a menace from start to finish, insisting on constantly putting a quim in front of our yellow eyeballs (Quim is the local lager of choice, aka Quilmes). He was helped mightily by our swiss roommate, a sexpest of chronic proportions who used the f-word more times than lee-anne. One night Camps got so lashed that he began to crawl on the dorm room floor in this boxers making high pitched squeaky noises, hilarious! Anyway, the general pattern was get up at 4pm, use the one remaining hour of daylight to try and see something (usually just a cafe for brekky) have a cheeky beer, pop back and get ready, have some more drinks, go for food at 10pm, stay out til 6am.
We did manage to do a few things while there - a 4 hour city bus tour (that Lee and I fell asleep on due to lash fatigue and Camps did not even make it onto), the famous Recoleta cemetery where Evita is buried, buy a leather jacket each (and some other gear in the wicked shops), go to a Tango class and tango show (cleverly incorporated into a
night out as the wine was free), visit all the cool neighbourhoods, went to an amazing drum show called Bomba del Tiempo.
Buenos Aires is an amazing city that we preferred to Rio, and we definitely want to go back some time (without Camps). The nightlife and clubs were amazing, even on Sunday and Monday nights, but perhaps the best bit of all was the “Parrilla”. Parrilla are steakhouses where you get the most ridiculously big fillet steak for 3 quid (25 quid back home and not as good), and quality house red wine for 1 quid per half litre. The steak was so good (and we were so hungover) that Camps and Lee-Anne took to ordering it without any side orders, just a massive medium rare badboy in the middle of the plate. One night we went out with a veggie who may as well have been sat in an abattoir as we devoured red meat like cavemen. Immense.
My bday (Lee-Anne here) was another highlight. We went to a fancy restaurant called Spettus, chandeliers and the like! For starters there was a massive buffet and for mains there was of course meat! We had a little
card set on our table, one side green and the other red. When the card had the green side showing the waiters came to our table with a constant flow of meat of all varieties. Neil thought he was Billy Big Bollocks and would keep the card on green the whole night...however, after about 2hours (and after 20 of the 30 different meats on offer had been consumed) the fillet steak covered in cheese was the last straw...we were defeated. I’ve never seen so much god damn meat, the monster ball of protein could still be felt in our stomachs 2 days later.
Afterwards, it was difficult to put one leg past the other, but as always, Campos was adamant that we head to another club, Kika, especially egged on by his Swiss ally! Neil and I were close to tears. We made it home by 4am, Camps returned at 6am!
The final night, Neil and I decided to take it easy and headed to bed around 2ish, a very respectable hour for the Mill House. Camps and the Swiss lad headed to a party but Camps said he’d only be an hour. So 7am arrived and there
was Camps strolling in from his night out, lashed to the max, barely able to construct a sentence. Later we woke to find him fully clothed on his bunk with all his money and possessions laid out beside him on the bed! The man could not be woken and we had a bus to catch that day. Eventually we told him to meet us at the bus station when he got his act together. Fair play to him, he made it the station before we did despite being in a pretty much broken state. To quote the man himself “physically I’m about 2 out of 10 and emotionally...3”. That rapidly descended to minus figures when he puked at 11pm on the 22 hour bus ride!
The next morning we arrived in Bariloche, a very quaint little town full of chocolate shops and surrounded by lots of lovely lakes and mountains, similar to Switzerland. We had hoped to go skiing here but our hopes were soon dashed when we found out that the slopes were not open. Instead we went for a mini hike to come across what is considered to be one of the top 10 views in the
world, see pics. Other activities included hiring a car, however our road trip had to be abandoned to due snow blizzards. Due to the constant rain we took to sitting in pubs, playing cards and just generally chilling. That was until Camps heard tell of a pub called Wilkenney’s that only got started at around 3am. Of course poor old Neil was dragged along for yet another all nighter. Neil returned at 6am having propped himself up against a pillar for the best part of the night. Camps, our favourite party goer, returned an hour later, the boy’s got stamina!
Neil and I made plans to head to Pucon in Chile. Camps decided he would begin his journey back to BA via Puerta Madryn, to do some whale watching. We all said our goodbyes and Neil and I walked away ready for some serious detox action. We thought Camps might have been of the same mindset but we were soon to learn that he had teamed up with a pair of English guys and was tormenting the locals with his interesting dance moves...hardcore until the end!
Next stop, Pucon, Chile...
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