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Published: October 13th 2009
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Waiting for yet another night bus so here's the story so far for Argentina. After a lovely night sleeping like babies in first class we arrived the border town of Villazon around 7am. After what they told us was a qiuck walk over the border (more like an hours walk) we arrived La Quica. La Quica is a typical S American border town, lots of tourists and lots of people out to fleece the tourists. For the first hour we chased around trying to find a bank to pay for the bus outta there cause some genuis guy we met crossing the border told us "don't change ur money at this place, they'll charge a fortune" Tosser! If you read this Adrian, sorry mate. In all honesty he was pretty sound, but that pissed me off. Missed the first bus outta town because of this, and then had to kill time for 3 hrs while Adrian argued with various bus officials about when the next one was. One bus official was an absolute crook, adding 10 pesos to the ticket without saying anything, and then running round the terminal telling the other guys to do the same to us when we
refused to pay and looked elsewhere. Got a ticket for normal price after much hassle down to Salta, where Adrian continued on his way to Iguasu, and we stayed over for a couple of nights.
The hostel owner in Salta was a proper character, some aged Argentinian hippy who was so pleased we decided to stay at his hostel theat he got smashed, urging us to do the same. A few hours later there was a handful of us sat round the reception singing Spanish songs while the receptionist, a Keanu Reeves lookalike called Matthias, strummed away on the guitar. Well everyone else sang Spanish songs, me n Hels unfortunately don't speak a great deal of Spanish so we felt kinda out of it. Still, a good fun night all round. Salta is a beautiful city but prob not the best place to visit unless ur fluent in Spanish. After a couple of days in Salta we decided to skip the night bus option and flew to Buenos Aries, 2 hrs much better then 20 hrs, even if it was 10x the price of a bus ticket.
Been staying at Hostal Carlos Gardel for the past 4 nights, very nice
hostel with very nice rooms. Had quite a busy time of it here and I reckon we must have seen a lot of the city, certainly to the West and South. First night we went for dinner in the San Telmo district, kinda like the Mayfair of Buenos Aries-and we rocked up in sandals and a pair of combats-big mistake, but thats where the guidebook told us to go. Spent the evening being stared at by old men in suits while we ate as quickly as we could and got the hell outta there. The food was excellent tho. Next day took a wander round town, did a little shopping and also headed over to Caminito Street, famous for it's Tango dancing and multicoloured buildings-even met Maradonna there. Yesterday and today have been spent around the park to the south of the city. Big huge park with lovely lakes and beautiful gardens. Took a 2 hr walk there from the hostel yesterday, wandered around for a couple of hours and then walked back, worked it out on google and it reckons we did 10 miles, walked there thismorning too so the knees are a little sore now. Buenos Aries is
a beatiful place but the people are very rude and snobby, which kinda spoils it. Very glad I came and is well worth a visit but I dont think I'd ever come back. Off to Iguasu tonight, be there for the next 4 days. Update u after that. Love to all, Happy Anniversary Mum n Dad and Happy Birthday Mum.
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