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Published: January 2nd 2011
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From Iguassu Falls to Argentina´s capital Buenos Aires we had our longest bus journey so far, a mere 18 hours. However, this was ´Cama´ class, which means blankets, pillows, films, food, champagne and seats that are just short of fully reclining, this travelling lark is a doddle.
Our first night in Buenos Aires saw us out with an Irish couple that we met at our hostel and shared the bus journey with. Nothing to write home about, except for the cab driver who seemed confused as to his occupation, taking us on a tour of the city (even doing laps as we past the same places twice). After a while he stopped we got out, refusing to go any further and a local policeman got involved, quite the diplomat considering our lack of Spanish. It resulted in us paying him 20 pesos for the tour and making our way back to the hostel.
Sunday we stolled around the many parks and gardens in Palermo, the upmarket area of BA, as the weather was very nice (about 25 degrees) and visited the artisan street market in San Telmo. Lunched on empanadas (spicy pasties which would find a regular place in
our diets), and two burritos from a street vendor all for about 27 pesos, $4.50 ($=British Pound due to keyboard limitations). That night, James (me), went to Club One with others from the hostel, it was a good night with Ibiza house type music and the club had 4 floors with a huge lightshow running from the ceiling to the dancefloor.
Monday we were off to Recolletta, with the same group from the hostel, to see a famous cemetary with the grave of Eva Peron (Evita, a famous Argentinian whose husband was Presidente), wandering around the tombs was strange, with the coffins being all on display and above ground. For lunch/dinner we headed back to San Telmo for Bife De Chorizo, a massive steak which we split between the two of us, all for about $15. That night we went to La Bomba de Tiempo, a Drum Show in a huge warehouse space, basically a massive hippy fest, full of dred locks and space cakes. Once this finished we headed back to San Telmo and went to a Tango club, which had a live band and many locals showing off their tango moves.
Tuesday we chilled out at
the hostel as the city was very hot, in the evening we went to the bus station and managed to get bus tickets by the skin of our teeth, out of about 25 companies only one still had seats on the bus to Salta before Christmas! Later that night we partied at 1.00am and stayed up till the wee hours and saw sunrise with a few guys from our hostel.
Wednesday saw us wandering through La Boca (where we also saw La Bombonera, home of La Boca Juniors), an area full of colourful colonial buildings due to the influence of a local artist. We stopped at a local cafe for Mate, an Argentinian herbal drink which apparently gives you energy. Everyone in Argentina seems to be addicted to this stuff and carry around all the equipment everywhere, there are also a lot of rules about how you should drink it. Jane apparently had so much she decided (was forced) to join in the Tango Show, judging by the colour of her cheeks she was a little embarassed to say the least, and I had a great laugh as the guy was half a foot shorter than her and donned
some white loafers, possibly from Romford or Basvegas.
Later that night, we learned a German guy at the hostel, who I had been playing pool with and couldn´t stop saying "You have got to be shittin´ me" in a German accent (he´s German) whenever he missed (which was often), was mugged! Twice!! On the same trip!!! On his way to the supermarket, someone had asked him for change and then decided to lighten his load further, by claiming he had a knife in pocket. Then on returning a group of 10 came behind and made a belated attempt at taking his money, to which his reply was " You have got to be shittin´ me, I have just been mugged". They retorted, "ok, give us your MP3 player". He seemed unscathed by this and was not hurt, just very unfortunate!!
That night we header to La Cabrera, one of the fanciest steak restuarants in Buenos Aires, most recommended by all the travel guides. We again had a massive Bife de Chorizo (rump and sirloin), with about 10 accompaniments, the best of which was a spinach sauce with cream. Oh and while you´re waiting in the queue for a
table they bring canapes and champagne!! After all our food and a nice bottle of Argentinean wine, the total bill came to about 26 pounds!!
On our last day we headed to the zoo, and saw white lions, tigers, panthers, grizzly bears, elephants, monkeys, seals, and giant turtles (1 meter high), before heading back to the hostel to collect our things and catch our overnight bus to Salta. On route to the bus station we hit a lot of traffic, which meant we had to jump out of our taxi early in order to make our bus. After 10 minutes of power walking (making our pre-bus showers redundant) we arrived to complete chaos! We couldn´t find our bus anywhere (70 platforms) and nobody could help us, by this point our bus should have left 10 minutes ago and Jane was pretty much ready to cry! Fortunately we found somebody who spoke English who explained that all of the buses were delayed and so we should sit and just wait until it turned up, which luckily it did an hour later!!
Next stop is Salta for Christmas.
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