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Published: January 25th 2013
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When I landed in Buenos Aires I once again got punished for being Australian and copped a $100US reciprocity fee for flying into the country. The annoying thing about this one though was that unlike with Chile where you could pay it on arrival it had to be prepaid and the receipt needed to be printed and presented to customs on arrival. While I had tried to pay it a couple of days before I left, the quality of the wifi was so poor that it kept on timing out. Although I did manage to pay it the night before I was due to fly out, I was unable to find a printer. Let's just say that the customs official wasn't too impressed when I pulled out my iPhone at the customs desk to show him an electronic copy of the receipt. I personally don't see what the issue was. At least I paid the damn thing.
Ruth, an Irish girl that I befriended in Spanish school, and I checked into the Millhouse hostel which is meant to be one of the infamous party hostels of South America. I must admit that I was mildly surprised at the
lack of party given its reputation. The hostel has two hostels about three blocks away from each other and they alternate their party nights. As it was a Saturday night we were both pretty keen to get out and see the BA nightlife. Our plan was quickly foiled however when one of the hostel buses that transports us out let me onto the bus but not Ruth and once at the venue I never saw her again.
Considering that I was only there for a couple of nights Ruth and I played the ultimate tourists. We checked out the Sunday markets, La Boca (which is an area of town full of colourful buildings, the tango and home of one of Argentinas football teams. Also an absolute tourist trap) and the Recoletta cemetery which was absolutely amazing as it was like a small village full of beautifully crafted family crypts made of marble. We also went to dinner at La Cabrera. Which according to the Lonely Planets top things to do in BA is number 26 on the list. How a restaurant makes the list is beyond me, but I must admit the meat was pretty amazing. Also
for tourists they have a happy hour from 7pm so all the meat is 50% off which makes it so much better! And lets face it, it's nice to have dinner at a logical time every now and then.
All too soon Ruth sadly had to leave me and I met up with another friend from school Nastassja, who's Swiss so we could catch a ferry over to Uruguay and this small little town called Colonia de Sacramento. CdS was a very tranquil town full of cobblestoned streets and people driving around in golf buggies. It was however located on a massive river that is dirtier than the Yarra which really didn't impress me much. All I want in life is to see a beautiful beach with nice blue water!!
Montevideo, the countries capital also disappointed on the water front. Being situated on the same river as CdS probably had something to do with it, however it was so wide by this point that we couldn't even see the other side. The hostel that we checked into, Ukulele was pretty amazing. It had a beautiful pool in the backyard and even a music room.
Nastassja and I spent a couple of days roaming around the city on bikes, watching the sunset and hanging out in the pool. It was really good to have some down time after so many weeks of late nights.
One of the things that Nastassja and I could not get our heads around was some of the fashion trends in Uruguay. Remember the platform shoes that the spice girls used to wear in the 90's? Well they are out in force here. Not only can you get platformed sandals, but you can also get platformed tux shoes and ballet flats! Even havianians have released a platform thong. Talking about producing for the markets. Also Nike have released a flat shoe/ sneaker thing that has the material of the shoe going in between the big toe and the second toe like those shoes that you can wear in the surf. Why?! What would possess this country of people to wear things like that? It almost makes the crocs that they also run around in seem desirable!
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