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Published: July 19th 2007
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We arrived in Buenos Aires having heard great things from other travellers. As soon as we got to the city the atmosphere was fantastic and we loved it straight away. The sky was a brilliant blue despite it being the middle of winter and the people were friendly. We went to the centre of town walking down pretty tree lined streets full of lovely shops and cafes. It wasn´t long before Buenos Aires famous cafe culture tempted us and throughout our stay we definitely had our fair share of cake, coffee and dulce de leche. We spent the afternoon browsing the lovely shops, looking forward to some serious retail therapy later in our stay. That evening we headed to the picturesque waterfront to find some authentic Argentinian steak and wine. We definitely found the right place complete with the semi final of copa America playing - Argentina vs Mexico. The food was absolutlely fantastic with buffet salad and cheese bar and waiters floating around ready to carve fresh, beautifully cooked meat from skewers onto your plate. Best meat we have ever tasted! And to complement the food we had our first of many bottles of red wine. Argentinian red is
great! Finally the waiter gave us free champers after we cheered Argentina on to a 3-0 victory over Mexico! What a night!
After another day of browsing shops and wandering the streets of Buenos Aires we decided to pop over to Uruguay for a couple of days. We got the early morning ferry followed by a bus to the capital, Montevideo. Here we enjoyed some more shopping! Browsing the many stalls and markets. All very christmassy with the cold weather, roasted chesnuts and shopping! In the evening we went to the famous Mercado del Puerto for a very fancy meal. Montevideo comes alive at night with its pretty cobbled streets lit up and the bars and clubs. Spent that night in a bit of a dive where we felt like something from a child cruelty advert mostly due to the freezing cold, lack of blankets and general grubbiness! The next day, having escaped the dive we went to the pretty sea side town of Colonia. This was very cute full of small cobbled streets and pretty parks. Lovely in the winter but in the summer it must be buzzing with tourists. A great place to visit.
Back in
Buenos Aires we were minding our own business wandering back from the ferry when the most shocking thing happened. Someone tried to rob us! A clever scam involving throwing nasty smelling goo on us and then pretending to "help" us by wiping it off our backs while simultaneously riffling through our backpacks! Luckily Helen got suspicious, turned around and grabbed the guys wrist. Even more luckily all he was gonna get were a few clothes and a toilet bag as all our money and valuables were safely in the bags we carry on our front. All very funny really, we wonder how successful they are.
On Sunday we took to the tourist trail visiting the antiques market in San Telmo. An amazing collection of weird and wonderful things ranging from ancient radios and gramaphones to huge arrays of beautiful jewellery. Very fun place with lots of street entertainment including tango dancing, living statues and crazy old drum playing women! After San Telmo we walked to La Boca. The attraction here an amazing collection of streets where the houses are made of corrugated iron painted in beautiful bright colours. Very touristy but also very fun and busy with tango dancing
again and shops and restaurants. We then headed to the centre in search of a bar to watch the final of Copa America - Argentina v Brazil. A huge game especially since Argentina were after revenge! We settled down to watch in a crowded bar but it was soon obvious Brazil were the better team! The goals were amazing but the Argentinians didn´t seem too disappointed. Would have been good to celebrate a win but we settled for more of the Argentinan red!
Our last day was spent shopping shopping shopping! Might have gone a bit mad on the spending but it was worth it for all the amazing things we got including beautiful leather boots. Apparently Buenos Aires is famous for leather and fur as it was everywhere! That evening we celebrtaed our last night in style going to a tango show. This started with a tango lesson! Very funny and a great laugh but don´t think we´ve mastered it quite yet! We then had an amazing meal with unlimited bottles of wine! (which we definitely took advantage of!) After the meal we were treated to a tango show with amazing dancers and music. So dramatic and great
to watch.
Although still slightly drunk we flew to Sao Paulo in the early hours of the next morning. Arriving we were picked up by Helen´s Brazilian friend, Vanessa. We had a lovely day being shown round the highlights of the huge city! We strolled around the Avenida Paulista, admiring the huge sky scrapers and strange looking buildings. We also visited a big park which was very pretty and green with a nice lake complete with black swans. That night we went out for sushi in the Japanese area of town. The sushi was amazing and we were lucky enough to enjoy it in Sao Paulo which has the largest Japanese population outside Japan.
Next stop sunshine in Paraty.............
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Jeff
non-member comment
Hmm, I wonder if the goo thing would work down scunthorpe high street or not?