Christmas 2005 in Buenos Aires

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Thanks for all your cards and messages and really thoughtful pressies, it was great to recieve a bag full of goodies via Andrew and Susan and really exciting when we arrived at the Hilton and there were christmas cards waiting for us.

As you know we had been disappointed with the lack of Christmas cheer in the run up to Christmas as we faithfully towed our own mini chritmas tree (arbolito) around with us to cheer up dingy hostel rooms - but everything changed the minute we arrived in BA.

On our first night we met up with Andrew and Susan who are out here on holiday and went out for a parilla (steak house). As happens out here in South America we turned a corner and found ourselves in the middle of a carnaval. Possibly on a smaller scale than Rio but with the same rhythms and scantily clad ladies it was hard for Susan and I to convince the boys to move on to the restaurant. The restaurant itself had its own entertainment as it was filled with sporting paraphenalia and the obligatory pictures of Diego Maradona the national hero. We even had to wait outside the restaurant on the subs bench for a table to become free!

The next day having indulged in a spot of retail therapy at Zara (look for the new outfits in the photos!) we spent the afternoon in Recoletta visiting the famous cemetary where Evita is buried and various museums. And then it was time for “check in”.

Between us we had a load of Hilton club points and decided we should spend them over Christmas. Courtesy of spending half of 2004 in Blackpool hotels, Claire was recently made gold vip member (hark at her an' all) and it all came together to entitle us to a wonderful room with a great view in a great hotel. We were especially pleased when we learned that breakfast, afternoon tea and the cocktail hour was all inclusive - we are lucky to have bed springs included in most the hostels we stay in! So we hurried off to get lost in the bathroom and fluffy towels.

Christmas Eve night (Buena Noche) is the main celebration over here and the 4 of us were spending it together dining in the atrium of the hotel which although not decked out with boughs of holly had a 50ft christmas tree and a very festive atmosphere. We ate our way through 5 courses and drank our way through considerable amounts of "free" champagne and wine.

The main entertainment was provided by 7 very camp guys who sang babershop and our dining neighbours at table 21 who were so old that we feared they might not make it to midnight and the arrival of Santa Claus...

It was definately different, Susan and I had trouble eating our turkey roulade whilst simultaneously singing along with Bohemian Rhapsody, so ironically even being 8000km away from the UK we still managed to have Christmas dinner with the "Queen".

There was a countdown to midnight followed by a frenzy of kissing and touring the neighbouring tables including table 21 who we awoke from their slumber and who perked up a great deal after that. We rejoiced when we won a bottle of whiskey in the raffle which we took up to our room, put on the christmas carols and warbled the night away.

Christmas morning dawned and the sky was the same gorgeous blue colour as the Argentine flag. As an added bonus I didnt have to dress or put my contact lenses in since, cleverly, I was still fully dressed from the night before - I just removed the mascara from my chin and I was good to go! In an attempt to hide our sins we emptied the room of half filled glasses and dragged ourselves off to breakfast where we met half of the hotel who hadn't actually bothered going to bed at all (Argentinians are nocturnal - its a fact) and our USA neighbour who had gone to bed at 10pm (ooops!) but was a real brick and forgave us.

Some time later we opened all our cards and gifts and ate chocolate watching the in-room movies (Madagascar actually - great). We ventured to the swimming pool for the novelty value of swimming outside on Christmas Day and eventually left the hotel to meet Susan and Andrew for dinner. Its traditional to eat ravioli on Christmas Day so we went to an Italian, ate loads of pasta, pieced together the missing bits of the night before using a mixture of group recall and the camera, and then attempted to flame the mini Christmas pudding that Lesley and Dave sent over with some success - half way through this we realised that this was in fact a christmas CAKE and nowhere in the collective recall was incinerating the cake with half a pint of finest cognac a part of christmas tradition. Damn hangovers...

As is traditional in the Pemberton household, Boxing Day was spent gambling and eating curry. We spent the morning wandering the rose gardens and japanese gardens of Palermo in Buenos Aires and avoiding the ubiquitos dog walkers with 20 hounds each. We met up with Max who we first met in Huaraz, Peru, for lunch (see Mountain Baggers blog - the english and germans versus the french) and all went off to the races where Andrew had some luck and where the main attraction turned out to be the humungous underground slot machine casino under the grandstand for the ladies to while away the hours while the men played with the gee-gees upstairs!

The curry was a fitting end to great Christmas with great company in a great city.

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