buenos aires

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we arrived in BA after taking the ferry from montevideo (it was a quick sea cat ferry with nothing to do in the form of entertainment!) we took a taxi from the port to our hostel and arrived at around 1630. the hostel was in a nice, bohemian area (san telmo) with plenty of cafes etc and only a short walk from the main tourist sights. on the first day we just chilled out and made good use of the cooking failities, on the second day we decided to venture further afield to palmero where we went to the zoo! - the zoo was very good and actually pretty massive (a bit strange as it was in the middle of the city!), although the giant snake wasn't so great!. after the zoo we decided to go and check out the local horse racing track (via a quick stop for lunch!), it worked out better than we could of planned and we walked straight into the racetrack as they were parading the first runners!! after working out what the hell was going on we decided to get in on the action........a toss up between 9 and 12 and luckily for us we chose number 9 which came in at 4 to 1! we cashed in our ticket and swiftly left while we were winning. we took the metro home and were kicked off early due to overcrowding, this meant a rather long walk back through the (extremely busy) theatre district. whilst passing through a bottle neck we were the victims of a pick pocketthieflowlife who managed to get open our rucksack and steal craigs coat! however unfortunately for the would be thief craig had realised what was going on before they had time to make their escape craig had scanned the crowd for the second accomplace, he saw someone crouched down trying to hide behined a man and stopped her then he demanded his stuff back!

On the third day we took in the working class (but crazy fun) district of boca (home to bocca juniors), where the streets were full of tango dancers, resturants, art markets, americans and stray dogs!. and all of the houses were painted in bright colours like pink,blue and yellow! then we took the bus into the centre of town to check out the old port, which turns out wasnt so old and full of average resturants charging not so average prices!!.

day four was a local afair and we went to a local antique flea market which was a couple of minutes walk from our hostel (a the biggest one we´ve ever been to!), this was a similar vibe to boca with music and tourists aplenty. we followed the market all the way into town where we decided t beef up our cold weather clothing with two scarfs a fleece wrap around top (for carly - hopefully she will stop moaning about the cold now!) and two pairs of trousers!!. whilst watching the local news we saw what looked to be a local teams fans causing carnage after being relegated (quite the upset over here think arsenal or chelsea! it was river plate by the way), local news coverage described it as ´monumental chaos!´ then we realised that they had been playing at home and the rioting was actually in buenos aires! luckily for us we werent affected by this as we made our way to the largest bus terminal ever created (not an actual fact - but seemingly so) ready for our 9 hour bus ride to cordoba. the bus left an 2215 local time and we arrived in cordoba at 0700 this morning.

as anyone who is following our progress on our planned intinerary may be aware this is a change from where we were going to go, but we decided we wanted to see some rural argentina after so many cities. the place we are currently staying in is called villa carlos paz and is surrounded by rolling hills (or mountains) and a very large lake.

after finally arriving in villa carlos paz at 1030 this morning (and freezing - there was frost people frost!) we checked into our hotel (no hostels here!) after a quick power nap and shower we decided to check out the town and ended up going up the side of a mountain on a ´cable car´ (although it was really a cable chair!) amazing views of the town and surrounding countryside though in some rather pleasant sunshine.

until next time then, goodbye

craig and carly x

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