Buenos Aires

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Buenos Aires....is a place for the meat and sweet lover!!! If I stayed any longer in this place I was in danger of over dosing on sugar...mainly from the gorge ice cream!!!

I had the best steak of my life on Sunday, it melted in my mouth!!! we went to a locals restaurant recommended by Sarah that we met here from England!! The whole meal with wine came to 20 quid, the steaks were only 3 quid each and were divine!! its definitely true about the best steaks being in argentina!! This definitely improved my impressions of this city from the first day of arrival, when our hostel booking was messed up, our mate Lauren was mugged when we were walking to the next hostel and then someone else had their bag nicked!!!

We went to the market in Recoletta with Sarah yesterday and we all went mad and bought lots of jewellery!! We had a look around the cemetery...wow some people here must have some money, the tombs were so impressive, many were made of marble! Then Sarah took us all around the city, so cool being taken around by a local and made us feel so much safer!! The funniest part as passing queues of Ricky Martin fans camped outside his hotel - I didnt even know he was still performing ha ha!! We also tried some Encantanda´s on our walk around teh city = yum!! I think we must have walked for about 5 hours but was a lovely day and worked up our appetite for the steak and wine in the evening!!

This is a lovely city but the weather fluctuates about as much as England, I went for a run on Sunday by the docks and it was like running next to the Thames in the rain, then on Monday the sun was shining and it was 30 degrees!!

We did a cool bike tour of the southern part of the city where we explored San Telmo and La Boca which are the poor parts of the city and La Boca is home to one of the most famous footy teams - La Boca Juniors where Maradona used to play!! It is also home to some of the poorest people and is a real shanty town - its really pretty cos a lot of the houses are made from colourful tin stuff that they used to make boats. Thought I was safe in this city away from mosquitos but nope....one managed to attack me twice on the bike ride and make my overall tally to 17 MOZZY BITES in 20 DAYS!!!! Have bought garlic capsules as well as yeast to try and keep them at bay!!!!!

We also made it to a Tango show which was awesome, they put on a great Tango dance show along with some excellent piano, accordian, clarinet and singers - it was in a really intimate bar and quite exclusive. BUT along come us skank english girls who manage to get a good deal on the door...pay AR$50 instead of 130...to then realise that we didnt have any money to buy any more drinnks cos they were so expensive ha ha! So we sat there for a couple of hours and politely sipped our complimentary wine...it was embarrassing when they handed out champagne to celebrate their 40th year of opening..they obviously gave us a glass to join in but it was half the size of everyone elses...we grabbed our free choccy and left!!

Another funny moment was when we realised that our big plan to watch the sunset over the balcony where Evita and Maradona proclaimed from was ruined as it was covered in scaffolding - nice!!

Anyway...enough of the city for now....onwards for us to Cuzco, this city was lovely and pretty cosmo but have had enough of cities and the whistling taxi and truck drivers!!! We are ready to start the next chapter and for me the most exciting - the mountains...and what better way to start than the Inca Trail?????!!!!! Will update you how that one goes......I have a feeling I will be counting the blisters instead of mozzy bites!! Lauren and Keely have left us for the beaches of Uruguay...but only for a lil while, hope to meet up again for Paddys day celebrations in Cuzco...the day after our Inca Trail ha ha!!

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Photos

first time we dared to take the camera out in Buenos Aires
best steak!!!!!!!

dodgy hostel
after the recent mugging and also theft from hostel...our lock was broken after a girl got locked in our room...how safe???

Ricky Martins hotel
ha ha ha - yes he is still performing an loads of fans were camped outside his hotel!!

One of the most famous churches
really beautiful gold settings

the cemetery....a little village
amazing what these people are buried within!!!

Comments

[Cyrenne]

So jealous!!
Hey Shana - Looks like you're having an excellent time! I may have to stop looking at your photos cos its just making me incredibly jealous and not really doing much for my productivity at work!! I will be in Oz in Oct/Nov so must catch up then....God that seems so long away!! Here's to counting down the days.... Have fun and take care. Cyrenne...x