Last Couple of Days..

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The last two days of the holiday have been spent catching up with Steph's brother and sister in law and having guided tours by Tom around Buenos Aires as well as trying to catch up on some sleep! We've walked quite far and clocked up the steps which is probably a good thing as all we seem to have done is eat! We got taken to a famous pizza place where we shared a large margarita pizza. We got a photo taken by a BA sign made of greenery which looks great amongst the blue sky. The weather the first full day was really hot. It's just turning to Autumn time now in Buenos Aires but you wouldn't have known it as the temp got up to 30 degrees. Steph loved the heat but with the walking around I felt like I was melting! We saw the different architecture of the buildings which take their inspiration from Europe. We went on the subway which was very hot and crowded just like the tube back home! We walked down by the docks at Puerto Madero and sat outside in a cafe trying more food! - alfajores which are like chocolate wagon wheels. On Friday evening we went back to Tom and Naty's apartment and ordered empanadas in different flavours as. Friday night treat as well as giving us more food to try! There was also a pretty bad storm roll in on this night with lightning and huge hailstones that fit in the palm of your hand. It was even on the local news!



The second day we did more walking and exploring catching the bus down to an area which had market stalls outside and where there is a strange cemetery. It's like a tourist attraction as it has some famous people interred there. There are like blocks and streets within the cemetery and the places where the people are interred are built like mini houses. It's really strange but also fascinating as well to see that 200 years ago people were interred into buildings that were made of marble and carved stone. We just wandered around a bit but people can actually have a proper tour around it which is a little morbid! We had our first ice cream of the holiday at a place called Freddos. I had Baileys flavour while Steph had a Dulce de Lece flavour which is very popular in Argentina. In the afternoon we went round to Naty's mums house and met her and her sister and had more food!



We went out for dinner pretty late on (10.30pm) which is normal for Argentinians as it was the last night before heading back and sorting out bags out ready to be picked up by taxi at 8am the next morning. There was another short storm with lightning etc but it had all cleared by the morning and the drive to the airport was nice. It took us a lot less time to get to the airport than it had the first day as there was no traffic. We got dropped off two and half hours before take off, but then had a slight panic as the check in for bag drop off was huge. In fact by the time we dropped our bags off, we had another queue to get through security and an even bigger queue to go through passport control to be stamped out of the country. We had to rush through to the gate and just about made it. The plane was pretty new and modern and supposedly had some sort of air system which would help with jet lag although I'm not convinced about that as I'm sat in Costa at Gatwick typing this up waiting for our train in 3 hours and feeling rough! The flight seemed to take forever particularly the last couple of hours although it was pretty long at 13 hours. We landed at 4am and have a wait until 9am for our train to Reading, before changing to go to Wolverhampton. It seemed like no problem to save a load of money to get the off peak train although I'm regretting that decision right now!



So it's pretty much the end of an amazing three weeks which have been non stop. We've fit so many different things in and it seems like weeks ago that we touched down in Rio. We've been asked what our favourite place has been and we both agree that it's Cusco. Whilst the altitude was difficult at times, the whole place had an air of mystery. The local people there seemed to live a simplistic but happy life which was very honest. They all seemed to rub along together helping each other out. It was good to take some time out from being connected to the world 24/7. The trek was a very different experience to what I expected it to be and maybe that was the problem in that I had thought about it ahead too much. I had wanted it to test me and for me to not fail. The things I thought would test me, didn't really at all which I guess is good in itself as it's proved the hypnotherapy worked and that I have more confidence around heights and bridges. The things that did test me, the landslide, the altitude and our struggle to get along with Leo were unexpected but we came through them nonetheless in our own ways! We've done so much in the last three weeks that I think we'll still be processing it all in the coming weeks. We put so much planning and effort into this trip that now it's over it feels strange. I don't know what the next test or challenge will be, but I think it's just time to reflect on the last three weeks and get back to some sort of routine and normality... And sleep....lots of sleep!

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