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Published: January 4th 2007
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View from the Panamerican
Although it would be nice to say that we stayed at the Panamerican and this was the view- it is not the case. We went to the top floor of the Panamerican too see the awesome views of the obelisk Felices Fiestas amigos
Now we speak fluent spanish we can tell what that means, and as you may have decifered it means that in South America over the Christmas/ New Year period everyone goes buck wild and parties as much as possible whilst trying not to die from the heat and oh yeah its hot.
In the last episode we were doing various things but the story really starts in christmas eve; where the hostel we were staying in organised a huge "Parilla" a parilla pronounced pareesha. Is a big argentinian barbeque where the owners of the said barbeque pile as many types of beast onto it as possible and cook them for ages over hot coals creating something that smells awesome tastes awesome and generally is awesome. The hostel also organised as much alcohol as you could consume together with the previously mentioned beast fest we knew it would be good christmas eve. Another thing about South America is that they celebrate Xmas on Xmas eve and most people are generally back at work on the afternoon of Xmas day as there is no boxing day.
We payed our pesos and went to the massive meat and
alcohol fest which started well enough with several beers being consumed at a speedy rate soon enough however the meat started to roll out along with plenty of wine and beer the night was going swimmingly. At midnight however the whole street exploded as people started letting of fireworks, this would have been alright except for the fact that most of the street was apartment buildings and there were firewroks going everywhere including onto peoples balconies off balconies into apartments and little kids throwing them at each other. After all the excitement from the fireworks/beast/alcohol fest had subsided a strange argentintian character called Juan showed up and told us he had a van and if we gave him 50 pesos he would take 20 of us at a time to this club where we could get into the VIP section and go crazy. Based on this info we handed over our 50 pesos and climed into Juan´s van where Juan´s friend Juan 2 dodged fireworks and other cars getting us to the club in question whilst Juan assured me that us we could get in in thongs as we were VIP´s and to have a swig from his vodka bottle.
Avenue 9 de Julio
This is the widest avenue in the world- with 18 lanes. However as no one ever payes any attention to the lane markings at times it was more like 22 lanes wide.... (good thing Juan 2 was driving)
The club we went to was just a massive warehouse about 4 times the size of the ranch with one giant room one smaller room and a little section as big as the ranch bistro that was a beach with beach chairs all over it. However on arriving there was only a few people there as it was 2am we were slightly concerned however people in argentina go out late like really late so all we could do was wait. The club got more and more packed and at about 4am was bursting with people, the night went well into the morning and ended up with Peter sitting on the roof of the hostel with about 15 other people drinking beers before he realised it might be a good idea to go to bed. Needless to say xmas day was fairly quiet and much time was spent relaxing.
NYE however promised to be a whole other kettle of beasts as once again the hostel put on beast fest 2006/2007, however the population of the hostel had become dominated by one nationality thats right you guessed it Aussies. This worked out well as fireworks
are illegal in Australia and there is nothing more Australians love more, than doing things overseas that are legal in the country thier in. that are illegal back home. This lead to various shady looking Australians venturing across the road to the local fireworks dealer (i think his name was Juan)
and purchasing numerous fireworks for very little money. To give you an example one of the fireworks Juan was selling was a rocket about the size of a 1.25 litre coke bottle. Unfortunately not having the desire to blow up the hotel we didnt get this one. The night went along much the same lines as xmas eve except due to it being 30 degrees at about 11pm more beer was consumed at midnight the massive Australian fireworks display began and as it was trionas first firework much excitment abounded. The whole night nearly ended badly when Peter dropped one of his rockets and the only reason it didnt kill our new english friends who it landed pointing at was because he picked it up while it was lit and threw it off the roof of the hostel. (Triona believes at this point that she has to say she
had nothing to do with this however as i reacted very very quickly to a potentially dangerous situation it is proff that alcohol and fireworks DO MIX!!!!!)
After these exciting times we ventured out in search of more fun and found ourselves along with a few others rining till about 5am at which point we went back to the hostel via another fireworks dealer who proceeded to put on a display for us of tennis ball sized fireworks and we bought a few more and used them to welcome in the first sunrise of 2007.
New years day was spent very quietly with triona feeling ill from something???? Whilst peter spent most of the day drinking water as it was 44 degrees. and was without a doubt the worst day on which to have a giant headache (caused by something other that fireworks and alcohol mum).
On the 2nd of Jan after recovering from our illness with the help of cooler weather, we left Buenos Aires for the last time and after a 20 hour bus trip we are now in Bariloche a city near the andes in the south of Argentina it at about the same level as tasmania
New Years Eve dinner
Dinner on the roof of the hostel. Everyone was having a great time and eating a lot. Sorry if the photo is blurry we may have also been drinking a lot... so at night it is pretty cold (8 degrees) and it is nice to get out of the heat for a while. The city is on the edge of a huge lake and is really beautiful we are spending a few nights here and going rafting tomorrow and mountain biking the day after. It is also the chocolate capital of south america and the chocolate is unbelievable.
Anywayz hope you all had a great xmas/ new years and let us know what you got upto
Peter and Triona
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Timbo
non-member comment
My comment
Hey Pete and Tree. Pete I'm suprised in your maggot state you didn't try and shoot one of those rockets out your arse! Glad to hear you've made many friends named Juan. They must be Pablo's brother. I have to say one thing. Your updates are good, but not quite as good as Huge's. The originality, the wit, the articulation. The man could write a best seller. Stay safe guys and try and avoid those big group of Aussies who spoil the randomness of the occasion.