One Less Cow In Argentina ...

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18th Feb 09

Day 2 of my trip and so far it's been quite enjoyable.

Arrived at my hostel yesterday at about midday and was knackered. I slowly unpacked my rucksack and got changed. I set out and started to wonder, not to any particular place but just around. Actually, I spent most of the day doing that, wondering around the different barrios admiring the beautiful building. Eventually, I wondered back to my hostel at about 7pm and Florida Street; where my hostel was located was full of various traders selling there various wears in the middle of the street as the street is quite wide.
My plans for the evening were dashed as my original plan of doing an organized tango experience which included dinner and a couple of tango lessons followed by entrance to a proper tango show got cancelled. Anyways, I wondered up and down just looking at what everybody was selling; from things made out of beer cans to wallets, from Homer Simpson posters to ladies scarves. Everything you could have wanted and more! Also as well as this, was the amount of street performers ranging from tango acts to people with a football doing keepy upies.

9 O’clock rolled around and I made my way back to the hostel and decided to pay for another night in the hostel and another night in Buenos Aires instead of going to Colonia Del Sacramento in Uruguay.
I brought a beer from the bar and sat down and watched everybody in the hostel doing there thing. This guy came up to me and asking me if I wanted to shoot some pool; we started chatting and it turned out this guy was an American guy who had leave from the army. It turns out that he’s been in Iraq for a year and a half, it also turns out that he is pretty good at pool; he won 2-1
We wondered out looking for a bar that was near the hostel, eventually we stumbled upon an Irish bar, the beers flowed as did the chat, we chatted at some great length about life in Iraq and everything that went with it. After 4 beers I was out for the count, an interesting first day!

The next day I woke up late and with a headache (I hate it when you drink when your tired seem to go right though you, or is that just me?) The plan for today was to take a walk down to the La Boca barrios and wonder around, not to do anything in particular. In the hostel I bumped into Darren (the army guy) and invited him along. We walked for about an hour and a half and were by the end of it sweating like a gooden due to the heat. One of the first things we did was to stop at Boca Juniors ground, where I took a few photos. We continued on down to the port area and then all the building turned into brightly colored scenes with everybody trying to eat at their restaurant or watch their tango show; we were simply there to walk around and soak up the atmosphere. On walking around past people we bumped into a Diego Maradona look - a - likey, and yes I did get my picture taken with him; I just had to

Eventually, however we gave in after pushing past 3 or 4 people, we sat down and Darren ordered food for the both of us, as I watched and admired the tango show, I wish I could dance like that! Then it appeared; the cow, well not actually a cow but it might as well been, a medium thickness stakes. For the next 30 minutes we worked our way though these stakes till we couldn’t eat anything more, leaving a couple of the stakes there. We left feeling really bloated and full, we decide to get the bus back to Plaza Del Mayo, where I left Darren and baked in the sun, simply chilling and reading my book.

19th Feb

After I got back to the hostel it was still fairly early; round about 6.30pm, so I decided that I was going to go and find the cemetery that Evita was buried in; Cementerio De La Recoleta. I walked out of the hostel and did what I did best just started to walk. It's so refreshing to not really have anywhere to go and soak up the atmosphere of the city. Eventually, I found it only to be told by a homeless man that it was shut, it shut at 6. I hung around and spoke to this homeless man for a while; after a while he started to get on my nerves so I started to make a move back to the hostel. Whilst I was walked I glanced down at my watch and noticed that it was getting close to 9.30 which was the time the pub crawl started. I legged it back and only just made it back in time, I paid my 60 peso's entrance and got my voucher, met up with Grant and Mike, the other guys in my room and then we found Darren. We bundled into a taxi and headed towards Plaza Armenia which was the starting point of the pub crawl, we got out and wondered where the starting point actually was; we wondered into various bar trying to find out where the starting point was, a couple of bars later somebody suggested that we look in the actual plaza itself and surprise surprise, beer and pizza in the centre of the plaza.

20th Feb

I don’t remember much of the evening except drinking in a couple of bars followed by a club, I remember a great little band and that was it. Grant and Mike helped fill in the blanks by telling me that I did get absolutely shitfaced and in the club because apparently because I was so hot was running up to people shouting “Salida, salida” or “Exit Exit” The guys also informed me that they had to drag me home ….

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