Buenos Aires....and so it begins....

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After a painfully long flight from Wellington, and not before a massage and a quick message to our 'valentines' back home courtesy of a New Zealand airlines YouTube promotion, we arrived in Beunos Aires tired but super stoked to finally be in South America.  After purchasing some pesos in the airport, we ventured outside into the big wide world to be greeted by mobs of keen taxi drivers all yelling at us in Spanish...which wasn't helped by the fact that none of knew even the slightest bit of Spanish (it was now that Alex and Fuzz both wished they had listened to more than the first five minutes to their how to speak Spanish lessons.....oops!) never the less we eventually sorted it out and made it to our hostel.

Our quad room at Milhouse hostel was a pretty decent size, and Fuzz managed to score the best bed as we drew straws (passports) to avoid any conflict. The hostel was large and full of life with many young travelers from all over the world. And Clint.

We hit the streets to have a look around the neighborhood and then walked to the canals where we feasted on an all you can eat buffet which included awesome steaks, seafood, pasta and everything in between. After gorging ourselves silly we stumbled back to our hostel in search of our first party. Being a Sunday night we were pointed in the direction of Palermo, the trendier side of town. It was reasonably quiet, which disappointed four young men who were ready to go! A few quiet drinks followed by a couple of games of pool kept us entertained, but that's not why we were here, we were here to party! 
Our prayers were answer in the form of an angel giving out wristbands in the street. "Dont go there" Fuzz warned. "Any place that gives out free passes in the street is no good!" He was to be mistaken, as we followed a local in the direction on Honduras Hollywood (though they'd never heard of it!) and partied the night away South American style! We were fish out of water, and loving it!

Day two saw a late start after an equally as late finish, and combined with the jet lag, we managed to sleep through until nearly 7pm! We met up with Clint's uncle Andrew at the Intercontinental for a drink, followed by the most amazing Argentinian Steak at La Cabrera restaurant in Palermo, joined also by his mate Craig. The hour and a half wait in the street was definitely worth it, and even more so as it was complimented by free champagne! A Lollypop or twenty and we were back on the move in search of a watering hole. The 2.30am finish to dinner meant we missed the other hostel party, but we ventured onto the second leg at a nearby nightclub.

Awaking on Tuesday at only 2pm, gave us time to have a look around. We took the hop-on hop-off tourist bus to see the sights around Beunos Aires, including Boca football stadium.
On a recommendation of a fat American (yes would you believe they exist!) we hit up a local steakhouse called Des Nivel on Defensa ave. It was no La Cabrera but good nevertheless! A few beers and bottles of wine and believe it not we were ready to party again! We arrived back at hostel just in time for Fuzz to do a little number in the music talent night. I know it's hard to imagine, but he chose to play "girl I want to lay you down"! We partied, none harder than Clint, who was both in our round and about two others, at Bahrain nightclub, until the wee hours.

It was a late and very slow start the next day. Despite many messages being sent in both directions, we were unsure whether the VIP tickets Andrew had organized for us to his new mates INXS had come through, thanks to telecommunicacionia Argentinas! We wandered down to the waterfront for dinner (breakfast!) at bla bla la Casa something. At 11pm the confirmation messages for the INXS tickets from Andrew rolled through. The concert started at 7pm, we'd missed it.

We drowned our sorrows relatively mildly that night at a club called kika. The partying combined with the heat in our room was making sleeping difficult for the over thirties in our traveling party, Greg was really feeling it after only a few hours sleep in the last two days. He'd agreed to Clint's plan that if the next hostel wasn't fit for humans, they'd get a hotel room.

The following day we were off to Uruguay, Alex and Fuzz went to investigate ferry tickets. Due to lost translations with a taxi driver we ended up at the wrong port. It was now a mad rush to get to the right dock, buy tickets, check-in, pass through immigration and board the ferry.. All aboard with only minutes to spare.

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