My first day - got lost

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- Food: Very good hotel food!
- City: Polluted with smelly buses, very European feel, VERY wide roads
- People: Friendly but hardly anyone speaks English
- Weather: 30 degrees and hot!
- General: Not everywhere excepts dollars after all!


Arrived in Buenos Aires safe and sound. Already made a friend on the plane who´s Argentinian so has given me some tips.

Hotel Castelar where I´m staying has a posh reception but not so posh rooms! Still, a bit of luxury compared to the hostels I´ll be staying in later.
Decided to be brave and wander around the city to get my bearings with 3 missions in mind: get money, get water, get information. Sensibly memorised the map first so I didn´t have to look like a tourist and ventured off. Found a lovely bit of green to sit and soak up the sun (30 degrees - hooray) and watched a demonstration that was building up - some sort of anti-war, liberation type affair.

But as left that to find my way to the information booth, I got incredibly lost. Most main roads were impassable due to the demonstration building up so much and couldn´t even find where I was on my map.
After walking for ages, found water. Except of course I couldn´t pay as I only have dollars (lesson 1 - not EVERYWHERE in Argentina accepts dollars). Also learnt very quickly that not too many people speak English. Think my Spanish will improve speedily!

Found the dodgy area, the poor area, the rich area, the gay area, the area incredibly polluted by a thousand buses but NO INFORMATION. Tired and thirsty, I eventually got my bearings and realised I´d looked at the wrong hotel on the map and had gone in totally the wrong direction to begin with!

Found cash point, water, hotel and didn´t venture out again until the next day when Tracy arrived. Dinner in the hotel gorgeous but wine poured into the tiniest glass I´ve seen!

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