Back to B.A. - Arsenal football match

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- Food: La Perla hotel breakfasts fab, tortilla at last, 'interesting' meal on the coche cama (overnight sleeper bus)

- Area: My first football match fantastic, La Boca area not so fantastic although colourful houses were pretty. Tigre - depressing ghost town feel.

- People: La Perla staff v helpful, La Boca locals not as 'dodgy' as the guide books say, River Plate fans very tuneful with their constant football songs.

- Weather: Still nice and warm


Sun 3rd April: Thank god we knew enough about cab fares in B.A. as we stupidly got in a cab at the airport at midnight without checking the fare or the meter. He tried to charge us five times the amount! My Spanish soon improved, along with the tutting to get him down to near enough the right price.

La Perla hotel was a haven. Fantastic breakfast with fresh fruit and shock, horror - NON SUGARED croissants!!!

Feeling very tired after having walked for what seemed like all day along a busy, polluted dual carriageway to find the train station after having booked football tickets successfully, we returned to the River Plate football ground early. I thought there´d be a big build up for the match but everyone seemed very calm. Inside though was fantastic - we had good seats with a great view - closer than I thought we´d get. The crowd at the River Plate end sung constantly and the crowd at the Arsenal end (yes that´s right - Arsenal. Not the Arsenal we all know and love though) made an effort even though they only numbered 10.

I really enjoyed my first ever football match and they won 2-0 so even better. Unfortunately I didn´t bet as I would´ve won.
Food that night was pizza with big pickled peppers on it along with little tortillas (our first in Argentina).

Mon 4th: The football theme continued on Monday with La Boca. Unfortunately, after a very long walk to get there along depressing, run down streets and unused railway tracks, the stadium was unimpressive. The houses here are very colourful and painted in La Boca football colours. However, the only street we saw with painted houses was made for the tourists with no-one living in them anymore and a little street market set up. Saw young tango performers - much better than the old dears at San Telmo.

In the afternoon we went to Tigre - 2 train rides (one being a little tourist coastal train although coast couldn´t be seen - just posh houses!). Tigre was a ghost town with tiny streets and a depressing feel. We arrived too late to take a boat through the delta (which I guess is the only reason people go there). Everything was closed - even the helado shop!

Monday night and my first experience at long overnight bus trips. Apart from the bus being delayed, a bit manky, the safety hammer half falling off (luckily it didn´t fall right off on top of me!) and the TV only working after being hit, I found the experience quite good!
Sadly no bingo (we´d heard some buses have bingo) and the films were crap but at least there were films AND in English so I could learn more Spanish by reading the sub titles. The food was quite dodgy - a hard roll, salty chicken, yucky spinach type stuff and a whole slab of dulce de leche. But there was red wine (although it was chilled).
My blanket was wet and I forgot to put my shoes on when using the toilet (a bumpy journey and bad aim is not condusive to a clean toilet floor).

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