Argentina!

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Buenos Aires:
After a long flight from New Zealand with a stopover at Santiago, we arrived to Buenos Aires at midnight! We grabbed a taxi to our apartment, we arrived at the apartment and the guard was there. I thought I knew Spanish but I was not expecting to be pulled back in so suddenly especially after traveling for 24 odd hours!!!!! The guard started speaking to me very fast (Argentineans speak at the speed of light) and to be honest I hardly understood a word! Turned out we had miscalculated our arrival date and we were there a day earlier than expected!!!! Oups! We finally managed to arrange everything and went straight to bed!
Our Apartment was amazing! Everything was brand new!
In the first days we arranged our Spanish course and met up with Myriam who lives in San Telmo which is the area in Buenos Aires where we were staying. San Telmo is lovely; it’s the artist area in BA and also the heart of Tango! =) We did a week of Spanish classes which helped get me a little back on track! In our first week we didn’t do too much as the weather was bad and also because we had the Spanish classes. We had our first steak meal though 7 Euros per person for a steak red wine and desert!!! Can’t really beat that especially considering how good the meat is! We also had another dinner where they were doing a little tango show; Steve and I both were forced to dance with the dancers after they had done the show which was pretty funny! In terms of sightseeing we went to the Recoleta cemetery to see Evita Peron’s mausoleum, the cemetery in itself is very impressive! On our first proper weekend after the Spanish course we went to San Telmo Sunday market which is the coolest market I’ve ever been to! The keepers of the stalls were all dressed up in costumes and putting up shows all along the streets there were artists selling jewelry or their photography etc… definitely a market you could not tire of! That night we then went to watch a Futbol game! Boca juniors against Colon! The atmosphere in the stadium is absolutely amazing with the colors and the chanting it was great! Unfortunately none of the teams scored so we didn’t get to see the stadium light up for a goal.
We also did a day trip to Uruguay (an extra stamp in the passport!) which was very pretty and also very calm! We took the ferry across and then spent a few hours in Uruguay had lunch and a few beers there, it was nice=)
We then went to Iguazu to see the falls. We spent two nights in Iguazu so we had one full day at the falls, it was incredible! By far the best waterfalls I’ve ever seen! We left what we heard was the most impressive waterfall, Garganta del Diablo (Devil’s Throat) for last and we got there around 3-4 pm. As we were walking towards the waterfall we saw big black clouds making their way towards us but kept on going thinking we would beat the clouds to it. We arrived at the viewing platform and were stunned by the falls definitely scary and amazing! The clouds were catching up and were coming in, the combination of the black clouds and the end of day sunlight made the whole ambiance really surreal! A few drops of rain came down and in a mad panic we got our raincoats on and hid our cameras in them, then the rain stopped not taking the hint we went back to take more pictures! Suddenly the rain started hammering down along with hail and some very powerful wind! Now we had to run a km back to any kind of safety! We arrived to the little train platform completely drenched! The moody weather was great though it made the whole Garganta del Diablo experience a really memorable one! =) That night we were very tired and had an early dinner with the intention of going to bed very early, unfortunately the hostel where we were staying were having a party that night and our window was just over the speakers so our bed was pretty much thumping till the early hours of the morning…=(
The next day we set off to the airport on very bad weather so the flights were a little delayed but other than that the flight went smoothly.
We arrived back in Buenos Aires on a Sunday afternoon, that night we went to Plaza Dorrego to watch the tango, the locals go and all dance there much better than paying for a Tango show!! Seeing the “real” thing. We then went to have some pizza with Myriam. The next day we checked out of our lovely luxurious little apartment (with a lot of difficulty) to the hotel where our Gap tour was starting. That day we walked around the Palermo region which is also a very nice part of town, bit more expensive but lots of really cool shops and beautiful houses. That night we had our “last” (not really because we had an extra night) dinner at “La Cabrera” which is one of the most famous steakhouses in Buenos Aires known for its portions and quality meats! We arrived around 9 pm and were told to wait; we got written down on the waiting line and then stood outside with some other customers waiting for a table, we were given champagne and warm tasty sausage pieces to munch on while we waited (not bad ey??). Finally we got our table and ordered a nice big steak (HUGE) so big we had to share it! It was lovely though especially considering it cost about 10 pounds! Yum yum!

Bariloche:

The next day we met with the Gap group and then the day after we set off on a 22-23 hr bus journey to Bariloche, thankfully the buses are really nice, comfy seats, tea and coffee is served and also hot meals! Bariloche is very pretty it has a Swiss sky resort feel to it, and is well known for its chocolate (oh yes!), we stayed there for a few nights. We went for a hike around the national park and also went to see the Black Glacier, although it might sound cool ill be perfectly honest, it just looks like very dirty ice…We also went up in the cable car and had an amazing view of the area, on the way back into town we stumbled upon a vintage car exhibition which was actually in preparation for the vintage car race that was to happen on Sunday around the mountains, unfortunately we were leaving so we didn’t get the chance to see the race! In-between the sightseeing we kept going to this chocolate house having chocolate cake and delicious hot chocolates! Hmmmmmm!!
Off to Chile!

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Photos

La Boca
Unfortunately caught it at the wrong time of the day but here is the entrance of El Caminito the touristy part of La Boca

Garganta Del Diablo- Iguazu Falls
Just before the hail storm!!!!