Week one in South America

---

So its now been 5 days. Where do I start! Well I was a little bit homesick when I arrived - all alone in the big city of Buenos Aires. However, that aside things went well.

Buenos Aires is a beautiful city. I love the music (Gotan Project particulary) and the tango is amazing. The architecture is magnificent. Walking around the city it is so easy to think you are in a sophisticated European city.

I stayed in San Telmo which is the more bohemiam part of town. I loved the area but unfortunately the hostel was in a word - crap. I had to share with 7 boys for three nights and no locks on the toilets or showers. Never the less i survived.

San telmo was way cool. Lots of old colonial buildings and tango bars. I should note (with disappointment) that i saw no tango dancers in the street despite promises that there would be. Hmmmmmm. Oh well it was the middle of winter (and quite freezing) so maybe I will let them off. The city centre is also great. Pedestrian streets so no cars to contend with (yay!) and the shopping looked pretty amazing ...

My second day in BA i met a chick Beth from the UK and we went to a tango lesson together. Interesting and very fun. I was actually not that bad (according to our teacher). This was followed up by a visit to a tango club. That was great to watch the experts at it! I danced with this 90 year old guy - top hat and full dinner suit. Just as you would imagine! It was great.

The next day I spent visiting some of the other suburbs of BA including Palermo and Recoleta. Recoleta was beautiful - the place to live I think. Beautiful apartment buildings and dog walkers walking up to 10 dogs in the street. In Recoleta we also visited Evitas grave at the cemetary. Funny story actually - the cemetary is famous because the graves are so elaborate and beautiful so we decided to visit. We had also heard that Evita was buried there. So we went down to search for her grave. There was a huge gathering of people outside the cemetary which we thought was just another protest about something (there are alot of these around). So we went into the cemetary and then the group followed us in. We didnt know what they were doing and thought it slightly strange that they should enter the cemetary so we decided to avoid them. We spent ages searching for Evitas grave but could not find it. As we were leaving we were handed a flyer which actually explained that it was the anniversary of Evitas death that day! So the "protesters" were actually a procession of people going to her grave. So we followed the crowds and there is was! An amazing time to visit because there were so many people and flowers and pictures of Evita everywhere - emotions were running high too.

So what else, whats crazy about BA is that dinner is not eaten until about 10 pm and no one hits the night spots til at least 2 am. A bit late for this nana unfortunately who was still recovering from jet lag! I did however eat one of the famous Argentinean steaks. It was good. Hmmm what else. Oh yeah now i forget the name and i will find it sometime... but these little mince pastries. Delicious. Kinda like a mince pie but doesnt actually feel as gross. Man the bakeries here are amazing. So much good food!

Was great to catch up with Skye a friend from home who also made it to BA for a night while i was there. She is also travelling around South America and has been here for about 5 months. Good to get some travel tips off her!

After BA I had to spend a night in transit in Lima in my way to Quito ... not much to say about that really. I was there for about 8 hours all up and those were spent sleeping in an airport hotel. The plane trip was fun though. I made friends with Jesus the 10 year old boy who was sitting next to me. He was so sweet. He didnt speak a word of english and I not a word of Spanish but we had a lot of fun with naughts and crosses.

Now I am finally in Quito so let the good times roll! It is nice to finally be here. Still feeling a little lonely but have met a lot of other travellers. The hostel here (Secret Garden) is much better. A beautiful terrace overlooks the very hilly city. The hostel puts on dinner everynight and is run by other travellers so is very social.

The city of Quito sits at 2700m above sea level. This is great because I can blame the altitude for my breathlessness when walking up and down the streets. (of course its not because I am unfit!). Also, it was freezing in BA so its nice to be here and enjoy the hot days. Staying in the old town in Quito is really nice because it is full of old colonial buildings and very beautiful. There are also hardly any other travellers around there. My first day today (Sunday) has been spent wandering the streets of the Old Town. On Sundays too it turns out there are no cars allowed in the Old Town so that makes it even nicer!

I climbed to the top of the Basillica (a church) too. Man OSH would have a field day with this one! You can actually climb to the top of the steeples of the church (quite a height) and then venture out onto a ledge overlooking the city. Great views but very dangerous.

The fruit juices here are amazing! All kinds of fruit freshly squeezed for only 50c. What a bargain.

So tomorrow i am going to try and figure out some Spanish classes. I think I really need to brush up on these skills. It is true that nobody at all speaks English.

Ok better go
Chao

PS A bit of advice for anyone heading this way - Lan Chile is way better than Aerolineas Argentines. I flew to BA with AA and it was terrible. Bad food, bad service, bad entertainment (all in Spanish) and the lights didnt work so no reading. I flew to Quito with Lan Chile and it was like heaven.

---