Argentina

Buenos Aires – Argentina part 3

Well on Monday, after much decision making (we are feckin hopeless), we decided to head up to the bus station and investigate a trip to the falls. (This is after deciding that No – we won’t go, we’ll continue chilling out here, and so started walking for 20 mins to our new hotel – It was Jim. Everytime we have a decision made (after hours of decision making) he throws a spanner in the works by changing his mind and uttering his doubts outloud). So anyway we walk 20 mins with our packs on in the heat and Jim says that maybe we should go to the falls, so grand, fine, lets go to the falls and off we bundle into a cab to the bus station. Except when we get there, he’s not so sure anymore. Hmmm 17 hours on a bus and 17 hours back – in four days?? Why that only leaves nearly one day of not being on a bus…
Hmmmmm… so another hour later we decide – Feck it – we’re staying and off we bundle back into a cab – back to the new hotel we had just left. :p

Our new hotel – the hotel Maipu – was much better, big rooms, tv, windows, private bathroom. It was great – the only problem being the smell of brasso getting up poor Jim’s nose. We hung about here for a few days making music on our laptop, and generally just wondering around town, relaxing, getting (expensive) hair cuts, eating inexpensive food and trying to get back on top of our budget – after blowing four days worth of budget in the first meal in BA.

On our last night, we decided to head out to a club again. We hit a different club – just around the corner from the hotel. It was great. We hit the Irish pub for some beer & popcorn, then stocked up on red wine in our room, gave ourselves a wash and donned our ‘going out clothes’. He he. The club was small, dark and cool with an absolutely FANTASTIC sound system. It was cheap enough in, beers were five pesos and despite it being slightly progmania again – we had a feckin blast. Each DJ only had an hour or so and at the end of each set the music was slowed down or stopped and each dj applauded before the next guy came on. It was all in all a brilliant night and we had such a laugh. James made some great hairy friends in the toilets and we also tried to accost the barman – who was wearing an “I heart Ireland” t shirt – to tell him “WE’RE FROM IRELAND..” (pointing at his tshirt and then at us) “IRLANDA…SOY IRLANDESA..” etc He just pouted meanly at us.. lol We were quite embarrassing.. in retrospect..

So we tripped off home at about 6am. Jim was giggly & drunk and I had to pack his bag whilst he half shouted, half drooled instructions at me.. “No only the jeans & the sleeping bag go at the end.. flip flops go at the top….”.

Then the harsh reality of getting up (still langered) to go to the airport at 9am. Yuck. But we did it, we finally found a taxi and got to the airport on time. The feckers charged us a fortune to get out of the country but eventually we got out. Onwards & upwards..

Buenos Aires – Argentina, part 2.

We had to change hotels in order to appease the lords of our budgets. We moved to the Hotel Cocao – a bit of a dive in all honesty. The toilet was not very nice and there were lots of little flies around but we weren’t in the humour of rerouting ourselves so we hunkered down there for a few days. After dumping our stuff, we hit the Buenos Aires zoo. It was a gorgeous day and we saw lots of lovely animals. It’s a shame that the enclosures were so small. They had five huge pumas in one teeny cage with no room to run around or nothing, neither did the bears! It was terrible. The condors too had noooo room whatsoever.

We went for the second best tuna sandwich in the land (the first being the one with snob sauce in the Galapagos) and a beer. We walked down to the Japanese Gardens where we saw the most Coi in the land in the little Japanese river. We had some fizzy pop then trekked back home again. Pheweee all this trekking. We headed to San Telmo later where we had more fantastic food in this little gay run bar.

On Wednesday, Jimbob went to get some yummy breakfast of breadrolls, honey, apples, bananas, yoghurt and muesli. I think today we went to La Boca. We trekked for a while then hopped on a bus to LA Boca. We tripped down the colourful streets of La Boca, looked at the Tango dancers and all the lovely artwork. Then we had a fantastic 5 peso sandwich which was delicious. Wowzers all the good food coming at the end of BA.
We went to the Boca Juniors stadium and had a wander around. We went right up to the top seats and nearly had vertigo, we quickly took some pictures and held the railings as we went back down the steps. WE got lost on the way out of the stadium and were running up and down stairs for another 15 minutes looking for the exit. We got the bus through some dodgy looking areas and jumped off at the shopping streets downtown. Jimbob stopped me from buying some books again, he said where would it end – we’d end up being a traveling library.. lol.

I tried on some pants (whilst shopping) and then we headed back to the hotel. We had some Chinese food on the way back – the worst Chinese food in the land. I spoke too soon earlier. Yucky ducky. Bland a rama.

Well I think after this, we had already run out of things to do here in BA. He he.
But we had decided to stay here in town so we could go & see Tarentella & Redanka on Saturday night in Pacha. We started to sleep late and then we did boring things like laundry, interneting, drinking beer & eating unlimited free popcorn in some Irish bar. On Saturday we lounged about before heading out. As noone goes out til 1am, we had to amuse ourselves (on the cheap) until then. Even still – when we got to Pacha at 2am, the place was empty. We explored the club upstairs drinking vodka & what tasted like Jif lemon for a half hour. It has a cool outdoor area right beside the sea, which I’d say was amazing at sunrise. It was a pretty cool club. Then after our explorations, we went downstairs to the main floor – the place was RAMMED. It was unbelieveable. You could not move. It was great – we were up boogieing in our “Sunday clothes” and having a right auld larf. It was progmania but we hammed it up anywho. I heard some people murmur “wow who are those two, they can really move….”, as we faded away into the night…

Buenos Aires – Argentina

Money, money, money. Arrived in BA on a foggarific morning! How do pilots land in the fog! We bumped into town and checked into a lovely great big hotel room, with a TV, bathroom and a huge balcony that had great views of the lovely tree lined street & the Palacio de Congreso. It was swell. We headed off for some toasted bread & jam – Argentineans have very small breakfasts. I reckon its cause they all eat so late at night that they’re just not hungry in the morning. J After a siesta, we hit the town with some fizzy orange! Oh yeah – we know how to rock out. Then we tramped the streets of BA, it’s a very big city, with some lovely big pedestrian streets – lots of leather shops, cafes, restaurants, internet places etc etc. We headed to a restaurant that Donna (one of our NEW friends from the Galapagos he he) recommended. We had steak, pasta and a bottle of wine for maybe 28 dollars or something. Bargain Town.

The next day we checked out the famous Café Tortoni – opened nearly 200 years ago by an Italian. It was very cool, with posh waiters and tasty coffee.
We saw the Pink Palace and saw the balcony where Evita addressed the crowd, and continued on down to San Telmo. San Telmo rocks. It’s fair day on Sunday (the day we were there) and the place was chock a block with stalls of trinkets and art. They had loads of stalls selling cool old vintage stuff. Everything was cool! I’d like to go back there in the future and stock up on stuff from the past. He he. One guy had some really cool old radios. I wanted one.
So we tramped around there in the sunshine for a while, and had a few bevies outside on the street, while some band created a right ould jamboroo of Jamaican reggae sounds alongside us. Then we went for ahem..more beer.. in another funky lil place with free crisps. Later we ate (for a change) some pepper steak and fish in a cool little outdoor restaurant. It’s a pity the food wasn’t that great!

On Monday, we decided that we were going to stay in town for a while cos we were tired of changing location. So we walked up to the rich area of town called Recoleta. We headed to the cemetery where all the rich & “important” people of the past are buried. Anywho the graveyard itself is full of mini statues of devotion to those who died. It’s crazy. Some of the tombstones are mad as ye like. All out OTT ness. There was two huge tombstones for two Irish Lads, a guy called Browne who founded the Argentinian Navy and a priest – Father Fahy. We took some very blasphemous pictures of James and me making faces in front of some tombstones.

We checked out the cinema mall nearby and Wordsworth here (James has started calling me Wordsworth due to all the reading & writing I do) bought a book called Killing Bono. We had some delicious coffee and some apple pie in a cool café and then trekked on back to the ranch. Saw some fancy hats on the way back, James may get one but he better hurry up before we have to leave the place as I am not running around on Friday morning looking for a hat!@!!@ He he. We hit the Celta Bar later and split a pizza and some beer. Nice Pizza.