We had saw, conquered and Mendozered Mendoza and now we were heading back to Buenos Aires for a couple of days. The journey had its moments coming back, most notably a bus exchange because one of our windows was shattered and thee Metro being held up because of rowdy Argentines. But we eventually made it back after a 16hour journey. We stopped off for a little snack when I ate the popular Argentinian snack - Empanada which is basically a Cornish pasty but slightly smaller. The dough is usually of wheat flour and beef drippings with fillings differing from each place in some, it is mainly chicken; in others, beef is used, perhaps spiced with cumin and paprika; others include onion, boiled egg, olives, or raisins. They may also contain ham, fish or spinach. I had the beef one and it was rather tasty and pretty cheap.

We collected our left over luggage from our old hostel and were reunited with Allie, the Californian chick. We decided to stop in Milhouse because of its reputation, but on the way there a bird had the biggest of poos which covered Earl's hair, my leg and each of our back packs. It stunk! We were getting plenty of dodgy looks from the folk on the street. We got the hostel cleaned ourselves up and to say the least was rather disappointed with the hostel. The hostel was double the one we stayed in last time, the beds were horrendous and the room didn't even have a big light. What's that all about? The shower took a good 5 minutes to warm up. The only thing I could see what the hostel had going for it was the bar downstairs and we could visit that anyway. It would only be a place to lay our heads anyway so we cracked on with the day. Our first stop was to check out the street festivities. It was the 25th of May. A massive day for Argentina because it was the May Revolution. One things are for sure the Argentines certainly know how to street party, there was a kinda of parade with singing, chanting, dancing, drumming, clowns, acrobatic, man on stilts, people dancing with umbrellas, fireworks. It was mental. Crazy. I wasn't sure what was going off so just enjoyed a beer and soaked up the atmosphere. After this Allie took us to a place called Recoletta. Recoletta was a park in a nice part of Argentina. It had market stalls, entertainment and was a nice to park dwell, sample a couple more beers and enjoy Choripan. Choripan is a basically a hot dog with Chorizo and is very popular in South America. The Argentine Choripan consists of a sausage made out of beef and pork, hot off the grill, split down the middle, and served on a roll. I can confirm that these are delicious! That good I had two. Allie had talked us into going to a show that night called Fuerza Bruta. She described it as acrobatics, but not a circus and audience interaction. Earl and I did not have a foggiest what to expect, but I think I speak for both of us when we say it was amazing. Allie's description isn't the best of it, but to be fair to her I would not know how to describe it myself. It's like a progressive drama show, with singing, drumming, and acrobatics. Normally this thing wouldn't appeal to me but it was totally captivating. The audience participation comes as you move around the theatre to their different settings. Some of it happens above you, to the side, you get wet you get blown about. If you lucky you get polystyrene smashed over your head, you dance. To try an explain it better I've had to use Google and here is what I found - "A dazzling experience that floods the senses with a nonstop collision of music, emotion and aerial imagery" If you get chance go and see it, apparently it tours the world and I can highly recommend it. After being dazzled by the show we went back to Allie's hostel, our previous hostel the Lime House and played drinking games. We got pretty smashed and the night ended again in Nac n Pops for a cheeky burger. But this time things got a bit chaotic, as we were dancing about and then came the embarrassment moment of when I split my shorts attempting to do a forward roll. Maybe I shouldn't have had the second Choripan.

As usual the next day we woke up red-eyed and bushy tongued. Feeling rough in a morning was beginning to be a bit normal. We did however manage to find a positive for the Milhouse hostel that put on a good variety of cereals, toasts, spreads and juices. Still though I think I'd prefer staying at the Lime House. That afternoon we decided to go to the botanical gardens, this involved us walking by the zoo, unfortunately the zoo was closed on Mondays so we couldn't enter but as we walked down the side we managed to catch a glimpse of some flamingos, a hippo, giraffes, ostriches a rooster, a cat that looked like a rabbit and some animal that was a cross between a rodent and a dog. The majority of the botanical gardens were closed; it seems oddly like most things are closed in Buenos Aires on a Monday. So we headed back to the hostel where we made our traditional pasta, tomato sauce and hot dog dish. It was pretty much the cheapest ingredients you could buy from the supermarket and made an adequate meal. That night we took ourselves to see a show called La Bomba De Tiempo. This was an orchestrated drum show performed in a derelict underground car park. It made for quite the environment, it reminded me of Brazil, even though we hadn't been yet. There were bright colours, dancing and a lot of Bongo playing. It was a great night, and typically enjoyed with a few Quilmes. We didn't get too rowdy though as the next day we had to be up early as we had our fist border crossing, our first country to country expedition. We were off to Uruguay by boat!

So until next time stay safe and take care

Adi

xx