Buenos Aires

After a early start in Cusco on the 11th we got a 737 – 200 to La Paz, this plane must have been years old as it looked like a plane from one of those 70,s movies! But the flight was only 50 mins long and we landed safely in La Paz (Bolivia), where we spent 10 hours of watching the American apprentice which is no where near as good as the English one by the way. (thanks to the lap top again and the free WIFI!)

Later we were ready for the next Aero Sur plane to Santa Cruz (Bolivia). This was a nice easy flight. We arrived in Santa Cruz and slept on the comfy seats a surprisingly good sleep. It was weird every time I woke up through the night someone else was sat next to me, so I cuddled my bags tightly! That morning as we were about to take off on the 3rd 737 – 200 to Buenos Aires the pilot spoke over the speakers and said there was some sort of problem with the plane, he spoke in Spanish so we didn't know specifically what the problem was. Our hearts were racing faster and palms got sweaty, even after 3 Diazipan! After taxying back to the airport engineers came on and fixed the problem, so we thought! As we were in position to take off again the same problem arose and back to the airport we went! Out of the window was a nice new TAM airoplane and we just wanted to be on that one. Third time lucky we took off, to the left of me was a guy who had a 1000 to many steak sandwiches and on the right was a terrified Mishee in tears and hyperventilating as she was so scared. The build up of all the faffing of the plane really got to her, and on take off we were turning at a crazy angle soon after we left the floor. The flight after this was smooth apart from the last 50 mins which was horrible and my second worst experience of bad turbulence. Never the less we touched down in Buenos Aires and were really chuffed to have our feet back on the ground. 3 flights to Argentina from Peru but was worth all the waiting and stuff for the price of the flights.

From Eusza airport we were touted by taxi men quoting us 100 pesos for a cab and shuttle buses 85 pesos, me and Mich went for the cheap option of the local bus number 8 for 2 pesos like 40p or so! Although 35km took two hours it was still a bargain and it took us 10 mins to walk to the hostel and we checked in with out a worry.

Our Hostel was a real old building in the old centre of Buenos Aires, San Telmo. Rooms were a bit run down but was clean enough and theebathrooms were really nice and the location was amazing so couldnt go wroung at hotel Bolivia for £14 a night, the staff are verry helpful aswell.

We had an early night on the first night and had dinner at a local place in San telmo. The second day we wandered to the subte station and went to meet my friend Ari who I lived with and snow boarded with in Whistler, Canada. Ari lives in the posh part of the city Recoleta, very posh apartments with beautiful tree lined streets and posh apartment blocks. It was great to see him, doesn't feel like 4 years ago that I last saw him. We jumped in his car and he took us to get tickets for his Football team River Plate and had an amazing steak sandwich for lunch. Fair play to Ari for driving around the busy city, some parts of the city has 7 lanes of traffic with constant horn blowing going on and a lot of people having some bad road rage issues!!

After having a siesta back at the digs in San Telmo we headed back to Ari's part of town and went up to his apartment for beers. We had a right giggle talked about memories of our fun times in Whistler and then caught a cab to the nightlife of Buenos Aires. It was 2.30 am and we were going out! At home we would be coming home and that would be a late night, they love to party in this city and have a silly amount of bars and clubs that suite everyone's music taste from tango clubs to Massive head banging trance clubs, where we went! I hadn't been to a club this big for years and it brought back many good memories of clubbing to amazing music until the early hours of the morning!

We danced the night away, saying that it was me and Mich who kept the party alive as Ari got a bit tired and drunk and had to resort to sleeping outside on the patio section of the club but he was all good, we also met some other cool Argentinian people and danced with them for a while! I remember one of my favorite tunes coming on at about 7 and seeing the sun coming up through the window behind us! After all this madness we got Ari found a cab and headed back to the hostel for a few hours kip!

After not much sleep we headed back again to Ari's part of town to meet up with him to go to the football game, River plate vs Hurricane. Ari told us to be prepared, we were going to be behind the goal with all the passionate fans. This was absolutely insane with singing, chanting, and jumping around for the whole 90 mins of the match, River won 2 – 0 and all was happy. I don't think I would of liked for me and Mich to be in there if they had lost a nutter might have taken his anger out on the two tourists in the crowd! Was an incredible buzz and we really got into, trying our hardest to learn the songs and pointing aggressively toward the other fans!! We were stood up all game which was cool as we could jump around and the game was only 30 pesos £5 ish. What a bargain, to see Spurs would be £60 in row z! The football is no where near up to the standard of the Premier league. It was very slow but Ari was telling us all the descent players get shipped to Europe because more money is in it there, sucks for them. After barley making it out of the stadium alive after being pushed and shoved from side to side we caught our subway train back to our hostel and slept like babies after a crazy 24 hrs of partying!!!

Monday was a very chilled day we didn't do anything apart from wonder around our local area and eat food and book our ticket to Iguazu. The subway and bus stations here are amazing and you can get pretty much anywhere for 1.20 Pesos 20p or so!

We couldn't believe the sheer size of Buenos Aires a massive massive city that in a lot of parts resembles New York, the cities population is 13 million!!! So the subway (tube) was always a squeeze!

Tuesday we did a mission of walking from San Telmo, through one of the widest avenues in the world with 7 lanes of traffic each way and took a look at the obeliskca, then through the posh streets of Recoleta, this is the area to live its lovely, in Recoleta we visited a very famous cemetery, where famous and the rich are buried, not in graves, but in grave houses! Amongst the dead buried here is Eva Peron 'Evita' a famous Argentinian politician whom was married to the then president of Argentina Juan Peron. She mostly fought for women's rights and for the poor (shirtless ones) of Argentina, and she was loved and hated by many.

Then from here we walked to the parks in Palermo which is another really nice area and a top choice for tourists and we relaxed in the gardens for a while. Being too tired to walk back we were lazy and got the subte to San Telmo.

Wednesday we did a tour of BA ATM's it was a highly annoying couple of hours as the banks here do not let you take out large sums of money, we hate paying to withdraw money. Then we revisited our favourite restaurant in San Telmo 'La Continental' where Mish fell in love with the Spaghetti Parisiene and I loved the empanadas. The food in BA is amazing!

The next morning our final day in BA we went to meet up with Ram one of Chris and Hannah's friends who is a very busy man working and studying all the time, we were lucky to catch him for lunch. We met him outside his Uni and walked to Recoleta. Ram lived in Monmouth previously for 11 months so we had lots to talk about, such a nice guy! It was great to meet up with him.

Tonight we catch our 18 hour bus to Iguazu it should be amazing as we are going in an executive bus!

Great times in BA! One of the best cities so far!
Could live here for a while!

Ads and Mishee
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