Hello everyone - sorry about the mass upload of blogs this week - as you know I've been running behind with my blog entries so have just spent this week catching up! I hope you're not bored of hearing what I've been up to!

I arrived in Buenos Aires to be greeted by the huge smile of Ben - my friend from University who is joining me for the last 3 months of the adventures! The 14.5 hour flight from Australia was interesting as there were no tv screens - so no films! But I managed to entertain myself by reading, listening to music, eating and sleeping - the plane was pretty empty so I could lie down : ) I left Sydney at 7pm and arrived in Buenos Aires at 7.30pm on the same day! Amazing! And so began our adventures in South America...

"Don't cry for me Argentina, the truth is I never left you" - those lyrics that Madonna sings from a balcony in the film 'Evita' were pretty much all I knew about Eva Peron. To be honest I didn't even know Evita was Eva Peron...and I have never seen the film. But on our first day in Buenos Aires, Argentina, we found ourselves wandering around Plaza de Mayo staring at a big pink building and wondering if that was the balcony that Madonna (Evita!) famously sang from?

I am quite ashamed about my lack of knowledge about South American history, I know it's been a pretty rocky past, with revolutions, disappearances and independence from various countries, but that is as far as my knowledge goes. I didn't even know that Che Guevara was from Argentina! Oh dear. (I could name you a few famous footballers though!) But fortunately in my one week in Buenos Aires I had the chance to find out more about this fascinating country.

On our first day we went for a walk to explore the city, we didn't really know where to go as we hadn't looked up anything about Buenos Aires...all I knew was there was a big obelisk near the centre of the city...so we headed to the obelisk first and then looked at the map we had picked up from our youth hostel to see other 'areas of interest'. We picked a few of the nearby points and headed to see what they were! We ended up in Plaza de Mayo which turns out to be one of the most important areas of the city - it has a lot of history and is the gathering place for a lot of demonstrations and protests as it is surrounded by most of the important buildings in the city (the presidents building, the main Catholic cathedral, the bank of the nation, the building of economics, the military buildings etc). We visited the big cathedral - Cathedral Metropolitana - which looks more like a town hall from the outside. Inside it has beautiful stained glass windows and sculptures, it is wonderfully decorated with paintings and statues. It was really peaceful to wander around.
Next we headed over to the big pink building - Casa Rosada - the government building where the lady president has her office and the famous balcony where Evita used to do lots of speeches from. At this point we didn't know anything about Evita so we promised ourselves that we would look up some history that evening. We walked around the back of the government building and stumbled upon the Bicentinary Museum - it said 'free entry' on the door - which is always a bonus - so we took a look inside. Now this is where I admit how ashamed I am about the fact that I know very little Spanish - I promise to try and learn more as this trip progresses (I even bought a 'Learn Spanish' book on my last day in Melbourne!) - but all the information in the museum was written in Spanish - so Ben and I made our way around the museum trying to piece together all the words we could understand to make some sense of the displays. We gathered that it was all about the history of Buenos Aires, with historical artifacts on display and videos about the different eras - we could kind of get an idea of what happened in each era by watching the videos and getting a general impression of the mood and expressions on peoples faces as to whether it was good or bad! (Some of the videos had an awesome Album Leaf song as the backing track - which I think was trying to get across a sombre mood - but I was really enjoying the music so it didn't really have the desired effect on me!) Basically we wandered around the museum feeling entirely stupid and wishing we had learnt Spanish at school! We left the museum even more determined to look up some Argentinian history that evening!

The next day we looked up 'Things to do in Buenos Aires' and decided to head to the old cemetery 'Cemeterio De La Recoleta' - where lots of famous and important Argentinians are buried. The walk to the cemetery was really interesting - we wandered through lots of different areas and ended up in a very French style neighbourhood - with cobbled streets. We arrived at the huge cemetery with lots of big mausoleums and had a great day wandering around - it was a lot like the big cemetery in Paris. The most visited mausoleum in the cemetery is Eva Peron's - the wife of Juan Peron, a former president of Argentina. She did a lot for women's rights and before she met Juan Peron she was an actress and had a popular radio show. She died from cancer aged 33. Her body lay in state for a few years while it was being embalmed then it disappeared for 16 years and was taken to somewhere in Europe. Juan Peron was over-thrown and exiled to Spain - when he was free he got her body flown to Spain and then back to Argentina where she finally rests in a very secure mausoleum.
After spending a few hours wandering around the cemetery we went to visit a big church called 'Our Lady of Pilar Basilica' - there were very elaborate decorations on the walls and interesting statues. We then took a quick look in the Cultural Centre of Recoleta and wandered around a few exhibitions. On the way back to the hostel we stopped at Galleria Pacifico food court and I had my first Argentinian steak! Yummy!

The next day we went on a really interesting history walking tour of the city. It was great to find out some more information about the places we had been walking past. We went to visit the oldest building in Buenos Aires and then walked past the pink president building as we were told Evita and about various demonstrations that have taken place in the Plaza. We then went to visit the place where Evita's body lay for 3 years while it was being embalmed, there is now a small museum of photos and newspaper articles. After this we went to visit the remains of a detention centre that was used during the years of a dictator. At the end of the tour we visited the place where Tango began and were treated to a short Tango show - very talented dancers! We walked back to the hostel through the lovely area of San Telmo - with lots of antique shops and lovely architecture. We quickly changed in to our dancing outfits back at the hostel and headed out to have a Tango lesson and watch an amazing Tango show!
We had a 1 hour Tango lesson which was really fun - we managed to pick up the steps and I didn't stand on anyones toes so that was good! We then had an Argentinian feast in a beautiful old theatre. We had a meat empanada for our starter (like a meat pasty) and then a yummy big steak for our main course and then apple pie and ice cream for pudding! We were super full after the delicious meal and sat back to enjoy a show of incredible Tango (with 8 dancers) and various other traditional acts (drumming, pan pipes, spinning string with balls on the end which they banged on the stage as they spun around!). There were also 2 great singers. It was a really fun night and it made us want to learn more Tango!
At the weekend Ben wasn't very well (I think he's eaten something that didn't agree with him) so I spent the weekend being his nurse and writing my blog and catching up on photo uploading etc, while Ben recovered in bed.

We really enjoyed Buenos Aires, it's a lovely city with lots to see. I love how affectionate everyone is - men hug each other as they greet one another and there is lots of kissing to say hello and goodbye! Women love platform sandals and Argentinian's love having dulce de leche with everything! Yum! Our one week in Argentina was a great taster of Argentinian life - i'm looking forward to returning briefly in a few weeks time to see the Argentinian side of the Iguassu falls.
Now we're in Lima, Peru, where we start a 45 day tour of South America today (15th Jan) - starting with Peru, then Bolvia and Brazil. Eeek! Excited and scared. Will try to update the blog along the way. x