26th-29th June

Rosario is where the designer of the Argentinian flag was born and where it was first raised. This is a pretty big deal and they have built a big monument in honour of the first flag. So big in fact that we got an elevator to the top to see views across the city, along with about 30 local school kids adorning their weirdo school uniform. The weather was so good the first day and coming from a chilly BA we got straight back into shorts and flip flops, as usual the locals were wrapped up warm apparently 26 degrees is cold for them and we got some strange looks. To top this off there was a small staging area from the monument that was used for National flag day and it looked very similar to a cat walk, yep you've guessed it I strutted my stuff, the crowds went wild! After my performance we walked along the river front, admired some 'sick' skateboarders and I nearly fell asleep on a bench. We wanted to make the most of the warm weather so got some empañadas a bag of crisps and a coke to enjoy in peace at one of the parks. Luckily we had nearly finished all the food when we saw a group of young boys around 7-12 years old coming towards us. They were asking for food and a sip of our drink, two of them were a bit overweight and we weren't too keen on sharing our coke with them so we refused. After around 5 minutes of persistent harassment and two of them stroking James' leg we left. We consoled ourselves by saying 'they can't have been that poor, they had piercings, they were overweight' we walked around the park for a bit and saw a bottle of drink with a tiny amount left in, a young boy swiped it quick and finished it off. OK they were really poor, feeling guilty we left our coke near a bin in the hope they would find it. It was quite sad and the first time we have felt we have seen the poverty that is present in Argentina.

The evenings were warmer here compared to BA so we went out a few times. There was a really cool and popular bar playing Jazz music, or Chass if you're the lady in our hostel, it took me about 5 attempts of repetition to understand what Chass was!

We wanted to see some culture so went to where Che Guevara was born and the Museo de Memorio museum, both of which were pretty rubbish but do not worry we make up for this in the next instalment, Cordoba!

Obviously apart from the museum we really liked Rosario it had some nice buildings and lots of good places to eat and drink.