We arrived in BA after a 15 hour bus trip. We caught the train to the Palermo area. This is where we stayed for our first night. It's the boutique area of BA and is great for shopping and bars. There was dog poo everywhere on the ground though. Which we soon learned is quite common in BA. There are many dog walkers and often you see 1 guy with about 10 dogs of all shapes and sizes. At night we got recommended this local restaurant close to the hostel and it turned out to be the best steak we have ever had. This restaurant was called Donca and everything was homemade. All the breads and dips you get at the start of the meal right down to the wine jugs that the owners’ mother paints. The owner was very helpful with explaining the different cuts of meats to us in English.

The next day we moved to stay with a local family which we arranged through Spanish School. Ana (our house mum) lives in this nice area of BA call Recoletta. She has a 3 level top floor apartment. It was pretty strange to start with as she spoke no English and our Spanish wasn’t crash hot. And she always wears heals, even first thing in the morning! Once we were all settled into the house we went for a walk to check out this area. We came across these massive markets in Plaza De Francia. We spent hours there looking around. Also at this plaza is the famous cemetery where Evita is buried. We had never seen anything like this before. All the rich families are buried in these huge tombs. Like little mansions. At night again we found this amazing little local restaurant which we tried some great Argentinean food and wine.

On the Sunday we had heard of a huge antiques market in the San Telmo area that you have to check out. Junk everywhere. But I guess you know what they say one persons junk is another persons treasure. This area is a little alternative with a mixture of hippies and tango restaurants. We walked through the markets for hours looking at everything from antiques to magic. We then came across this amazing Parrilla (BBQ) restaurant, Des Nivel, which we had heard about through other travelers. We ordered a take away meat in bun and it was the best meat and bun I’ve ever had. We ended up visiting this place a few other times on our stay in BA.

So it was Monday and it was time for us to start Spanish school. We had signed up for 4 hours a day for 5 days in a group environment. We ended being in the same class as a couple from Sydney that we had met about a month ago in Patagonia. There are plenty of Spanish schools in BA and hard to pick but we were happy with our pick, CEDIC. It was in a great area and we had really good fun friendly teachers. Who were also very patient with us. In the arvo after school we would go to the park to study, sometimes with a couple of beers to unwind as it felt like our heads were going to explode trying to remember all these new words.

After the week with Ana and our first week of Spanish we moved into our hostel, The Milhouse. It’s a wicked hostel with heaps going on and all the info you need for around the town. We decided to do one more week of Spanish but this week was a bit harder as we spent a lot more time socializing. So the mornings were a struggle.

Christmas day we spent watching NBA Basketball as it was the first day of the season and Juniors’ team was playing. I was happy to do that as not much goes on for Christmas in Argentina because they celebrate the night before. That night was a different story though. The Milhouse put on a massive party and then organized VIP access to a night club. The night club was not one of the best of BA’s nightclubs but ok. When we got there because we had missed the Milhouse bus they tried to charge us a massive amount to get in but then I saw some VIP’s going though so I grabbed Juniors hand and we followed them straight through for free. We were happy as I think we only ended up staying for about 1 hour.

The taxi drivers in BA are really dodgy with trying to rip you off. They are heaps of counterfit $100 peso bills (which is about $25 USD) and sometimes when you get a taxi and pay with a $100 they do the quick swap and say back to you this is a fake and try and get you to take it and pay agin. It happened to us 3 times but we were too smart to fall for that. They must get a lot of silly travelers though because if you didn’t know about it they are pretty good.

Tango is a big part of Argentina especially in BA. There are many Tango shows that you can go to. You usually get a 3 course dinner with drinks and show for about $100 USD. $100USD was a bit too much for us and we had heard of this alternative option at a place called El Caterdral, which was in a massive warehouse and only $5 to get in or $15 if you wanted a lesson. It was awesome. It had heaps of pictures and things on the walls, dim lighting and a really cool vibe. We paid for the lesson but only lasted about half hour as it was a bit more advanced than what we were as we had never done this before. We ended up just watching for the next few hours and having dinner there (vegetarian dinner). We went with a whole group from the hostel and everyone loved it even the vego food so we were happy as it was our recommendation.

New Years we had a bit of slow start. We’d met a couple of guys from Sydney Caolin, Evan and Jimmy a few days early and had a few nights out with them so we were planning to have a big one. The hostel put on a party from about 9pm (when we had our first drinks, on new years!) and everyone had to wear white then at 2am they organized buses to take us to the mega night clubs. We choose Tarrazas over Pacha and it was wicked with 5 different rooms and a massive outside decking area overlooking the wetlands. It was pretty expensive in there though like maybe $15 for a vodka but they were really strong. I guess just Perth prices. We ended up leaving at about 8am which wasn’t pretty but it’s the norm for here. Our taxi driver played ACDC up as loud as possible on the way home and then again tried to rip us off with the $100 pesos trick.

Our last night in BA we went to La Bamba del Tiempo which is a 12 piece percussion group. It’s in this massive outside area in between some warehouses in a bit of a dodgy area. We got there and lined up for about half hour to get. We bought beers in 1lt plastic cups for about $10. We got a spot up the front and waited for the band to come out. When they came out the crowd went crazy. It was awesome. They had a few guests come out and play a sax and some other strange instrument which was cool. Check out the link and our photos. The funniest thing we saw there was an old hippy bloke about 60 (sorry dad) using used cigarette butts as ear plugs. Must have been a bit much for him I guess.