New Years in the amazing city!!

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We had booked ourselves in the Milhouse hostal last month to ensure we had a bed to stay in over the New year period. Wise move I guess... but we were in another dorm where the people we shared the room with got up at 2pm every single day after heavy nights partying. One Australian guy in our room was very proud of having spent the last 4 weeks in BA getting in at 6am every night and sleeping all day, spending all of his money on drinks and the rest! Each to their own I guess...

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The hostal only opened 4 weeks back and had capacity for 300 people or so, which we found a little too big and intimidating. It was difficult to get to know people as the place was simply huuuge. Funnily enough we bumped into a few people that we had met along the way, a girl from Montanita in Ecuador, a guy from Cusco in Peru to name just a few. We arranged to meet up with Olivia, an Australian girl we had visited the mines in Potosi with and a couple from Salta.

On New Years Eve we started off at the hostal which hosted a ´before party´ but left shortly after 10pm with the couple from Salta to get a better local feel for New Years. We went to the main square in San Telmo district and sat outside sipping wine or beer and watching some street entertainers. I then got chatted to a crasy woman who spoke some French and was very drunk! There was no count down so we realised a few minutes later that we were in 2009... and the fireworks were rather pittiful, but we were all glad to have been envolved in a more ´real´ surrounding. More people started to come out on the streets after midnight as people tend to stay with their family before they head out to celebrate.

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Shortly after we jumped in a taxi and went to a house party that we found on Couch Surfing. What an amazing website! There must have been over 200 people in this 2 floor apartment with one DJ and a huge terrasse. I don´t remember much of the rest of the night but we had a great time no doubt!

Buenos Aires was a ghost town on January 1st with most of the stores shut. We had some food, went on the Internet and watched a film at the cinema with Penelope Cruz.

The next day we checked out from the party hostal and headed for a different area of the city, Palermo, where we had stayed with Fernando when we first arrived in the capital. We found a nice hostal and booked a double room with TV. Woohoo!! Palermo is a lovely district with long avenues surrounded by trees. It has a nice lively square named Sorreno which never gets quiet.

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We enjoyed amazing steaks, experienced dancing in awful clubs, chilled in parks and walked for miles on end each day! Buenos Aires has a very good metro system but we stayed 6 blocks away from the nearest metro stop and the sticky heat did not help! We went to La Boca stadium and when I saw the pitch thought it was the teams training ground! The stadium does hold 58,000 people but it simply looked minuscule to my eyes!! La Boca district also has a touristy pedestrian area where the houses are all multicoloured and you can watch some tango shows outdoors while you are having a drink.

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We watched an amazing live drumming show on Monday. The concert takes place each Monday from 8 till 10 and is simply unique. It is a whole orchestra with a conductor, perched on some staircase and the crowd of 1000 is moving to the rythm on a cobbled outdoor square. Simply sensational!!

We got in touch with some friends that we had met in La Paz. They had rented an apartment for one month and kindly put us up on their sofa on our last night. We took them to a trendy local venue and saw some tango. Dylan and I hit the dancefloor but soon realised we were amongst experienced dancers and were merely valsing!! Oh dear... we had a good laugh nevertheless!

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We left Buenos Aires for Rosario on Wednesday and were ready for our 13 hour journey, not!!