Buenos Aires..Don't Cry For Me Marge and Tina

The port of La Boca
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First view of Buenos Aires is a bit of a shocker.....its just so damn big!  (Well at least for a boy from Bendigo and a girl from Hoppers).

Ended up rushing to BA as we wanted to catch up with a German couple that we had met in Ecuador before they headed home.  We had great intentions of hitting the town with them a couple of times before they headed off on the 17th.

First attempt we headed into San Telmo which is the arty, hippy precinct..a bit like Fitzroy actually and spent most of the night wandering around trying to find a decent open bar.  Ended up drinking in a restaurant but the service was so slow no body was getting anywhere so aborted the night.  Next night and final chance we were just about to head out to Palermo (an area in BA with heaps of bars) when it started belting down rain..and I mean belting down, with constant lightening and tree branches dropping like flies we weren't going anywhere for a while.  Finally let up around midnight so grabbed a taxi in and went to a really useless restaurant for dinner....they managed to screw up everyone's order and for once it wasn't our fault as Miriam speaks good spanish.  Just as we finished dinner and decided to head to a bar for drinks it belted down rain again...couldn't get a taxi for four hours and got back to the hostel drenched and sober at around 5am.

New Years with a few friends
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Well after showing Miriam and Marcel probably two of the shittiest nights of their lives (no worries guys) they headed back to Germany and we decided we had enough of the hostel scene and with Justin and Kay managed to line up a couple of apartments to keep us off the streets over Christmas and New Years.

First apartment was in the center of Buenos Aires on one of the busiest walking thoroughfares..a great location and was very surprised to find the apartment was in really good knick nicer than anything we have ever had at home and cheap as well (especially when we squeezed John and Daniel into the lounge room and stung them the appropriate amount of rent).

Sunrise New Years day from the club
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Didn't do much in the days leading up to Christmas apart from enjoy living a semi normal life and cooking for ourselves which of course consisted of steaks for lunch and dinner every day.  Ran into Will and Jo an English couple we did the Uyuni tour with whilst wandering around San Telmo's Sunday market and had a great night out in one of the ritzier suburbs of BA in Recoletta.  As a bonus got to rib Will mercilessly about the ashes results to that point.

One day decided to walk along the river front (Puerto Madero) which is very nice and will be even better in a couple of years when they have finished all the buildings and renovations very similar to the Docklands in Melbourne.  Once we got there decided to keep walking into La Boca which is where the famous soccer stadium the Bombanero is located and where many a classic match has been played out between Boca and River the two hometown rivals.  Unfortunately the season was finished so just went to have a gander at the empty stadium which to be honest without 50,000 rabid soccer fans was not much chop.

Jo still going strong at 9am.....unfortunately she has a guy growing out of her armpit..maybe time for a shower.
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Getting to La Boca was interesting... some bright spark (me) decided to walk there from the center of town with our cameras and passports through some of the dodgiest back streets ever....Jo was adamant we were going to die a few times along the walk (reminiscent of Prowsey in outward bound) and was even starting to question my navigational skills when we walked along a freeway for a few hundred meters.  Eventually got to the tourist part (possibly in record time) which is just a bunch of shops and houses painted different colours from all the leftover paint from painting the fishing boats in the old days...not bad if you like multi coloured houses...we didn't hang around long and got a taxi home 'cause Jo didn't want to walk for some reason.

These dog walkers were everywhere, I love the guy putting on his tough man pose.
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Christmas was pretty good had a few beers on Xmas eve and went to the park to have a hit of cricket with the good old homemade bat...certainly turned a few heads walking down the centre of BA with it, I'm sure it looked to the locals like we were off to beat someone.....so we gave it to the girls to carry as they looked less threatening.  Had a good hit even taught the German and the Swiss guy Johan how to bowl, by the end they weren't pretty but reasonably effective (a bit like Gryllsy).  That night went to a club called Opera Bay which I think was modeled on the Opera House, was quite ordinary and even heard Spice Girls being played at one stage, so walked out in disgust.

Evita`s family plot in Recoletta Cemetery...not that impressive
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Next morning got up reasonably early put the roasts on, even made stuffing and a few deserts...surprisingly everything turned out pretty well so ended up having a good traditional christmas although we couldn't have turkey as the only one we could find was a six kg monster that wouldn't fit in our oven.

That afternoon a few mates from the Animal Park turned up at our apartment (Dolev, Yuval, Manu and a couple more french girls who I can never remember the names of).  Had quite a few bottles of wine then decided to hit the bars in Palermo and once again was a complete balls up as we took two taxis and got completely separated, with no mobiles never ended up finding each other again so everyone ended up going home.

Jo knocking on the door of a dead guys tomb....and looking pretty guilty about it I might add.
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Moved out of our apartment on the 27th and into our new one in Palermo which was nice, bigger than the last one and with a pool on the roof of the building.  Found a great big park just down the road which we went to quite regularly with a few bottles of wine.  Had a small hiccup with the apartment something to do with too much noise and too many people in the apartment, they even threatened to call the police and kick us out in the street!  Wrote an email to the lady (with some subtle references to tenants rights and unprovoked threats) and everything was fine after that...John even managed to do his bit by frying the stereo by plugging it in minus the step down transformer so loud music was not going to be a problem anymore.

The street of our second apartment was named after this guy.
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New Years was quite good, got up having no idea what were going to do but got a call form Yuval asking us to come over to their apartment.  Turned up in the evening and drank steadily through to twelve and then headed out to the main street in Buenos Aires (9 deJulio) which has got to be the widest street in the world, has about 15 lanes and takes two light changes to cross.  Watched the fireworks which were quite unspectacular mostly just local people setting of there own personal supplies.

Jo with Hugh Heffner...didn`t even realise he was dead.
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Earlier in the night had bought tickets to a club called Pacha (which is supposedly the best in BA and is famous for being one of the best clubs in Ibiza too).  Somehow Jo got the responsibility of holding everyone's tickets (six in total with a value of 480 pesos) and then repaid everyone's blind faith by managing to lose them on the walk back to the apartment.  But it's ok, there's a happy ending, she then managed to totally redeem herself by miraculously finding them in a gutter directly in front of the busiest hostel in all of Buenos Aires half an hour later (definitely a belated Christmas miracle).  Headed to Pacha around 2:30am and I took up my customary position outside, near the bar with the other barflies and Jo took up hers on the dance floor.  Ended up having a great night and met a heap of great people.

An international mix of Australians, South Africans, a Pom and a German.
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Watched the sun rise over the bay from outside which was nice.  Music stopped around 10am then did a one hour walk of shame back to our apartment.

The only other touristy thing of note that we managed to squeeze into our hectic schedule was a trip to the Recoletta cemetery where all the rich and famous people of Argentina's history are buried.  The most notable is probably Evita although her mausoleum thingy was far from the most impressive.  Some of the plots were amazing bigger than our apartment at home with huge elaborate statues of blokes riding horses, fighting dragons, standing there like dicks etc.., as well as ornate cast iron gates, marble alters etc....all a bit egotistical if you ask me but impressive nonetheless.

A building in La Boca
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Oh after having a fight with a Brazilian official at the embassy over my visa application (don't get me started I could write twenty paragraphs about the ineptitude of the idiots there) also managed to squeeze in a trip to the Hippodrome (BA's race course) was slightly disappointed when I didn't see 10 hippos tearing down the straight towards the finish line.  Unfortunately no races on so wandered around before getting told off for taking photos of the stables and mounting yard...still not sure why.

Well that's it for Buenos Aires said a sad goodbye to the guys we had been living with and jumped on a bus south for Barriloche.