Argentina

So

Buenos Aires.

Today we had a plan!!!!!!! Finally, after five nights in the city we actually knew what we were going to do!

So first thing on our list. Buy some tickets to get to Uruguay for the day tomorrow!

Off we trotted to Cordoba Street about ten blocks away from the hostel, aiming for the Buquebus ticket office. We arrived there, conversed fully with the receptionist by saying “Can we buy two tickets to Uruguay” in very slow and loud English, and realised we needed our passports to buy them! So, first thing planned and first thing failed!

Second on our list for today was to head a couple of blocks up from Cordoba Street to the San Nicolas area and catch the Buenos Aires Bus – a hop on hop off tourist bus. Our plan here was to get on the bus as a means of getting to La Boca, and also to make sure that we’d seen all the main sights of the city. The buses ran every half an hour, so we turned up at the bus stop and waited. And sure enough, within fifteen minutes a bus turned up……… at the bottom of the street where we were waiting and it continued without stopping!

Now maybe at this stage we should have thought something was amiss. But no! We continued to wait, as we were clearly at a stop and we reasoned that the bus was going on a circular route and would arrive back at this stop.

So we waited.

For another thirty five minutes.

And another bus turned up.

At the bottom of the street where we were waiting and it continued without stopping!

It slowly dawned on us that maybe the bus didn’t stop here anymore! So, looking at the route the bus took, we headed down toward Plaza De Mayo, a twenty minute walk away, to where the bus route started. About half a mile away from the Plaza De Mayo we saw the bus sat waiting. So the walk turned into a strange walking/running hybrid! We reached the bus without it setting off, realised that no-one had even got onto it yet, so went to buy the tickets from the counter inside a ticket booth. And, clutching the prized tickets in our hands, set foot outside the ticket booth to see the bus disappearing into the distance!

At this stage, if we hadn’t already bought the tickets, we would have given it up as a bad joke and gone back to the hostel. But, having spent my 50 Argentinean pesos on the tickets I was damned if I was giving up this easily! So we waited yet another thirty minutes for the next bus!

And finally, two hours after first queuing up in San Nicolas, the bus came and we got onto it!

Sitting on the top deck, we set off, passing a building based upon Dante’s Divine Comedy

and also the Congress Plaza, which was somewhere we hadn’t visited before.

We didn’t get off here though, as our only intended “hop off” was in La Boca, so onwards through the dense Buenos Aires traffic we continued.

After half an hour of passing through places we’d already visited, by which stage we’d given up on the commentary coming through the headphones on the bus (the unadjustable volume would’ve put a jet engine to shame), we arrived in La Boca

and got our first view of the Estadio Del Club Atletico Boca Juniors, which for the benefit of any non Spanish speakers means “Boca Juniors Ground”! See – I’m helpful and informative!!

The bus carried on down the road for another couple of miles

and then stopped at Caminito, the main tourist area of La Boca.

We had mixed feelings about Caminito. It was very pretty, with cobbled streets, colourful buildings and cafés galore.

There were even staff outside the cafes doing the tango, and it undeniably felt Argentinean in a way that, perversely, the rest of the country hadn’t.

But, and it was a big but, it felt too “Disneyfied”. La Boca is one of the poorest and indeed roughest areas in the whole of Buenos Aires. Walk a block away from the cobbles and you entered streets where even the dogs were carrying flick knives. So, quaint though it was, it felt completely false.

We hadn’t come to La Boca though to see cobbled streets and colourful buildings. We’d come to visit the football stadium! So, heading away from the tourist trap of Caminito and walking through streets cordoned off with police incident tape, we reached the Estadio Del Club Atletico Boca Juniors.

Paying 25 Argentinean Pesos each for the museum and stadium entry, our first port of call was a 360 degree cinema presentation inside a football!

Straight away, it re-told us of our lives to date; how we’d grown up in the poorest part of La Boca, the stadium dominating our views growing up, until finally, we’d scored a last minute goal for Boca Juniors coming off the bench! Strangely enough, we thought we’d both grown up on a Rotherham council estate and never played for Boca Juniors in our lives, but it’s amazing what tricks your mind can play on you!

Suffice to say, the 360 degree cinema presentation was irredeemably crap, and I went looking for a counter where I could claim back the last ten minutes of my life!

The museum was quite poor. Apart from a small display of the trophies that Boca Juniors had won,

and a statue to their most famous player, a volleyballer called Diego Maradona, it had little to keep our interest.

So into the stadium proper we now headed.

The ground was one of the strangest I have ever been in. For a start, the layout was in a D shape, with one whole side dedicated to executive and press boxes.

It also felt extremely run down, with graffiti and flaking paint everywhere.

The whole stadium felt like a throwback to the eighties in the UK. Perhaps the biggest indicator of this was the bars and spikes preventing fans from accessing the pitch, something I haven’t seen in the UK since the Hillsborough disaster.

The terracing areas , running all the way to the top of the stadium, also didn’t feel safe.

As an example, the whole rear terracing area only had one row of crush barriers in the entire section! Still, it was the first South American football stadium I had ever been in, and as such was a good experience to have.

And I even got chance to demonstrate what a star I am!!

Leaving the football stadium, I grabbed the chance to grab an iconic picture underneath one of the murals,

and then we popped back down to Caminito to have another wander around the nicely decorated but probably fake streets.

We joined the long line for the bus, which arrived five minutes later, and as we tried to board the conductor indicated that the bus was full! So, for another half an hour, we stood in a line waiting for the next one! Not the most interesting of activities to do!

Finally, after we had started to freeze to death in the queue, the bus arrived and we set off, passing through streets much more representative of La Boca than Caminito.

We finally managed to listen to the commentary, finding some headphones that could reduce the nosebleed volume, and spent a few minutes laughing at the Stephen Hawkins style accent. To the accompaniment of an almost robotic voice, the bus passed through many other areas that we had visited, hitting the rush hour traffic as it travelled along.

It reached a nice area called Plaza Italia, which we hadn’t visited,

and then headed back to the start via Aviendo 9 de Julio.

Getting off the bus, we were frozen solid from the cold of sitting on an open top bus. We headed back to the hostel and it literally took us a couple of hours to warm up!

So the plan worked! It might not have gone as quickly and as smoothly as we wanted today, but it had been a really good day, and we finally realised that we had accomplished everything in Buenos Aires that we needed to do.

During breakfast this morning, we started chatting to the two ladies from St Louis that we’d met the previous night. Having found out a bit about their home town, one area of the United States that we haven’t yet ventured to, we started talking more about our trip and what we’ve done so far. We’ve been almost surprised when random strangers show a keen interest in what we’ve done, and this was the case here. We ended the conversation by giving them our email address so that we could pass on tips; we’ve become travel gurus! Or at least we would’ve done if Mandy hadn’t deleted the email they sent us by accident! Doh!

We left the Secret Garden at 12pm, thanking John for his hospitality whilst leaving. It has been a great experience. There are only three guest rooms, it feels more like a home stay than a hotel/ hostel/ B&B, and it was perfect in every way. If we do ever come back here, there’s only one place we’d ever stay. And so with John waving through the gate and Roxy, his dog, sticking her face through the bars, we headed off through Puerto Iguazú and reached the airport around twenty minutes later.

One point of interest about both Puerto Iguazú airport and the Jorge Newberry airport in Buenos Aires is that neither airport have been the slightest bit bothered about fluids being taken through security. For example, today we happily carried an opened 1.5 litre bottle of water through with us. They’re the first airports on our entire trip to allow this, and it seemed strange as we were starting to think that it was a worldwide policy on all flights now to ban liquids in your carry-on luggage. But very civilised it was. If only the other airports allowed it, we could bring some drink back from the trip, something we won’t be able to do unless we take the risk of checking it in our packs!

The flight to Buenos Aires was a bit of a nightmare. We don’t know what the pilot was doing, but he kept accelerating and decelerating the plane mid air, changing altitude all the time, and banking sharply without warning. And then coming into land, he got the “line up with runway part” right but forgot the “put wheels on floor” bit. So, halfway down the runway and merrily passing the terminal building still in mid air, he finally got it right and touched down. Cue massive braking to stop us continuing off the end of the runway and we came to a whiplash inducing stop. The loud cheer which came from a Scottish/ Irish schoolgirls hockey team at the rear of the plane summed up everyone’s feelings to be on firm ground in one piece!

Getting the taxi back to our hostel, we again experienced a side of Buenos Aires that wound us up the last time we arrived here, namely people scamming, or trying to scam you.

We waited in the taxi queue and lifted our packs up, put them into the car ourselves and totally ignored the old guy who had put some other passengers luggage in their boots; there was no need for us to have any assistance. We got into the taxi, and the old guy opened the passenger door and started asking for a tip! Now, if he had done anything, such as lifting our bags off the floor and putting them into the cab we would have given him a couple of pesos. But he did absolutely nothing. Nada. And still wanted paying for the privilege. We refused point blank to pay him anything, really indignant at the blatant cheek of it. And then the taxi driver gave him a two peso note, and totally ripped us off at the other end of the journey to get his money back with interest.

Its times like these that I really wish I knew enough Spanish to stream out a long line of expletives at such people. My thoughts definitely turned to wishing I’d bought hand grenades from Paraguay, because in five minutes of being back in Buenos Aires I could happily have used a couple!

Checking back into our hostel, we popped out for something to eat and then settled down for the night and a proper rest, watching Elf on the TV. And, unlike our last time in Buenos Aires, we now have a plan for the next two days ………..

Having a quick breakfast and packing the rest of our belongings away, we checked out of our hostel for now (we’re coming back in two days) and caught a taxi to Jorge Newberry airport in Buenos Aires for our flight to Puerto Iguazú.

We’re going to Puerto Iguazú to see Iguazú Falls; reputedly the most spectacular waterfalls in the world. It had been one of our main objectives before setting off on this trip, up there with things like the Great Wall of China and Uluru, but we very nearly scrapped it after Cambodia. This is because, like Cambodia, the area of Argentina that Puerto Iguazú lies in (Missiones) is a malarial zone. And after the experience in Cambodia trying not to get bitten by malaria addled mosquitoes, we hadn’t wanted to put ourselves through that again.

But, lots of research on Trip Advisor later, we’ve decided to take a chance on it. There are still conflicting reports on whether Puerto Iguazú actually even has mosquitoes, never mind malaria, and we don’t have enough anti-malarials to last us if we do get bitten, but it’s probably worth the risk.

So, off we went. After an uneventful flight, we started to descend into Amazonian style rainforest, landing at Puerto Iguazú airport.

We’re staying in a place called the Secret Garden, and as part of the deal we were met by a driver at the airport holding our names. We were driven the ten minutes to our accommodation, where the owner John Fernandes then got into the cab with us and gave us a guided tour of Puerto Iguazú town.

A particular highlight of this was being driven to a point in Puerto Iguazú where you could see three countries. On our left was Argentina, straight ahead was Paraguay, and to our right was Brazil!

We’re giving Paraguay a miss; speaking to John later he said the only good thing that the city there has going for it is Burger King, and described as a seedier version of Bangkok without the fun! He mentioned that you could buy anything, from rock bottom drinks through to hand grenades! Although there are one or two people I would have loved to blow up on this trip, I don’t rate my chances of getting through the airports with more ammo than Rambo!

But Brazil definitely has an appeal; we’re going all out tomorrow to try to get there!

After a tour lasting over half an hour, we finally got to see our accommodation. And it is fantastic.

Our first thoughts were that it reminded us of places such as Easter Island. After the hustle and bustle of Buenos Aires, it was amazing to be in a place where you were dominated by the lush plant life and surrounded by hummingbirds!

The place isn’t even advertised. There’s no sign outside the gate announcing that it’s anything other than just a house, and it was only through the internet that we discovered it existed!

John himself is a very interesting character. Originally from India, he came over to Argentina 30 years ago and never left! Becoming a legal Argentinean citizen a couple of years ago (to make it easier to get a Burger King from Paraguay than nipping over the border illegally!), he was a photographer before starting the Secret Garden as a side project. His next move is to teach poor indigenous children in the area photography. A completely interesting and absorbing man indeed, with perhaps one of the most chilled out manners of anyone we’ve met!

One feature that we were nervous about here was the 7pm ritual that John does, which is to serve free caipirinhas to guests. Caipirinhas, which Mandy’s “Spanish Gypsy Friend” Sara, swears by, are a traditional Brazilian drink made from rough rum, sugar and lime. It wasn’t the drinks we were nervous about though – it was the other guests we would have to meet!

In the event, though, it was a great evening. The caipirinhas were excellent, being about 99.9% rum and 1% sugar and lime, and after three of them we’d talk to anybody!!

As it was, we were chatting to the two other couples staying at the Secret Garden, a couple from California and a couple from New Zealand. After demonstrating our detailed Kiwi knowledge by pronouncing Dunedin correctly, the conversation soon turned to the impact on the Americans that the Bush administration had had on them as tourists, with people abusing them in the street abroad (despite the fact that they were Democrats and hated him even more!). It went down quite well when we mentioned about donating to the Obama campaign last year in Chicago, and even better when we told them exactly what to expect from the opening ceremony for the Olympic games in London in 2012 (if it’s anything like the opening ceremony for Euro 96 it’ll be impossible to be British abroad with all the ridicule!).

All too quickly though, the free drinks had ended (not surprisingly with the quantity of rum in each one) and so, ever so slightly dizzy headed, we went to bed before hitting the Iguazú Falls, and hopefully if we can arrange it, Brazil, tomorrow!!

So.

Buenos Aires.

We really haven’t got the hang of planning this city have we!

Third full day in. Had we planned anything? Had we f**k!

It was our last full day here before heading to Puerto Iguazu tomorrow (we are coming back two days later though) and we still hadn’t got off our arses to decide on a killer experience!

So, delaying a decision even further, we decided to head back down to the docks to look into a day trip to Uruguay! It seemed easier than thinking what to do here, somehow!!

And so we headed back down to the docks, and looked into a day trip to Uruguay.

So, having passed twenty minutes doing that, we still had to think what to do here!

Luckily enough, our map indicated that there was a large park area right next to the docks. So, our decision was made for us! Let’s go for a walk in the park!

The Parque Natural y Reserva Ecologica wasn’t exactly the best experience we have had on the trip so far. For a start, for park read large desolate area with a dirt track running through it. There were supposed to be birds here, being more a nature reserve than a park, but did we see any? What do you think!!

The dirt path carried on for 4km. It got briefly interesting when we reached the point where the River Plate joined the Atlantic Ocean

and occasionally we could see the city rising above the grass banks

but for the majority of the walk it was nothing but pure, mindless, drudgery along a path of dirt.

Finally, after we briefly considered joining some of the homeless people sleeping on the benches, we reached the exit. And decided that :

A. We were knackered
B. We were hungry
C. We hadn’t eaten a hot meal in days

and

D. We had seen a TGI Friday at the docks.

So, as it was Friday, we decided to go to TGI Friday!

Under normal circumstances the thought of actually eating something warm, albeit a further 2.5km away, would have been enough to put a skip into our step as we ambled along merrily to our dinner. But, having decided 100% definitely that we were going to eat there and determined in our resolve, we then spent the next ten minutes walking past stall after stall after stall of Parillion huts; an Argentinean barbeque hut.

So while the walk to TGI Fridays was very scenic

it was complete and utter torture, our noses being assailed by the smell of gorgeous cooking! And it did nothing whatsoever to help our poor, weary limbs on their continuing trudge along!

But, finally, we made it and set upon our meal like a plague of locust on a cornfield!

And so, having eaten more that in the previous five days put together, we headed back to the hostel to pack. Which we would have done straight away, were it not for the fact that we fell onto the bed and couldn’t move for three hours!

We eventually got started at 10pm, and a couple of hours later (in between extended rest periods) we finally got it done. And would have then settled down for the night, where it not for the horrendous karaoke/ jamming session happening on the roof of the hostel! We could hear several Beatles songs being happily murdered, and the room was booming with bad bass lines.

So, in an effort to drown out the noise, we popped MTV on the TV and watched a Prodigy concert from the Rock Am Ring festival. Which brought back many happy memories of bouncing around the campervan in Canberra to the new album!

Eventually though, the music still booming, we managed to get to sleep for a couple of hours before our 7am alarm the next morning!

So.

Buenos Aires.

We’d just spent our second night here. And really we should have known what we were going to do. But we knew more about the Dharma Initiative from Lost than we did the city we should have been exploring.

So, as you do, we again picked a likely area full of interesting looking buildings and planned to head there.

But, first, we had a strange experience.

Eating breakfast on the fifth floor balcony of the hostel, we realised there was something missing. Namely, any city noise. Why was this we wondered? And then it came to us. The road next to our side road was called Av 9 de Julio. Which, in English, means 9th July. And what was today? It was Thursday. But that wasn’t it. It was Thursday 9th July! Which is Independence Day in Argentina!

So, off we set to look at interesting buildings. And quickly realised that the city of 13.5 million people had reverted to a city of 13.5 people! It was like a ghost town! Especially the half a person making up the 13.5 people!

The main road, Av 9 de Julio, had tumbleweed replacing the innumerous taxi cabs and HGVs that had threatened our lives yesterday. We’d heard that there might be throngs of people celebrating Independence Day, so set off towards the Obelisk looking for them.

But, unless they’d been replaced by a few pigeons in some sort of Argentinean genetic engineering science experiment, they were nowhere to be seen.

So, from the Obelisk, we carried on through the empty streets, passing through an area called San Nicholas District, which was one of the first places in Buenos Aires to be settled, but was today just a couple of nice buildings with a small park!

And so we continued on our quest for “interesting buildings”, eventually arriving in the Recoleta district of town.

The first thing we saw here was a cemetery. And seeing as the city itself was completely dead, we thought it quite an apt place to visit!

To describe Recoleta Cemetery as just a collection of dusty old bones, is like describing Australia as being somewhere with a few kangaroos. It was like a miniature city in it’s own right, with tombs over twenty feet high dominating the views at all times. It even had it’s own avenues, and the really (and I mean really) bad thing was that many of the tombs had better living conditions and space than some of the inhabitants of Buenos Aires were living in today!

One feature of the Recoleta Cemetery, and one which we had to see as we were here, was the tomb of Eva Peron, or Evita as she is better known.

Now, I want it putting on record (and Mandy shares my sentiments here whole heartedly), that we had no idea that this tomb was here before setting foot inside the cemetery. The day that I purposely visit a site made worldwide famous by an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical (or even watch an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical come to think of it), is the day that I find the rustiest razor blade in the world, open up my veins from end to end and repeatedly hit myself in the face with a wet fish until my life has drained out of me! But here we were. So we saw it. And the bloody “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” song then repeatedly bounced around our brains and battered us senseless! If we could have found a back street surgeon to lobotomise us with a nail, it would have been preferable to having this dirge in our consciousness!

But the cemetery itself was pretty spectacular and wholly fascinating. It was sometimes quite disconcerting to be able to look into the crypts and see piles of old, rotting coffins within, but architecturally it was quite marvellous.

We headed from the cemetery through a small market selling quality items (which we resisted buying) and then headed towards the Fine Arts Museum.

We have been known to go into fine arts museums in the past, but not today. The sun was shining, it was a nice day, so we continued walking and reached a small park with a monument called the Floralis Generica Monument.

Now, my Spanish isn’t up to much, but I’m pretty sure that this meant the Generic Flower Monument. And if so, it certainly lived up to its name. Because it looked like a generic flower. Albeit one made out of aluminium!

After you’ve seen a monument to a generic flower, thoughts naturally turn to how nice and comfortable your bed is back at the hostel! So we decided we’d explored enough and decided to head back, although on a different route than that we’d taken already.

This, it occurred to us two miles down the road, perhaps wasn’t such a brilliant idea. We’d walked the two miles with an excellent view of the dual carriageway on our right hand side! And not much else besides this!

Reaching the Monumental Tower,

we decided to head through a park across the road instead of walking through another two miles of nothingness.

At the foot of the park was a monument to the Argentinean dead from the Falklands conflict. For some reason, we stood outside this and didn’t enter; it didn’t seem right somehow for us to enter.

So we continued through the park,

and headed back onto Av 9 de Julio towards the Obelisk

and ultimately back to our hostel.

So.

Independence Day in Argentina.

Various websites told us about the celebrations in the centre that accompany this day. We didn’t see a thing! But we had a really good day exploring a beautiful city, without the complications of millions of people. Which was much better than a few fireworks and fiestas!

As per usual on this trip, we’d not really done any research on Buenos Aires before we got here. Usually, for other places we’ve visited, we’ve managed to find some things to do before arriving. But not here. We didn’t have a clue!

So, getting a map from the hostel reception, we found the nearest interesting building and headed there, the plan being to see things and get our bearings at the same time.

We discovered our hostel was on a side street just off two of the major streets in Buenos Aires, the Av de Mayo and the Av 9 de Julio. So we headed down the Av de Mayo, soon reaching the Plaza de Mayo.

In the Plaza de Mayo, there were several brilliant buildings, namely the Cathedral

the Cabildo and the Government House.

Having taken our compliment of treasured holiday photographs, we headed around the Government House building, passing the impressive Argentina Bank building

aiming for the dock area Puerto Madero.

What we hadn’t reckoned on to get to Puerto Madero was the eight lane motorway we had to cross to get there. And the traffic was completely snarled up, with no pedestrian crossings apparent, due to some demonstration happening down the road. So, following the lead of some Buenos Arians, we weaved in and out of the lanes until we managed to get to the other side of the road, miraculously without being wrapped around the bumper of one of the many HGV lorries!

Puerto Madero was your typical gentrified dock area, much like areas in Manchester such as Castlefield. There were a couple of modern bridges,

as well as moored boat museums/ restaurants, which we walked alongside for twenty minutes or so.

We then headed back towards the centre, into the unbelievable throng that is Buenos Aires city centre.

Buenos Aires, as we noticed yesterday, is a huge place. The metropolitan area holds 13.5 million people. And it seemed like every one of the 13.5 million was in the city centre at the same time as us!

In your usual “huge city” experience, nobody got out of anyone elses way. So the general rule to move from Point A to Point B appeared to be barge anyone coming towards you!

We haven’t seen such a busy city centre as this on our entire trip so far. The best way to describe the quantity of traffic and people was to think of a city centre or shopping mall on Christmas Eve. It was absolutely mad and exhausting just to walk anywhere!

After we’d covered around five miles of walking, we’d had enough of fighting through the crowds and so headed back to our hostel, via McDonalds where we took five minutes trying to understand that the girl serving us was explaining how much the meal was (I had the money in my hand – why she didn’t just take it I’ll never know!!).

And, although we should have spent the time researching Buenos Aires a bit more, we were too exhausted and couldn’t be arsed, so settled down to watch various episodes of Lost instead!!

Today, we flew to Buenos Aires, Argentina. But, when we woke up this morning, we didn’t have a clue how we were going to get there!

We’d tried in vain to find a direct bus from Valparaiso back to Santiago Airport, but to no avail. So it looked like our only option would be to catch a taxi from our B&B to the bus station, get another bus back to Santiago Bus Station, and then get a taxi from there to the airport; a series of transportation that was going to set us back over £30 and take around three hours to do!

So, checking out of the B&B, we asked one of the owners, Trini, how we could get a cab, fully expecting to have to get the funicular down to the ground level and flag a cab down. To our eternal delight, she asked if we could wait fifteen minutes as her partner Ale was giving her a lift to the bus station and they’d take us in the back of their car at the same time. So fifteen minutes later, instead of trying to remember the Spanish for “please take us to the bus station”, we were sat in the back of a small Peugeot being chauffeured there for free!

Speaking to Trini during the journey, we found out she was going into Santiago to finish her law thesis, as she was completing her degree at the university there. So, having said goodbye to her and Ale at the station and unsuccessfully trying to give them some money for the ride, we then ended up on the same bus from Valparaiso to Santiago as she was on!

It was the perfect end to our stay in Valparaiso and, as we watched the city disappear through the window of the bus

we knew that the next time we were in Chile we would visit Valparaiso again and definitely stay at the Casa 199 B&B again, as it had been a brilliant way to spend three nights.

As the bus pulled up in a bus station on the outskirts of Santiago, Trini walked past us as she was leaving the bus and told us it would be much quicker to get off at this bus station rather than the one in the centre of Santiago. So we quickly jumped off, grabbed our bags, and followed her. She popped to the bus counters, found out which platform we had to go to for an airport bus, how much it was and how we paid, and took us to the platform before saying goodbye for the last time. Almost immediately the local bus pulled up, we jumped on it, and within five minutes were at the airport. So, by the time we had arrived, it had taken us less than half the anticipated time to get there and worked out at the equivalent of £10, and not the £30 if we had done it under our own steam. What can I say, apart from brilliant, friendly people. If you’re ever in Valparaiso, stop at the Casa 199; you won’t regret it for a second.

So, having checked our bags onto the flight, we headed through to the departure lounge. And continued our running saga with trying to change money.

Every country we have been in since New Zealand, it has been a nightmare trying to get local currency. Our credit and debit cards never, ever work at the airports (which has been the case since Perth and despite the fact that we’ve informed the respective companies where we are going!). So we’ve been forced to either use our dwindling supply of US$ to get local currency at a Bureau De Change or use the same US$ in a shop to get local currency back as change (not that easy when you try to buy a bottle of Sprite and give them a US$100 bill!!).

So, spotting a Bureau De Change in the departure lounge, we decided to try and get some Argentinean pesos before actually getting to the country! So, armed with my credit card and the rest of our dollar supply, I tried to ask for two thousand Argentinean pesos.

Firstly, the old guy behind the counter twitched nervously, wiping his eyes in disbelief that anyone would be wanting to change money! How dare we!! He then took an eternity to understand what two thousand meant (despite the fact that I DID pronounce it right!). When I reverted to English, and wrote it down, he did finally understand the concept of numbers! He then couldn’t understand what “Argentina” meant. Now, I could understand this if the word for “Argentina” was drastically different in Spanish. But it’s not. It’s “Argentina”! And it’s the nearest neighbour to Chile, sharing a border for thousands of miles. And so, running through a myriad of potential pronunciations for the same word “Argentina”, he finally understood. And told me they didn’t stock Argentinean Pesos!!!

Now maybe I’ve misunderstood the reason for a Bureau De Change in Santiago Airport. Because it appeared that the only transactions you could do in the international departure lounge of Santiago Airport was to change US$ into Chilean Pesos! Why you would need more Chilean Pesos as you were leaving the country is something I can’t quite work out, but there you go! So I left the old guy to do whatever it was that he actually did in his booth all day (it certainly wasn’t changing money!) and boarded the flight to Buenos Aires still without any Argentinean currency!

After an amazing experience of flying through the Andes, we had a very nervy landing as the plane seemed to increase in speed rather than decrease as we came into land; made scarier by landing in almost total darkness. Collecting our bags and trying unsuccessfully to get money from an ATM, we finally managed to find a Bureau De Change with some use! Finally getting rid of the New Zealand Dollars we’d been stuck with for the past couple of weeks, (despite getting ripped off on the exchange rate), we actually had money to get a taxi to the centre of Buenos Aires. The shorthand for Argentinean Pesos is ARS. And it had certainly been a pain in the ARS getting any!

Using a taxi booth for the cab, which then led to us following a porter pushing our luggage trolley through the airport towards the taxi and demanding a large tip for pushing a trolley fifty feet (he didn’t get one!), we were finally heading towards our hostel in the city centre.

It was immediately apparent that Buenos Aires is huge. The taxi ride took half an hour on a motorway and at all times during the journey we were passing block after block after block of flats. The taxi pulled down a side street, your typical “dimly lit with muggers hiding in every doorway” side street, and then we were finally at our home for the next four nights.

Not wanting to venture outside (because we were knackered and didn’t have a clue where we were!), we made our dinner in the hostel kitchen. In Argentina, the one thing that the meals are renowned for is the huge quantities of meat. So, ever the ones to buck the trend, we enjoyed a fine and filling meal of half a packet of microwave rice that we’d had in our packs since Auckland!!

Fine dining indeed!!!!