We were going to stay for just a few nights in Buenos Aires ...... we ended up staying for 12. The city is definitely one of our favourites from the entire trip it and seems like a combination of Barcelona, Paris and New York. Wide tree-lined avenues are a feature of the sprawling metropolis that does not really start to wake up till the afternoon and definitely livens up after midnight. We rented an apartment which had a kitchen in a complex that had a pool and gym for our entire stay so we felt like we had a small home away from home. It was fantastic to not have to pack the back-packs up on a regular basis and spend some relaxing time discovering the city.
Making our time here even more enjoyable was being able to hang out with our good friends Natalie and Simon (whom we met in a Chinese restaurant in Havana). They found the apartments in a great part of town and took us out to a pumping bar / restaurant when we arrived on our first night.
The day of New Years Eve got off to a slow start due to our 2 am finish (early by Buenos Aires standards). We tried unsuccessfully to get on to the tourist bus to see the city but had the good fortune to meet Todd and Tannis from Canada at the bus-stop who were equally unprepared. We jumped into a taxi for the first of our many adventures to an area called Palermo where we found a restaurant to party at that night. Nat, Simon, Todd and Tannis joined us for pre-dinner champagne and wine at our apartment which kicked off an evening of devouring way too much meat, drinking lots of Argentinean red wine, donning the restaurant-provided party gear and dancing to a terrible 70s, 80s and 90s mega-mix! Great fun!
As a result New Year’s Day was very uneventful. We stayed in and watched movies on cable TV that night as Nat was still too hungover to head out.
On Saturday we eventually got onto the Tourist bus that gave us a great overview of the entire city. After 3 hours we eventually got off in the swish neighbourhood of Recoletta and toured the markets before we sat down to a really nice outdoor lunch overlooking the park and markets. We met up for dinner that night with Nat and Simon at a famous Argentinean steak house, La Cabraera, in Palermo ..... needless to say there was much loosening of the belts required when we left.
We were now well into the habit of sleeping in and on Sunday we eventually headed to St Elmo antique market in the afternoon with Nat and Simon. The sun’s heat combined with last night’s red wine eventually forced us into a great little pub restaurant for lunch before we tackled the indoor antique market. That night we all headed to Palermo for Vietnamese and great cocktails at Green Bamboo. We were all still finding it difficult to stay out past 2am when the locals really get going in the bars and clubs.
On Monday we made a valiant effort to get up early and take a boat to Uruguay for the day but when we arrived the ferry was full. So we all headed to the Museum of Modern Art to take in an Andy Warhol exhibition and then had a great lunch in one of Recoletta’s finest restaurants before touring through the maze of ornately decorated mausoleums at the infamous Recoletta Cemetery. To celebrate our last night with Nat and Simon we headed out to see one of the legendary Argentinean Tango shows and we weren’t disappointed. Then it was back to the apartment for some red wine, baileys and beer to bade Nat and Simon farewell .... very sad but we’ll see them again soon in Sydney.
The rest of the week, apart from eventually making it across to Uruguay on Wednesday for a long but uneventful excursion, we fell into a comfortable pattern.
I’d been walking with a crutch for 3 weeks and my toe had not improved much, which was a bit of a concern with our hiking trip to Patagonia starting in 5 days. I found a couple of physios and went every day around lunch time for therapy. Meanwhile Sav was undertaking some retail therapy and we’d meet up each afternoon in Palermo for lunch and more shopping in this wonderful part of town with great local boutiques, bars and restaurants. Then each night we’d jump back in a taxi and travel to Palermo again to check out the bars and restaurants. We tried somewhere new (Brazilian steak houses, groovy cafes and Asian fusion etc) each time and we were rarely disappointed ..... particularly when we found the ice cream shops which rivalled their Italian counterparts. Palermo has a great vibe and it’s definitely one of our favourite dining areas from the entire trip.
On Saturday we started preparing for the Patagonian trip with some last minute shopping for more cold climate gear and that night (after dinner in Palermo of course) we spoke to Rosemary for her birthday and Jon for his 40th birthday!
On Sunday we changed hotels and met up with our guide, Andres, and travelling companions for the next two weeks. It got off to an interesting start with the entire group being videoed by Ming, the 68 year old Vietnamese man with two video cameras, two tripods, digital camera, a bright yellow vest and not much English ...... this was going to be interesting. That night we all met up in a Parrilla (Argentinean steak house) for dinner near the antique shops and street market in St Elmo before grabbing a tub full of Dulce de Leche (Argentinean caramel made from condensed milk that is soooo good) ice cream and walking back to the hotel.
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