"Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans"

This one time, in Buenos Aires:

After a farewell in Él Calafate...Kathleen took the plane to Buenos Aires but I had to take the bus. There were no flights for almost a month...I love Argentina, but travelling in January and February can be a little tricky because all the Argentinians are on vacation as well. So a little planing ahead will not be a bad idea if you are heading that way.
As faith would have it, Me and Kathleen were to meet again in Buenos Aires. She was staying at a friends place and could arrange it so that I could stay their too. Argentinians are a friendly bunch, and taking total strangers or ppl they met shortly on their travels into their homes is normal for them...a little bit like in New Zealand I feel...they are proud of their country and want to show it to everybody. Anyways...where was I...a yes..bus to Buenos Aires. I had to take a bus from Èl Calafate (did I say already that is a great place?) to Rio Gallegos on the coast. That took four hours and was the easy part of the trip (counting four hour waiting time for the B.A. bus). The bus trip to B.A. took 36 hours!!! and on the way is absolutely nothing to see!!
I managed too sleep some and that made the trip a little bit easier. It was a nice aircondicioned bus and the food on the way was included. I was happy to see that Kathleen came to pick me up at the bus station. The busstation in B.A. (Retiro) is the biggest one I have seen in my life...It was almost like an airport. After taking a cab to the flat where Kathleen´s friend Celina lived we went to meet her at her work for lunch. The rest of the day was relaxing and I used it to recover from the bustrip. Next day I slept in (had not done that for a long time) and in the evening we made dinner for us Celina and Santiago her boyfriend who just arrived from Spain (he lives in Barcelona, but is from Chile). The third day, it was sightseeing day. We took a tour that took us around the city seeing many interesting places like The La Boca cuarter famous for it´s painted houses(see photo above). We also visited Boca Juniors stadium "La Bombonera" where Diego Armando Maradona played football. We drove past the harbour which is so poluted that if you drank one glas of the water you would be dead within 3 hours (how they came to this conclution I don´t know, maybe they got a volunteer to drink a glas of water from the harbour...anyway, good advise: Don´t fall inn!! After jumping of the bus at the famous obelix(see photo) on avenida 9 de Julio the widest avenue in the world - 140 meters wide - we headed home to Celina´s place where Santiago made dinner for us and some friends. Now, I have to mention the beef again. I have found out that after you have had argentinian beef once you can never eat beef again anywhere else in the world. What can make the experience even better is is to have a bottle of Mendoza with it...O my god! Tasting is beleiving my friends!
So the next night we went to this grill where we got a taste of various meat and the waiter even brougth complimentary champaigne. As that was not enough, he brought me and Kathleen a bottle of Mendoza red wine as a gift from the restaurant, because we were getting to know his country. I was stunned. Something I have never experienced before. WOW! And that was it! I was officially in love with this city and well...basically everything in it.
The day after we went to Celinas gratuation (doctor) and from there to her mothers house for some food (empanadas con dulce de leche!! uummm) and...yes...more wine. I think I drank between 1 and 2 bottles of wine every night while staying in Buenos Aires. Later that night we went with friends of Celina to Puerto Madero(see photo). It is a harbour where there just used to be old abandoned warehouses, but has now been transformed into a buzzling place with restaurants, cafés, bars and hotels. After sitting at a café there fore some time watching an amazing sunset and listening to a scottish guy play the bagpipes we went to have some more beef and wine:). The last two nights me and Kathleen found another acommodation because it was the last nights for Santiago and Celina together. We found this wonderful place with a family in San Telmo...maybe not the greatest neighbourhood but the family was fantastic and even invited us for a barbeque our last night in B.A. I have not eaten so much beef and drunk so much wine in my entire life as this one week in Buenos Aires; and I´m definately going back for more. Well this about does it for B.A. The next day I had a flight to Puerto Iguazú in Argentina, where I spent my last days in Argentina, and Kathleen had a flight to Santiago de Chile from where she would continue to New Zealand on her round the wourld trip. It was sad parting after 3 weeks of traveling together.! However...I just know that we will meet again :)

Next: Iguazu: The biggest waterfalls in the world

posted by Nonni @ 2:33 f.h.