Buenos Aires (with the three gringos)

Hello all. Writing to you from Buenos Aires, a city that is far too much fun for its own good. We are all feeling the effects of too many late nights and far too much overindulgence. We would however like to point out that it is not possible to go to sleep before 3am in this city - it appears that the quietest time to sleep is during the day. We were supposed to leave tomorrow but decided that we were enjoying it far too much so we´re gonna stick around until the weekend before heading south to Patagonia. After meeting Fonz at the airport on tuesday, the Gringos were reunited. Here is an account of what we´ve been up to.

Tuesday:
Aurelio´s old school friend, Ricardo, picked us all up from the airport and took us to his house in Pilar, a small, very cold, town just outside of BA. Ricardo is in fact the real Ron Burgundy (the man who Will Ferrell played in Anchorman). His english catchphrase is ¨Tight, son¨, but other than that he does not speak much english. Ricardo made us a good asado in his annexed asado room (a must for manly men like Ricardo) and we all chilled out (it was freezing) by the fireplace and warmed our bodies with red wine and fernet. Ricardo, being the man´s man he is, had to leave the braai in order to go and fight a fire (and, we suspect, hunt and kill a giant bear before consuming its liver), but he returned and we got back to enjoying the food. Don´t Braai for me Argentina. His son, Facundo, a mountain of a man who we are told will one day play rugby for the puma´s, returned from his late-night rugby practice to join us. Fun was had.

Wednesday:

We slowly made our way back into the city of BA, where we checked into a new hostel, Milhouse. We had heard that this was the party hostel of BA and that it was an achievement to last a week there, so we decided that we should check it out. Upon entering the hostel, we realised it was more like a giant bar/club with 150 travellers in various states of drunkeness. After checking into our dorm room, we watched Liverpool lose to Chelsea, along with the many many many many British inhabitants of Milhouse. After having a couple of beers in the bar, we made some dinner and then turned in for an earlyish night.

Thursday:

Because of the generally late hours in BA, it is perfectly reasonable to get up at midday. In fact, the quietest time in the hostel is from about 8am until 2pm, when most of the hostel sleeps. The noisiest time is exactly when you would want to sleep (from about midnight until the morning). Thus, while adjusting to this lifestyle, we did not manage to get much done during the day. However, we had heard that Groove Armada was playing in Buenos Aires that night, and that we should try and get tickets as soon as possible, which sprung us into action. Made some calls and found out they were playing late at night, but that we would have to go to the venue early in order to get tickets. So, with a backpack full of beer and peanuts (all you really need), the Gringos made their way to the venue and purchased their tickets. To pass the time we hung around on the sidewalk and drank beer like very civilised people. It was at this time that we met up with some Frankfurters we´d met the night before. The time flew by (I think we must have been having fun), and soon it was time to go in. We got our tickets out and were soon the victims of a heartless crime -ticket theft. Nadia had her ticket in her hand, a crowd went by, Nadia did not have her ticket in her hand. After much frantic searching and cursing, we gave in and bought another ticket. Nadia now lays claim to the title of Biggest Fan, since she bought not one, but two tickets. Those bastards. As can be expected from a Groove Armada performance, the night was fantastic, and soon we had forgotten all about our ticket misfortunes. Look at the pictures and be jealous.

We´ve realised that while this city is not dangerous in the way that Joburg may be dangerous (no one here is going to knife you in the head, for instance), but everyone here is trying very hard to get their hands on a little bit of your money. Taxi drivers do not hesitate to completely rip tourists off, kiosk venders attempt to give you fake banknotes in change (I think they have a pile of fake notes labelled ¨GringoChange¨) and people generally seem to try to help themselves to a little bit of your foreign money. When that foreign money is Sterling, I´m all for it, since it doesn´t even make a dent in the British budget. However, our pathetic Rand does not go far here, so it can be irritating at times. Argentina seems to be a paradise for the Brits, since its cheap as hell, so they generally just go mad. We lie awake at night and fantasize about travelling with Pounds. Aaaah.

Friday:

Owing to our tight budget, we had to choose between going to a big club on Friday night, or on Saturday night. Seeing as we had only gotten home very late from Groove, and had slept in, we decided to have a ¨chilled¨evening and save the club for saturday. We spent the afternoon walking around downtown Florida street, a pedestrian street with some great shops, and then returned to the hostel to discover that we had some new roomates - two British (3rd Gen from India) chaps from Oxford University who were both called Vesh. Vesh 1 and Vesh 2 invited us to join them for dinner so we found a quiet local cafe and enjoyed some food. In preparation for our planned big night, we decided to get an earlyish night and go to sleep at 2am.

Saturday:

Today was an eventful day. We decided to make use of the daylight hours, and so we took the Tren de La Costa (Train of the Coast, for all the monolingual readers), a train which travels up the coast near BA and ends up in Tigre, stopping in all the little towns along the way. We stopped in San Isidro where we found a nice pub beer garden thing, and decided to have a nice meaty lunch. & We then explored Tigre, but lamented the fact that we had arrived so late and could not enter the Tigre theme park. Fonzo was especially upset about this, and so we consoled him with a hug and had coffee at a waffle bar. The bus back from the Tren took an incredibly long time and so we only got back to our hostel at 9, leaving very little time for our planned Siesta, since Happy Hour in the hostel (thats right, a hostel with a happy hour) began at 10. We wanted to sleep, but the prospect of two for one cocktails appealed to our budget, so we did the responsible thing and skipped the sleep so that we could drink. A rep from Pacha, one of the biggest clubs in BA (and internationally) came round to the hostel to sell tickets to the party that night, and we decided to go big and see what the Pacha fuss was all about. The entrance alone cost us 70 Pesos (about R150), but we thought that the drinks at least would be reasonably priced. After paying R35 for a can of beer, and R300 for a round of three Vodka and Mixers, we realised that this was a club for the superrich Argentinians, or anyone with Pounds - The Saffers were struggling! The club itself was an absolute shock - we have never seen so many people, lights, and craziness in one place before. && However, the night wore on and the alcohol wore off, and by about 5am, Nadia and Esteban had had enough of the Progressive House (translate into ShitHouse) and had run out of money, so decided to call it a night (its a night!) at about 5:30am, much to the shock of everyone in the club who thought that this was not a reasonable time to go home. Fonzo was still enjoying himself, and so he stayed and rocked the party with the various Brits, only to return at 8:30am, triumphant at having shown that night who was boss.

Sunday:

Turns out the night had the last laugh after all. When we finally rolled out of bed at 3pm (3pm!), our heads hurt, our bodies ached, and most of all our wallets were so very empty - we felt very sorry for ourselves and wallowed in our own selfpity for most of the day. We decided that we needed some fresh air, so we took the subway to the mall to go and watch a movie. Ironman, while unlikely to change the face of Cinema, provided us with some good entertainment and was just what we needed to stop feeling so sorry for ourselves. In the Cinema´s here, you can skip the popcorn and coke and enjoy nachos and a pint of beer. Nice. The mall is also home to a completely Kosher McDonald´s, a seperate restaurant to the regular McD´s where the menu is in Hebrew and the BigMac is called the McHezmita. After returning home, we did not feel like hanging around in the bar, so we sat upstairs with the Veshes (as a pair we know them simply as Vicious) and chatted about various silly things.

Monday:

Sick of not making the most of the day, we decided to wake up early and see some sights. Took the Bus to La Boca, the famous workingclass neighbourhood which is home to Maradonna´s Boca Juniors football team. We explored the very colourful streets and attempted to dance Tango with some locals. & That afternoon we decided to check out Recoletta, since the Fonz (now known as Fozzle by some of the Brits in the hostel) had not seen the crazy cemetary yet. We also stumbled across a park with a giant mechanical flower which opens and closes according to the sun (not bad eh?). We had a nap in the park and generally just chilled out in Recoletta, a rather nice leafy area where the rich of Buenos Aires spend their time.

That night we returned to the Drumming party we had gone to last monday, and we enjoyed it just as much, however I am not going to write about it again, because that would be silly. If you really want, read up on the last one again, and change the date. Went back to the Hostel which was hosting a Pyjama Party (honestly its more of a fully licsenced club than a hostel), complete with barmen, djs, and packed with people. Nadia and Steve decided they´d rather chill our at a cafe and share a bottle of wine, but Fonz was keen to rock it with his pj´s so we parted ways for a couple hours. We returned to an even fuller hostel bar, and the sight of Fausto wearing nothing but longjohns and a wifebeater vest. Some of the hostel folk were dressed completely ridiculously - men in nightie´s, bear hats, pink dressing gowns. In fact, right now, as we speak, an Irish lad is still wearing his pink pyjamas from the night before, except now he´s got a superman hat on and is mumbling something incomprehensible about being a superhero. We don´t think he slept last night, so his PJ party is still going on. This is pretty standard behaiviour in the hostel we´re in - its common to see someone in the bar at the same seat, twleve hours after you left them there, completely unaware as to whether it is day or night. This city can take its toll on your body.

We´re a bit sick of the crazy hostel, and feel we need to chill out a bit, so we have booked into a hostel in the quiter suburb of Palermo, where we will stay until Friday. We are quite proud that we have lasted a week in Milhouse, since many weaker travellers drop dead in the attempt and their bones are kept in the cellar.

Thats all for now. Riot about now. Our next stop is Bariloche in the Lake District of Patagonia. Sounds crap doesn´t it - all those beautiful lakes and incredible mountains, to be honest I´d much rather be sitting in a office reading this blog - which is probably what many of you are doing right now.

Aight, hope you enjoyed the blog. We´ll try put pics into the blog but this internet cafe is just so damn pricey, so we might not be able to. You should definitely check out the pics on Picasa though, here´s the link

http://picasaweb.google.com/steveo.zogg/BuenosAiresWithTheThreeGringos

We posted pics of our eyes, so check em out and vote for who has got the best one (ones?). Interactive blogging, yes please!
And the photos of Pilar are here too : http://picasaweb.google.com/steveo.zogg/Pilar

K bye!