Now BA... OMG what an amazing city! We got the ferry which took about 3 hours, then got a cab to our friend Big Phil`s place (an Australian friend of mine and Viv`s who has moved to BA to work). So we rocked up about 12:30am to Phil`s apartment, worried that we were going to wake him up, but we were then unwise to the Argentine way of life. Phil had about 12 or so friends over for drinks, and within half an hour of arriving (after a 14 hour bus and ferry trip), Viv and I were changed and ready to go out.
Argentinians usually eat dinner about 11 or 11:30pm at night (even later than mum and dad), they dont usually head out until at least 1am, and get home about 6 or 7 am, maybe 8 or 9am... And i love this lifestyle! So for our first night we got home about 5am, exhausted from the bus trip, and from singing along to Bon Jovi. In a popular nightclub. (yep, BA is stuck a little bit in the 80s...)
And so the lifestyle worked for us straight away! The next day we slept in til about 1pm, then just pushed the time scale of a regular day about half a day later. And Phil`s apartment was amazing! Only thing was that its one bedroom, so Claire, Viv and I slept on the floor on 1cm thick mattresses. We did that for about 10 days, and my hips got pretty sore.
BA is a beautiful city, quite European, and home to the best steak and mash around. I think for the 2 weeks we were there, Viv and I ate steak for about 10 meals. OMG and the dulce de leche! AMAZING. It`s EVERYWHERE, and oh so cheap (so a regular day usually involved a coffee and a dulce de leche pastry from a cafe). Ooh and the wine! $AUD1 bought $3 pesos, and a good bottle of wine cost 8 pesos (so about $2.70 Stace...carry the one... haha just teasing).
Ooh and Susan, there was a beautiful park near Phil`s house, that was home to hundreds of stray (but oh so cute) cats and kittens! They were everywhere, and apparently the council or equivalent actually provide water for them, and people arent allowed to shoe (i know this is wrong spelling in this context, but what is right spelling?) them away.
And the shopping! I went a bit crazy actually... Viv and i bought beautiful leather jackets for about $200 each, a bag, shoes, jeans etc... Everything is so cheap!
After about a week, our other Sydney friends arrived (the ones we were with in Brazil, carnival etc..), who all rented apartments. We spent some time in La Boca, home to the crazily adored Boca Juniors (think Maradona statues everywhere). The guys went to watch a Boca match; instead i decided to spend a day getting my hair done (i was going to get it cut into a bob, and i chickened out when the guy couldnt speak any English whatsoever, and my Spanish was rusty at this stage). So i just got a bit of a trim instead (and in Spanish, the hairdresser still managed to point out how damaged my hair was, and make me feel guilty! Pha!!)
We had such a great time in BA - it was great to stop for a while in such a livable city!
Mine and Claire's flight to Lima, Peru was for the 12th March - Viv had another week in Argentina before flying to Oz for a couple of weeks (taking my shopping home with him...), and then onto Mexico. So apart again for another 6 months... Viv and I decided to spend our last 3 nights together renting an apartment, just to hang out before being apart again. I found this awesome-sounding apartment on hostel world, and booked us in for 3 nights. So the next day Viv and I packed up from Phil's place and took all our luggage to the apartment's address. We buzzed the porter, but he had no idea who we were or what apartment we were there for. And he only spoke Spanish. The agent was supposed to be meeting us at the apartment, but nope, no one there for us.
We tried phoning the number we were given on the booking, but the number wasnt connected. We had no idea what to do! We had all our luggage (which we left with the porter), and we just kept checking the net for an email from the agent. We waited for 4 hours, and because of it, we missed out on going to a Boca game. Very, very angry people we were. The porter (Jorge, pronounced Hor-hay) told us that he had a friend who had an apartment there, but it wasnt available until the following two nights, and maybe for about $US100, he wasnt sure. He said to call him the following morning. We managed to book ourselves into a bed and brekky for that night.
We called Jorge the next morning, and he said to come to the apartment block at 3pm. We did, and were pretty tired and cranky by the whole situation. Finally his friend Enrique arrived, an older man who began telling us about his 8 kids. He then told us that the apartment he had wasnt where we were, but actually in the city, (we were angry again by this stage, just tired of being stuffed around), and he said for us to all hop in a cab and go.
Well... Enrique is possibly the nicest, most generous person I have ever met! He paid for the cab (we were still feeling grouchy, so werent going to offer to pay anyway), then he tried to buy me a flower from a nearby florist (couldnt find man who worked there though). He said that when Jorge told him what happened with our apartment booking, he wanted to help. He apologised that this apartment was very small and the TV didnt work, but hopefully it would be ok.
The apartment was gorgeous! It had everything we could possibly need. Enrique spent about an hour showing us how everything worked, and when we asked how much, he said he didnt want any money from us! But he said maybe, if we wanted to, we could give Jorge some money. He was so lovely! He gave us contact numbers for him and all his children in case we had any problems, and let Viv choose what time he wanted to check out (because my flight was at 6am). Incredible. Then Viv and I were discreetly trying to scrape some money together to give him for his cab home (the least we could do!). Enrique asked us if we were alright, and whether we needed any money! We just couldnt believe how generous he was. The following day he rang the apartment just to check that everything was fine! So we had a perfect last few days together.
(I'm still writing this entry on the overnight bus in Bolivia, although its much easier to write now as we've broken down...I think the tyre broke... a sign of things to come in Bolivia).
And then it was time to say goodbye to Viv and goodbye to Argentina, and Claire and I got our flights to Lima, Peru...
