BA is one fabulous city! Zoe's been a few times before so set us up in Palermo which is a neighbourhood like Woollahra and Potts Point combined. Residential leafy streets with cafes and cool boutiques spread around. Feels gritty in a good New York way and has fabulous people watching.
The highlights so far:
1) My plane out of Lima was delayed which resulted in a few more hours in the lounge than ideal. It was a very random business lounge with a smoking area as apparently Lima didn't get the memo about no smoking, a bevy of middle aged south american men who apparently have never seen a gringa, and a weird selection of pastries and cream cheese sandwiches. But they had Inca Kola so I made do with that.
2) My airport driver didn't show so I ended up in a normal taxi with a slightly crazy driver who wanted to tell me all about the currency exchange in BA and then try to get me to change money with him. I decided to pretend I no longer understood Spanish.
3) The hotel is great- roof top pool, massive room, monsoon shower, gourmet breakfast with yogurt foam as normal yogurt is sooooo last season, and close enough to Palermo shops and some fab restaurants.
4) Speaking of fab restaurants....we tried to get into Tegui which is the one of the moment but it was almost the weekend so that didn't work. Instead the hotel recommended Unik which was equally cool and a great meal. Although no one eats before 9pm which will take some getting used to.
5) I picked up a cold in Cusco (probably the day it hailed and I got drenched!) so poor Zoe's had to listen to me snort and cough my way through the last few days. I'm not sure all the wine we're drinking is doctor approved, but I think it's helping with my cold for sure.
6) Palermo is the prefect place to wander but there's just not enough meals to try out all the fab cafes and restaurant. We've had amazing steaks, salads, apple pancakes, croissants....it's a foodie's heaven!
7) Took the subway into the city on Friday but avoided the big tourist stuff as Zoe's already done it so I'll save it for next week when I'm back after Montevideo. Instead we went down to San Telmo which is a city centre suburb a bit like Surry Hills. There's a walking trail there to see the characters from an old Argentinian book series about a girl called Mafalda which had a bit of a political edge back in the day.
8) Friday night we got the ferry over to Colonia which was a rather convoluted process with the actual journey taking 1 hour, but all the boarding and disembarking taking about another 2 hours. Random guy wearing bunny ears and a dog collar, who I hope was on a stag do. They went wild for the duty free on the ferry almost ransacking the place of booze so it must be way cheaper than BA.
9) Getting into Uruguay basically just involved leaving Argentina. No forms, no Uruguay customs, no passport stamp which is pretty odd in this day and age. I might ask for a stamp on the way out so I have a complete set for my trip.
Back to BA after the coming weekend in Uruguay with stops in Colonia and Montevideo. Looking forward to more wine, great food and a potter around in yet another south american country. From the clientele on the ferry, we'll be the only Gringas once more and the Spanish will be coming out in force.
