El Vinten Baradero

... of their shops, removing torn-off blinds from over windows and so on. We wondered why there were oranges scattered all over the road and pavement and then realised that the street was lined with orange trees which had lost most of their fruit in the last couple of hours. Presumably there are so many oranges around that no-one’s even interested in collecting them ( although we were tempted to do so!)

As no-one could make us a cup of tea, we sought out fizzy ...

After a fun few days in Buenos Aires, we headed out of town in search of the gauchos and where better but San Antonio de Areco and the gaucho festival. One of Bridget´s dreams from childhood was to stay on an estancia, I confess to complete ignorance on what I had got myself into until we arrived. It wasn´t really inline with the backpacker life that I had been leading (ok - semi backpacker life), however, I really enjoyed the couple of days of luxury that we had at El ...

... subways can constantly feel like a sardine can. It was with these notions in mind, that we were excited to experience an invitation from our friend Doris to visit San Antonio de Areco. Situated about an hour and a half northwest of Buenos Aires is this small quaint town built in the early 18th century. The first step was securing a bus ticket, we took a taxi to the bus station and proceeded to buy 3 round-trip tickets without ...

Today is patron saint San Antonio´s birthday, and we decided to skip Spanish class and go to this town that was named after him for a festival to celebrate his birthday. This town, 2 hours away from Buenos Aires, is a popular tourist town famous for Gauchos (Argentine cowboys). The festival at the town´s main square was fantastic. Families played traditional ...

... to visit Evita's grave in the Recoleta cemetery and that evening we went to a Tango show. Did a bike tour of the south part of the city, visited La Boca and saw the stadium of La Boca juniors , the club for who Maradona used to play for. We had steak everyday, nice but yet to blow Dermot away!! The bills in the restaurants here always bring a smile to our faces, BA is excellent value!!.

Horses "No hour of life is wasted that is spent in the saddle." ~Winston Churchill One of our adventures out of the busy, hot and sticky capital city was to assume and embrace the life of an Argentinean gaucho. We left our apartment on Marcello T. Alvear downtown BA and drove to what we soon accepted as heaven; the El Ombu Estancia (estate) in the Pampas region of Argentina. These were three inspiring days of nature ...

... I play bj again thinking that maybe all the guys at the table were buddys and it was just them who didn`t play correctly and not everyone in Argentina, but I was wrong. I lose another $200 pesos and I`m not happy at my wanton act of imprudence. Take the train back and upon returning I learn that you need your ****ing ticket to exit. Why, this is boshit, I had to insert my ticket to get on the train in the first place to get on why do I need it to ...

Saturday People in various parts of Argentina have been raising their eyebrows every time we mention that we will be spending time in Baradero. It's completely off the tourist trail and does not appear in any of the guidebooks, which meant that we were the only foreigners in town! We went to Baradero to meet up with Marco and Pablo, two Argentinians we met whilst white-water rafting in ...

... times what we liked and disliked about Argentina and San Antonio. In one shop, the owner struck up a conversation with us and asked us what we disliked about Argentina. It took us a while to think of something! Tara dislikes the fact that Argentina is causing her to put on weight through its lovely food. Steve dislikes the fact that when you get off a bus, Argentinians seem to have no concept of ...

... which we don't want as it means it has curtains up the front, making it hard to see the view. We're also on the left side, which is not the best side for the majority of the good views. We climbed up out of the town- could see down to the salt lakes for a surprising time. Stopped at Pulacayo (4117 metres) to let people off. There is the remains of a major mine and mill, and the town is perched on the side of the mountain. A lot of mine tailings along the bed of the river ...