Hotel Reconquista Luxor Buenos Aires

We finally arrived on the East Coast of South America...BUENOS AIRES!! The Atomosphere was busy when we arrived - vendors lined the street and people hurried around. Next to the bus terminal are three train stations side-by-side, a subway station and an area to catch the various and plentiful collectivos (local buses). Tall buildings old and new added to the big city feel.

Luck would have it that my dad has a friend that has a friend in Buenos Aires ...

... trip to BA always said how they ended up staying ALOT longer than they planned, so we made sure we had a good week there, and yeah, we could have stayed for longer, no doubt, but we had to have our emotional goodbye on the Saturday as I left for Melbourne, and Anna left for Spain. That was hard... I sobbed like a little girl. Brought out my feminine side.

The fact that we had the fancy room ...

... get some stamps for the obligatory postcards. I also bought a couple of pairs of trainer socks and two pair of boxers (I like to have underwear from different places). By the time we had done everything it was about 4pm so we needed to set off to the airport. So we said goodbye to Fifa and went and collected my bags from the hotel then had to get two buses to the airport. Once we arrived at the airport I went to look at the monitors to check what desk ...

... to visit an authentic family asado. Add in the Argentine pace of life and you begin to get a sense the pleasures that most portenos demand and that many expats seek from all over the world. Most storefronts will be completely shut down between 1-5pm for siesta (we should adopt this practice in the US). Everything will be open from 5-9pm. All restaurants will be open until late into the night and the bars don't close ...

... and demonstrations frequently tended to clog up arterial roads and led to domino-effect traffic jams throughout the day. It reminded me as well of the passionate nature of South Americans; through the protests I'm sure we'll see in other cities, their innate friendliness and curiosity, to their creative tango and salsa. Angela did a smart job in choosing our hostel - centrally located, affordable and a private en-suite with all the trimmings. We ...

... amazing life. Plaza Dorrego, 20m down the road from our hostel, is constantly buzzing with stalls of local handifcrafts, tango dancers, and lively musicians. Quite a nice event to wake up to a thriving market on a Sunday morning. Theatre attendance appears to be a national pasttime in Argentina, so when in Rome do as the Romans do. We saw the Argentinian production on Eva Peron ...

... alfajores there are two layers of cake, and a filling in between. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfajor Thursday night was interesting. It was Anna's last night here... So, we met some of her friends in Belgrano and ended up at a Parrilla called "Jackie O"--> I'm sure that was oh-so-touristy, but I swear I didn't see any ...

... fireworks at midnight and finally met up with our mates in a beach bar through until sunrise. The first sunrise of 2009 over the water really was the most beautiful one we have ever seen- see the photos- it was magical. Body clock back to normal we managed to get the last 4 places on the bus out of Las Grutas to Bariloche (we were once again travelling with Karl and Liz, our inseparable travel mates who had been with us about 2 months now)

... in any topic of conversation we had.. strange and annoying really..lol. So anyways, at about 4 am Gabriel decided he wanted to take us to some other barcalled "Kim Novac" he loves where "tourists would never know about or go because it is not in any guidebook" - and a popular late night - er I mean early morning- destination for many people of different lifestyles including (but not limited to) gays, lesbians and trannies (transvestites). You walk into a dark, but ...

... br>
They directed us upstairs to the dance studio, where our instructor showed us how to do the correct tango hold and some basic steps.

The group started off with about 30 of us, which was bit ...