Buenos Aires: The Good, The Bad, and the ugly...
Trip Start
Nov 30, 2007
1
6
11
Trip End
Feb 19, 2008
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
We spent out last day in Bariloche on Thursday, and took a bus to Buenos Aires on thursday night. We opted for the ´Full' Cama´´ seats again, as the bus ride was 19 hours, and we weren´t sure how we would go with that. The bus itself was great, we went with a company called Via Bariloche, and we stocked up on lots of great Bariloche chocolate before the trip. We were very sad to say goodbye ot our lovely lady at the Bed and Breakfast, especially when she found my watch after i thought i had lost it!!!
Ok so the bus ride...
Nice Buldings
. well the first few hours were fine, we had something to eat, listened to our Ipods and just relaxed in our massive seats... however 6 hours into the trip I got some sever motion sickness and spent the rest of the trip throwing my guts up! yep a 19 hour bus trip... the bus did not stop once! Kiren and I went down to sit with the drive because it made me feel a little less like I was dying a slow death.... haha! It was pretty much the worst moment of the trip so far, but I was lucky to have kiren there looking after me! She´s a very good mum! When we arrived in Buenos Aires the next day around midday it was stinking hot and really humid. I got off the bus thinking being on solid ground would be a god sent but the heat didn´t help! haha I was such a mess!We jumped in a taxi and headed to San Telmo, which we had heard was the nicest, safest, part to stay and that there were lots of hostels there. We started at a hostel in the lonely planet, which seemed nice but they only had dorms... in my current state we decided a private room was the best way to go, then we tried a couple of others that either had no private rooms or we just very dingy looking. Finally after stumbling around San Telmo with our back packs we came across Hotel Carly! They told us that they had a private twin room with a shared bathroom for 38 pesos! (thats less than $12), but the people weren´t checking out til 6pm. We decided to leave our bags there and come back at 6pm to check in. The next 4 hours were spent trudging around Buenos Aires in our 19 hour bus ride clothes, looking for another hostel to spend the following 3 nights. It was not the best day to be sick! We finally found a hostel in the central area of the city called Ävenue hostel, it looked really modern and nice so we decided to book in for the following 3 nights. So at 5pm I could barely walk and we decided to just go back to Hotel Carly and wait....
again
. and wait.... and wait! At 7pm the room still wasn´t ready ... we had a few language isues with the lady there and there was a lot of ¨Quando???¨Quando??? Quando??? being said! The hotel itself was soooo depressing! we met a girl there and asked her if she could reccomend a nice place to eat dinner and she said she never leaves the hostel, she just gets drunk there every night... really weird!!Anyway we survived our night in Carly and I woke up feeling a bit better, and thanking everyone who convinced me to bring a sleeping bag with me! We decided we would save a few Pesos and walk all the way to Avenue hostel, which claims to be ´the best hostel in Buenos´, so we were feeling quietly confident with ourselves! when we got there it all seemed pretty good, had a nice private bathroom and it was clean, no bedding on the beds, so once again glad we had our sleeping bags, and minus the sleezy guys that worked there it seemed perfect! We spent that day checking out Bs As shopping! it´s pretty awesome and very cheap, we were stoked to pick up Havaianas for $6 a pair! That night we decided the check out the amazing steakhouses, or Parilla resteraunts everyone has been raving about. We ate at about 10 pm at a place called El Gaucho... the place was not even half full and didn´t fill up until after 11 when we left! Crazy! The food was very very nice, but the portions were way too big, it was all very cheap though..
in san telmo
. even though I only got a quarter of the way through it! After dinner we decided to go to a bar near our hostel, reccomended in the lonely planet, called´full bar´.... ok so it doesn´t exist... so if you go to Bs As... probably dont go there! damn lonely planet! We went to a little irish pub for a while, but were not loving the rude staff so we left and went back to ´the best hostel in Bs As´´..... so not! That whole night we did not get one hour of sleep because it is the noisiest hostel in Bs As... they had this stupid TV room at the bottum of the stairs with soccer on very loud that just seemed to flood through the whole hostel! Unfortunately we had pre paid our whole stay so we still had 2 more nights in this shit hole!We spent the next day feeling very tired and looking some more around the city, we went to plaza de mayo, and plaza san martin and also along florida and lavalle which are the good shopping strips!We had spent the morning at the San telmo sunday market which was amazing! soooo nice and we saw some tango! yay! We caved at about 4pm and decided to eat Mcdonalds!!! we were too tired and grumpy for anything else! We tried to nap for a few hours so that we could eat dinner at 11pm when the locals do... but once again Noisy Noisy shit hole of a hostel wouldnt let us sleep! At 11pm we decided to go have dinner at a Parilla resteraunt we had been given a flyer for called´Bogota´! We followed our little map and ran into the same Peruvian guy who had given us the flyer (about 11 hours earlier!) He took us down a dingy little st to a resteraunt that had only 3 other people in it... we weren´t so convinced, but all we had heard was that Argentine food is great everywhere, so we thought it would be fine! BIG MISTAKE!!!! I was still feeling sick, so I decided to just order a salad, which the waiter told me was ´Delicious´and hte ´best salad ever´
san telmo
! and Kiren simply asked the waiter for a Porqueeto (small) portion of Carne (beef). About 15 minutes later the waiter put a plate in front of Kiren covered in meat that looked like it had been sitting in the sun for a week and a blood sausage!! We both almost threw up at the table from the smell! I wish I had my camera on my because it was seriously the most disgusting thing I have ever seen! Next he brought a salad that consisted of brown wilted lettuce, a hard boiled egg chopped up (also brown) and about 3 chopped up brown onions! We exchanged a few looks at each other, gasped for clean air, and promptly asked for ´La Cuenta´(the bill!!) POR FAVOR!!!!!It was soooo wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We were very glad we had maccas that afternoon!
We spent the next 2 days in Buenos Aires doing a lot of walking and enjoying the sunshine, its a very pretty city and has some really nice buildings and lovely cafes and resteraunts (not BOGOTA!)!! On our last night we had an early dinner (by local standards) and were lucky enough to catch an amazing tango show in one of the main pedestrian areas, we watched for about an hour! it was soooo good!
On our last day we decided to navigate our way to the Evita museum..
Bas As
. which didnt look veyr far on the map... after an hour of walking and lovely lady stopped and told us we could not walk and would need ot catch a bus! So we followed her directions and managed to get there without too much difficulty... getting back was the challenge though! We ended up getting on the wrong bus back and going about 40 minutes in the wrong direction! oops! hhaha! The museum was really nice and had some really nice pictures and art work aswell! We then headed back to Avenue Hostle ´the best hostel in Ba As´picked up our luggage and headed to the airport.... about 5 hours early! we needed to get out of that city! Overall Bs As was a good experience, however 5 days there was too long, we should have spent longer in Bariloche!So last night we flew to Lima, and got in about 3 am this morning, having fun so far but I will write about that once we have done more!
I love and miss you all and thanks for listening to me whinge! xx
Comments
Mary + Bill Hailes
great pics and hope you enjoy the rest of yor trip
also hope that you have more luck in regards to the quality of your accomodation.