Chile to Argentina

  Buenos Aires, Argentina
Tuesday, January 20, 2009

What an effort to get here!! After arriving in San Pedro De Atacama in the North of Chile to be told there were  no buses to Salta (Argentina) until next month we had to change plans! So we spent a night at the overpriced camp site in the overpriced town eating overpriced food!

Campsite climbing wall

San Perdo should be lovely - an oasis in the desert but arriving from Bolivia everything was more than twice the price and it was a bit of a shock to the system! Compounding the problem was the fact that itīs Argentinian holidays so there were swarms of them and theyīd booked all the seats on the buses so we were left stranded in the town!

The historic cactus and adobe mud church.

We tried our luck at hitch-hiking but the Argentina bound cars were full of families so that didnīt work! We bit the bullet and booked a 24hr bus to Santiago!
It was actually OK, and relatively comfortable so we got plenty of sleep!! Arrived in Santiago at 6pm, and booked ourselves straight onto a 9 hour night bus to Mendoza in Argentina. We just had enough time for some chicken and chips, a shower, an internet session and we were back on a bus! Arrived in Mendoza early in the morning and booked straight onto a Buenos Aires bound bus!! This turned out to be a bit of a bad move because we thought it should be about an 11hour journey but we seemed to be on the slow local bus which took 18hours! Aaagh - we arrived in Buenos Aires at midnight!!
Got straight into a hostel dorm and found what we thought were the 2 empty beds! Ooopps- Pete found out in the morning that he was sleeping in someone else's bed! At least the guy didnīt try to get in beside him  in the middle of the night!!
We booked ourselves a flight to El Calafate for the following day so we had 1 day to whiz round and see Buenos Aires!

La Bocca 2

First we went to the colourful neighbourhood of La Boca, the artistic area which was really cool and there were performers doing tango in the street and a Maradonna look-a-like who was posing for photos so that was fun to watch. We went to the modern art gallery to see the Duchamp exhibition which was interesting and then enjoyed some really tasty mozzarella and parma ham sandwiches and a beer!
Next on the list of sights to see was La Recoletta, the cemetery. Sounds like a strange tourist attraction but it was amazingly elaborate. There were statues, domes, columns and all sorts of buildings all in marble.

Evitas Grave in Buenos Aires

Itīs in the posh part of town and the highlight was to see the tomb of Eva Duarte - Evita. Actually, compared to the other fancy tombs it wasnīt very glitzy at all but definitely the most visited!
We then wandered amongst the boutique shops and delicatessen shops looking at all the tasty treats! Thereīs a real Italian influence in Buenos Aires and most of the people have a European look to them, there were a lot of designer labels on show and I think they were genuine -not like the woolly jumpers with Nike labels in Bolivia!
We headed to the downtown area and saw the iconic Obelisco, the Casa Rosario where Evita and Peron made their big speeches from the balcony.
In the evening we decided to treat ourselves to a tasty meal, so being in Argentina there was only one option - a big steak and a bottle of red wine!
Next day we managed to squeeze in a trip on the Subte (subway) across town to the Eva Peron Museum which was really good and very informative.
Weīd really enjoyed Buenos Aires and felt we could have stayed a lot longer but the flight was double the price if we waited until the weekend so it was off to the airport for our flight to El Calafate. Patagonia here we come.....