Buenos Aires

In true Emma style, I did indeed meet Anh last Thursday for lunch AND bid on the patches on eBay, but I had to rush off before my sandwich had even arrived to find an Internet cafe to do so, leaving Anh abandoned in the plaza! Anyway, I am now the proud owner of one Fiji patch and one Paraguay patch, both purchased from a guy in Stoke... UK! 3 days later, I of course found a Paraguay one in a shop here. Well, the one off eBay is better, so there!

When I finally ran back to Anh, my sandwich (that I had gone to great lengths to order hot) was cold, but luckily still pretty delicious! It was beautifully sunny afternoon, and she was soon swept up from the table by a gentleman, with whom she impressively danced a little tango with. It was so romantic, until he came round to our table moments later with an upturned hat for tips! Oh well! That evening, we met up with Jess & Lizzie (UK) who Anh had met in Bolivia, and some other guys who they had met also along the way, in typical backpacker style! It soon became clear that BA is a city that never sleeps and that most things start later, and finish much, much later! We went out for dinner at an All-You-Can-Eat buffet, my first one ever, as I have always been a bit skeptical of them. Yes, I know you can eat all you want, but I've always thought that they cost more than I would usually spend on a meal, regardless that I could fill my face unendlessly! I was pleased to find that it was a very reasonable £3.50 - and that was including dessert as well!

After steak, veg, rice, salad, stir fry, bananas, peaches, bananas, peaches, creme caramel, we chatted away for a good while without being shuffled out of the restaurant and then when it was sufficiently late enough, we took a taxi to a milonga (tango dancehall) that Anh had recommended to her. We all thought it was hilarious when, as there were no free seats left around the edges of the hall), we were escorted to a table on the stage at the end of the room, metres above the dancers and everyone else! We didn't realise we would be starring in our own "Spot The Gringo" show!!! I thought that I should see some tango whilst in BA, even though I am not a huge fan of formal dancing, but I was really pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed watching the dancers. The bottle of bubbly that I shared with Jess & Lizzie went down a treat too! I think I eventually went to bed around 3am - way, way, WAY past my usual bedtime!

Friday was a lazy day, the weather was still great, so I strolled along the waterside at Puerto Madero and later people-watched in Plaza de Mayo, near the palace where Eva Perón made her famous address to the public. The late night (coupled with the long bus ride from Paraguay) had taken its toll and a good nap was required that afternoon! Later on, I went out with Anh to watch the Tango World Cup, but unfortunately, we didn't arrive early enough and after standing in the queue for 2 hours, we abandoned our chances of actually getting in and went for pizza instead!

On Saturday, I knew I had to actually be constructive and make an effort to buy a football ticket for ARG vs BRA. I went to Tangol, the main tour agency in BA who are recommended in most guide books. I wasn't quite prepared to be turned away immediately with "We have sold all our tickets, sorry." I was stunned, I had convinced myself that as they weren't even on sale yet, that such a big agency would simply be able to get hold of any number they required. That really put me in a quandary as I was annoyed at myself for being too laid back about it all! Drat, drat, drat! The rest of the day then involved me stressing about leaving it too late, then finding out that Claire & Laura were in a hostel around the corner for me and had bought tickets through them at a great price, then trying to zoom over to meet them to get one for me, then arranging to meet Anh & the gang there in a while so that we could all head into La Boca together!

It didn't quite go that smoothly: I went to the girls' hostel and asked about the tickets. I was wary of such a good price, but they 100% guaranteed that the football agency they used would definitely get tickets and if there were any problems whatsoever, (which there wouldn't be, of course) I would get a full refund. Phew! So I handed over the cash and then headed back to my hostel to meet Anh, Jess & Lizzie. Turns out I had missed them by 5 mins and they had gone straight int La Boca. We had got our wires crossed - I had said that if I wasn't there when I arrived, that I would be at the other hostel, meaning "Wait for me until I get back" not "If I am not there, then I've gone somewhere else!!" Anyway, I went back to yet another hostel round the corner, where I had just helped Paige (Australia) who'd I'd met at lunch, to move her bags across the city!

We decided to take a bus ourselves into La Boca, but we wandered the wrong way out of the hostel, in the opposite direction to the bus stop! Then, because I was chatting so much, I wasn't paying attention to the map and kept missing the turns into the area. By the time we made it to the start of La Boca, it was dusk and we were headed down a dead-end behind the football stadium. Not a clever place to be in Buenos Aires. I didn't feel threatened at all, but I thought that maybe this wasn't the best idea I had ever had and to go home, rather than put myself in a risky situation. We managed to find the bus stop home but then of course there was trouble as we didn't have the exact change and the bus driver just ranted on and on at us in fast Argentinian Spanish, that neither of us fully understood.

Finally, a local girl helped us ans we managed to put the right coins into the ticket machine. That really annoyed me - my first impressions of BA hadn't been so great up to that point as I felt that most people were much less friendly than everywhere else in South America, it is a city coated in dog poo and burst refuse sacks on every street corner... and I find it impossible to under the Spanish here. Anyway, I agreed to meet Paige later for dinner. Ideally, I just wanted a light snack as I felt bad about eating every meal since I had arrived in a restaurant. I should have just been more direct about it, but in the end I went to an open air restaurant, where I ordered the cheapest set meal that was the worse thing I have eaten in South America - bolognese sauce that had no meat and was creamy and/or cheesy instead of tomatoey, finished off with the worst creme caramel ever - plastic with burnt sauce. Really, I need to be more direct and not settle for things because I don't have the nerve to complain. That night, when I went to bed at gone 1am, I felt like there was molten lead at the pit of my stomach.

Sunday was a much better day! I went to see River Plate versus Chacarita and the weather was unbelievable, so hot and sunny that we really couldn't have asked for anything better, except we were all a bit too warmly dressed and had no shade! The match was a cracker, River Plate were up in the first half, although Chacarita equalized! In the second half, River seemed to be faffing around a bit and not making enough of an effort, but luckily once Chacarita took the lead, it seemed to prompt them into action, resulting in a nail-biting equalizer and then an amazing winning goal, so there cheers and screams all round from Gringo Corner!!!

Unfortunately, the weather took a turn for the worse on today - it was really cold and it heaved it down for most of the day. As a result, my planned trip to the cemetery in Recoleta was shelved and the gang agreed to hit the shopping malls and the cinema instead! In the morning, I looked at the cost of flights down to El Calafate in Patagonia and found them to be pretty damn reasonable - then when I found out that Anh would also be there at the time I planned to go, my decision to book was sealed! It was an easy online process, but I had to pay in person at a branch of Aerolineas Argentina. So, what should have been an easy trip to the mall ensued as follows:

- Take subway to airline office, arrange to meet girls in the mall at 12.30pm
- Arrive at office, had to queue to ask where to pay
- Told to take ticket and queue AGAIN (luckily, I'd picked up a ticket when I went in!)
- Getting short on time, but luckily got to front of queue, got the information so I could return with the money tomorrow.
- Back to subway station, right on schedule to meet the girls.
- Drat it! The service was interrupted! Texted Anh to warn her I would be late.
- Subway started, only 10 mins late but just missed Anh - she'd taken a taxi to buy (more) tango shoes!
- Went to Internet cafe to kill time until 2pm when everyone would be back at the mall!
- Finally met Anh, went to the cinema but we got the times wrong, so abandoned the plan and had lunch instead!!!

It is so difficult to co-ordinate when there are more than 2 people, and because there were 5 of us, we all ended up spread over Buenos Aires! However, I did make it back to Anh's hostel in time to meet Jessie and Lizzie, so we could head out to La Bomba del Tiempo in the evening! It is a Latin American drum show that is performed every Monday night, and it had been recommended to me by Rachel from The Galápagos, but I couldn't find the venue online. When Jess mentioned it that morning, I was committed, even though it meant turning down a free ticket to the Tango World Cup Finals!!! I made the right choice though, as it was absolutely amazing, 3 solid hours of beats, including a guy (like a cross between Freddie Mercury, Derren Brown and Orlando Bloom) who was so into the music that he was fascinating to watch! Even after an encore, I managed to make the last subway home! So, I back in the hostel feeling pretty great and enjoying Buenos Aires - but tomorrow is September, and the Month of Return will arrive... not long to go now!