Hola Chicos,

I am finally updating this after an eventful 3 weeks!

From Puerto Iguazu we got an 18 hour bus to Buenos Aires, a city I was very excited to visit after hearing numerous people rave about it being the "Jewel of South America" and reading great things. A city with great steak, nightlife, women, architecture and people.

We decided to spend 2 weeks here and rent an appartement for that time, for the price it was only a little more than a Hostel and was part of a beautiful 1880s restored manshion in the San Telmo region, an area famous for Tango with very good transport links. It is just South of BA´s business centre and North of the infamous Boca region. I feel we made a few mistakes here with hindsight, we shouldn´t have stayed as long as 2 weeks, we should have stayed in a Hostel for at least one of them and we should have stayed in Palermo Viejo, an area more North of central BA with huge parks, lush restaurants and great local nightlife. You should see why as I go through our time here.

One of the first things we did was visit the main tourist office and try to see if there were any specific things we had to cover. All we got was a large map, very useful, and a book of walking tours. There literally is nothing ´touristy´or activity wise to do around the city, nothing. Luckily there was quite a lot of good times to be had, but you just had to look for them.

My overall impression of BA that it is a, near, 1st world city but with 2nd, or even 3rd, world twists. It has some beautiful, yet not as beautiful as say Paris, architecture, with a lot of shopping options, great nightlife, very high quality restaurants, extremely safe and very friendly, nice people. But it is pretty dirty and horribly smoggy with narrow paths, its nasty after the 60th bus roars by billowing smog in your face. ugh. It is undoubtedly the most habitable city in South America and is an exciting place that literally never sleeps if that is your thing, with many people eating until 2 and clubbing till noon the next day any night of the week.

But at the end of the day, it is just a city. Without the beautiful beaches you get in Rio and the dramatic landscape, which you get in many other South American cities. I don´t know what it is, but I was expecting a little more.

Here is a list of great stuff we did:

1) Eating out. By far the best food, not just the steak, we had in South America. 2 particular restaurants I would strongly recommend is a place called Pregiato, with the lovely and enthuasiastic hostess called Marcela, and the infamous La Cabrera. They are both on Cabrera street in Palermo. La Cabrera is extremely popular so definitely book ahead, it´s so worth it and I can comfortably say that I had the best steak of my life there.

2) Day trip to Colonial del Sacramento, Uruguay. This was a great day, quite pricey at about 40 quid for a return hour-long ferry ride over the river that seperates it from BA, but so worth it. About 1.5 weeks in we needed to get away from the smog, noise and hecticness of BA and chilled on beaches and roamed this beautiful and very quiet little colonial town.

3) A trip to the Boca Juniors Football stadium. For those of you who don´t follow football, Boca Juniors is one of the most successfull and well supported futbol teams in Argentina and is in Buenos Aires, in La Boca south of San Telmo. We did a few hour tour of the stadium, musuem, changing rooms and conference rooms. Really interesting if you are a football fan. We wanted to see the Boca versus River Plate, the other big team in BA, match but unfortunately due to its popularity prices were extortionate.

4) Generaly night life, pretty mental and doesn´t get going till 2 in the morning. They have nights on every night of the week playing all kinds of music and go on till 6/7 in the morning, with cafes hosting clubbers 24 hours.

5) Generally walking around the city, its pretty big and has a lot of interesting architecture.

That is all I can write right now, I am sure there is stuff I missed out. On the whole 2 weeks was too long but definitely pay this city a visit if it is on your way.

Next chapter is Mendoza