Tuesday 30th April 2013 - Today we had a lot of thinking to do. I know the amount of time we had spent in buenos aires was short and we felt that way too, but we were considering leaving! We had done a lot and walked most the city it felt but still there was a lot we hadn't done. But still regardless we decided to press on with our trip. I spoke to the really helpful receptionist called Wendy. She ran us through all our options and we decided to visit Uruguay for two nights then return on the boat to buenos aires see 1 or 2 attractions and then leave the city that same evening on the bus. We booked all the transport through Wendy then went and got money out to pay for the trips, and booked our hostel in Colonial Del Sacremeto, Uruguay on hostel world. This all came to a lot of peso's. Maybe 1,060 peso for the bus journey to Mendoza and 900 peso for the boat journey? Regardless with the room stay included, remembering this was a luxury room, it came to about 2,700 peso. Wendy, being as helpful as she is, arranged it with another girl to taxi share with us to the harbour. The poor girl couldn't speak a word of English but we tried the few sentences we had learnt on route from Paraguay, that taxi man laughed at our efforts. Where we caught the bus from was a fairly rank area, it was included in the 'do not visit' area on our maps but we weren't out in the open for long. We hopped on the boat after a short passport stamp and sniffer dog test and sped off over the giant river. The river took an hour and a half to cross and was enormous with huge branches of jungle looking plants floating everywhere. Once we arrived it was noticeable how small this place was. Colonial is a tiny, quite sleepy town. I mean there is things to do and places to drink and eat but not a whole lot else. We were tempted to hire a golf buggy to travel round in but for the price it wasn't worth it. We walked the 6 blocks from the harbour to our hostel and settled in to our loft conversion room. We were given the key and we popped out to go pick up some food for later not knowing its the only key and locking the other girl in our room out. Everyone huddled around the television for the Real Madrid vs Dortmund semi final so we decided to watch that with a couple of beers which was fun. Nicki has worked out that most of the destinations have began with football but its so massive out here its on everywhere 24/7. After the football we cooked our burgers with loads of onions, they were alright to be honest I was disappointed the hostel had advertised an unlimited pizza night but then cancelled. We managed to fall asleep quickly in our quiet creeky room until 5am when the girl brought a guy home from her night out. They got into bed eventually after spilling all their money onto the floor and tripping over twice and preceded to kiss each other. I attempted a couple of coughs to show I was awake as their kissing became louder. I was thankful when they decided to go downstairs to continue, but it wasn't long before they were back falling over again and talking loudly. This time they woke nicki up and began really annoying us! We decided to wake up early for breakfast and stomp around the room to make her hangover hell ha.

Wednesday 1st May 2013 - After breakfast, where we met a really nice american girl and another british girl we decided to get a lie in after not getting much sleep the night before. I think we must have slept through the only sunshine today because when we left to walk around the old town the cloud was pretty thick. We visited the lighthouses and the wharf that was built in the 1800's and then went to the city wall which we climbed. Around this area it's pretty nice looking with the drop bridge and loads of cobbled streets and restaurants with live music. However maybe it was the weather or something but we were pretty disappointed with the lack of things to do in the town and were already regretting booking the extra night as we wanted to spend more time in buenos aires. When we got 1 block away the heavens opened up and it rained incredibly hard we were so close to the hostel but still got drenched even after hiding under the cover of a little vegetable stand opposite us. By the time we got back the Barcelona vs bayern Munich game was on which we obviously had to watch regardless of the impossible task the Germans were again asking of the Spanish. After watching Barcelona get taken apart 7-0 agg we popped to the local shop to pick up some rice and loads of vegetables, we cooked an absolute vegetarian feast which actually lasted for lunch tomorrow as well. We started to settle in and sat in the lounge after dinner talking to the other residents. We played sporcle with an American girl and spoke with a Brazilian for a while. The girl in our room turned the tv up really loud which pissed us all off as the game hasn't even started yet and we were talking. We watched the Boca vs Corinthians game in the copa libertadores which boca won until everyone fell asleep.

Thursday 2nd May 2013 - we met the American girl on the breakfast bar and spoke to her for a while about her travel plans. She was from Philadelphia and we spoke about accents in each others country. Today we had to catch our boat back to buenos aires which we were glad about as we felt ready to leave. The British girl we met at breakfast yesterday was catching the same boat across as us so when we got to the harbour an hour before departure at 2pm we met her. I fell asleep most the journey but nicki stayed up talking to the girl who was travelling for a whole year almost. When we got off the boat and had our passports stamped we were met by an enormous taxi queue. We waited a while as we were last and decided to take the risk of going to the boca area which was a bit of a dodgy area. There is a colourful district which is really touristy so we took plenty of photos whilst dragging all our luggage around ha. Once we had soaked in this really cool area we caught another taxi straight to the bus terminal and said our goodbyes to BA. We arrived at the terminal a hour early so we picked up an alferjor and sat down to eat. I walked off to go to the toilet and when I got back everything had gone to s***. Nicki had broken her necklace and I swear it was the curse of her broken travel necklace that doomed us as an Italian girl came over to tell us that they have announced no more buses will leave BA due to a huge national strike. We pondered what to do as the Italian girl invited us to sleep in the terminal with her. No thanks we thought and after much debate and getting more cash we called another taxi to take us back to our old hostel Estroli. By now it was around 9pm and when we saw Wendy's face she was a bit surprised to see us back but then she remembered she had heard about the strikes but wasn't sure if we had got out beforehand. But we were stuck! We asked if she had any spaces and we were put in an 8 dorm and went to chill in the lounge almost feeling like we were home ha. Nicki suggested we should get a bottle of wine to take the edge off so we both made our way to the top floor. Whilst we were grabbing a bottle we saw that we had just missed out on a massive BBQ and most the guests were sat up on the roof drinking. Nicki and I were drinking our wine on the rooftop when fanny came up and dragged us downstairs to sit with the other guests. We later found out they thought we were Spanish but a couple of people came over to talk to us. We had a massive discussion with Nacho about the football in both continents he worked there but then an American from NYC called Greg came over. We talked for ages until we came up with the decision that we should go clubbing obviously after a few more drinks. An Auzzie called Chris and an English girl from Bath called Jess joined us and we had a great group for a night out. Greg spoke Spanish so managed to ask the taxi man if he minded fitting 5 in. The first club 'lost' was closed so we had kika or club 69 left on the recommendations from nacho. We chose kika and even after 3am there were still queues out the front. 80 peso entrance for guys and 50 for girls. Wow. Then 120 peso for 3 shots of tequila. Not cheap. I know we got a free drink on entrance which was Fehnet and tastes like deep heat. Everything goes a bit blurry here but I know it was a sick club and I remember naked dancers and loads of different levels and big toilet queues. I chased Chris out the door because I didn't want him to go and then I poked the bouncer in the cheek for no good reason? Anyway, we left at like 6am and got in a taxi. Greg again sat in the front to direct in Spanish until the engine stopped. The taxi driver broke down in the middle of the road. The meter was up to 75 peso so we decided to give him 20 peso and help him push. The rain was bucketing down and we were now pushing a taxi to the side of the road. It was literally hilarious. We got back and for some reason thought it was breakfast. Even though breakfast was in an hour at 8 but they still let us have some croissants. Greg, nicki and I all fell asleep on the sofa and Wendy had to take us up at 9am to tell us to go to bed. We were so disorientated.

- Josh -