Happy New Year Everyone!

First things first, sorry for the long wait, secondly I appologise for my standard of writing as we were out for New Years Eve last night till late morning

We arrived in Buenos Aires around two weeks ago from Puerto Iguaçu (or as me and Charles refer to it table tennis academy). We attempted to go to the last Boca game of the season on our day of arrival which was sold out so we went to the stadium to try and buy tickets outside which was easy enough however after queuing up for 30 minutes and getting to the gates we were informed they were fake, which was frustrating as the guy we were with had bought one and his was real and we had just wasted 50 pesos. We then spent a week in Buenos Aires during which time we met up with some friends we made in Rio called Fletch and Regan (or as me and Charles prefer to call them Mum and Dad). The nights would always start very civilized with Yatzee (Yes, Em and April I actually played) and cards (Again, Em and April I played and more amazingly I let someone else deal!) in the park then move on to a steak dinner with wine and champagne (all for £5 each)! The nights though would get progressively more hectic and Fletch would soon become uncontrollable and perform crazy antics such as; singing YMCA to policemen, kicking his flip flops onto balconies, crawling around the staff kitchen, ruining the barman's tips, jumping into bushes and losing another flip flop, and helping keep the streets of Buenos Aires clean by brushing them with the local council workers. After Mum and Dads departure back to Oz we decided to get the ferry from Buenos Aires to Uruguay and go to the holiday resort Punta del Este for an alcohol rehabilitation period, oh how wrong we were!

In our true style we booked the ferry very last minute leaving us with the only option a 6.30am ferry so we made what seemed like a sensible decision of going out till 6 then get a taxi straight to the port. Which resulted in some frantic running to make our ferry but we made it. Once we arrived in Punta del Este we stayed at a Hostel called Roger's House which was just that, a medium sized house a block away from the beach which had beds in every nook and cranny and held 35 people. Our beds were in the corridor between a room and the bathroom so we had little room but luckily I had small cupboard above my bed however Charles ended up sharing his bed with his bag and its entire contents. We were even given a house key incase Roger was out! This is where we spent our most unusual Christmas. On Christmas Eve the whole hostel had a BBQ and drank a hell of a lot of sangria and listening to Christmas songs before heading to the beach to watch the fireworks at twelve then headed to what the hostel told us was a club. He clearly has never been to Tokyos or Liquid as this was not what I considered a club. It was basically a ruined old warehouse without a roof and holes in the walls that had a DJ playing; it was quite cool though because of the lack of roof we managed to see the sun rise. We then woke up around 3 on Christmas day and went to Burger King to treat ourselves for Christmas lunch which was quite different to the usual Shibden Heaton family Christmas dinner. We then spent the rest of the day in the sea until Charles had a "near death experience" as a monster wave sent him tumbling and he scraped his shoulder. A few days later met an Argentinean called Pablo who taught me and Charles some crucial Spanish tips which Charles put to good use in the taxi from a night out telling the male driver to give him a kiss much to Pablo's amusement. We then spent the next few days with Pablo and two Brazillian girls on the beach where my measly attempt at getting a tan and my glowing red nose was the butt of their jokes!

We spent a week in Uruguay before heading back to Buenos Aires for New Years Eve which we spent at a party at our hostel before heading to Pacha (Buenos Aire's biggest club) till late morning. Also on our second visit to Buenos Aires we visited Rocelta cemetery (which I'm sure our Mums would be proud of) where we spent a good hour wandering around admiring its size and a good ten minutes queuing to see Evita's grave, check out the pictures as Charles has taken a photo of everyone. We intend on leaving Buenos Aires tomorrow and head south to Bariloche which will be another 20 hour coach journey!

Hope you're all well!

Max x