Buenos Aires
January 18th - January 22nd
Day 320 - Day 324

After 4 days enjoying Ushuaia and the end of the world we were on our way to the warmth of Buenos Aires. Jess from our tour was also on our flight and it was nice to spend some time together.

Our flight took 3 hours, during which Tina took the opportunity to sleep on the random Argentinian guy sitting next to her, much to her embarrassment when she woke up. From the airport it was a 20 minute taxi ride into the city centre.

The first thing that struck us once we reached the city was not the heat but the humidity...it was intense and no aircon in sight. This resulted in a shocking first night sleep.

On our first day in the city we headed out with Jess to have a walk around. It was bizarre to be walking around a massive city as apposed to the previous month's travel spent camping in the middle of nowhere.

During our second day we walked to the main square, Plaza de Mayo. We then walked down to San Telmo, a lovely part of the city with cobbled streets and some great architecture. Whilst in San Telmo we treated ourselves to some fantastic ice cream and then headed to a local cafe to enjoy the warm weather with a beer.

That evening we met up with Ariane who had also been on our tour and we all headed out for dinner together to celebrate her 30th birthday.

The following day Jess was due to leave but we still had time to see some of the city before she left. We all jumped on the subway and headed north to Recoleta. This part of the city is most famous for its cemetery where Argentina's rich and famous are buried. We were not sure what to expect before we visited as cemeteries are not usually on the tourist trail. When we got there we were all surprised..the cemetery was more like a small town, each tomb was housed in small temple like buildings, some two stories high. There were statues and elaborate carvings. It was so grand and impressive, I had never seen anything like it.

That evening we said good bye to Jess and then headed to our hostel for a quiet evening.

On our final day in BA we spent the morning with Ariane and went to visit one of BA's most notorious neighbourhoods, La Boca. La Boca is most famous for it's brightly coloured buildings. It is still a dangerous area of town and we were advised not to venture outside the tourist zone. The only problem with this is the tourist zone is horrifically touristy, with fake Tango dancers posing for photos and models of Diego Maradona etc. We had a little walk round but didn't stay long, instead heading up to the Sunday antiques market in San Telmo. This was quite interesting with some random and fascinating objects on sale.

Our bus to Iguazu was due to leave later in the afternoon so we picked up our backpacks from our hotel and got the subway to the massive Retiro bus station in the North of the city. We jumped on our bus ready for the 20 hour journey to Puerto Iguazu.

Xxx