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Up fairly early on Monday, laundry dropped off at a laundrette and other mundane stuff done before we went on a hop on hop off bus tour. I know that this sounds ultra cheesy but we wanted to do as much as we could in as short a time as possible, so like two Japanese tourists we set off on the top deck with our camera primed.
Our first stop was Boca, famed for it's world famous football team Boca Juniors. Boca was the traditionally poor immigrant area, it was full of brightly coloured houses, painted brightly because the immigrants used to use left over ship paint. It is now gentrified and basically a tourist trap, but a nice tourist trap. Then we were back onto the bus to the docks, the docks have been redone so that they now look like the waterfront on the Thames. Really nice place to have a beer and some food. It was again a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky.
That night we were off to La Bomba de Tiempo. It is a percussion show held in the cultural centre, and turned out to be another excellent recommendation from Lara. We met Lara and Graham at the show, and also Ryan and Lisa, who were now also in BA. The show was lively, colourful and loud. A fabulous experience and not touristy, I think the majority of people there were Argentinian. Beers were sold by the litre, so that helped the night along too. Then to the after party, where we got hot and sweaty dancing to another percussion show. I have a feeling that my dancing days are behind me, even I felt like a dad at a school disco. I have no idea what the locals must have thought of this six foot four blonde sweating beast on the floor but I can't imagine it is complimentary. As nights go it was certainly up there, a bit better than a Monday night in the TC with Chris and Ross, but only just.
Tuesday in BA, and we were fast running out of time. Back on the bus as soon as the cobwebs were shaken off. Some amazing sights, highlights were the Japanese garden, a mechanical flower and the cemetery. The cemetery was fantastical, what should be morbid and voyeuristic is in fact fun and interesting. There is of course only one reason why 99% of the people go and that is to see Evita's grave. But to get there you have to walk through the final resting places of many of Argentina's great and good. Look at the pictures, some of the mausoleums are bigger than our first house and I have been in many many less ornate churches. It was thoroughly interesting to just walk through looking around, although Lisa was afraid of some of the more broken down graves, worried I think that the broken windows had been caused by the corpses in a Thriller style escape. Evita's grave is among the less ornate.
Tour over we went out for another curry, in an English bar type place called Bangalore. It was a tasty meal, not quite the Spice of Raj, but lovely. Partway through the meal I heard two people struggling to order their meal and drinks so I helped them out. Before we knew it we were still with Mike and Dawn, and it was six in the morning. A fun night that started off just the two of us out for a quiet meal ended much later many jugs of beer later and many bottles of wine later, with us ordering Cuba Libra's that were not needed at six in the morning. It was a heavy night. We'd spent most of our money so we had to be careful in the taxi that we didn't exceed our money, me falling asleep did not help things.
Anyway safe and sound the next day I set off to find the laundry, in the midday sun, with a stinking hangover. I honestly thought that I would have to list all of my clothes on the lost item section, I just couldn't find where we'd left it. So I was hunting the streets of BA, terribly hungover in the sweltering heat panicking that I would be going commando for many, many more days. I eventually found it but it was nowhere near where I thought it was. The rest of the day was spent organising our trip to Uruguay the next day. In the evening we met up with Ryan and Lisa for a meal, this was a much more sedate affair than the previous night. It was great to catch up with those guys one last time before we went our separate ways. We'd had some great nights together and they are the loveliest couple. The meal was another triumph, more steak. Less beers than the night before.
After only six days we needed to leave BA, mainly because it could have killed me but also because we were off to another country.
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