We're on the road again!

So finally, after a couple of years of planning, we are here, in Buenos Aires, awaiting the start of the first Odyssey South American expedition.  Well, we are here, but the truck is still enroute somewhere on the Atlantic, our group are all finishing their packing and farewells, our insurance is still in Bolivia and our Argentinian permit is still with the British Embassy, but apart from that, we are ready!  Just need to spend the next couple of days becoming semi-fluent in Spanish and we will be good to go (to be fair, Pete is already getting by ok in Spanish, even if his most often used phrase is "hable solo un poco Espanol" meaning I have only a little Spanish)!  I am doing that thing that Mum and Mike did when we were in Spain ie look at the floor and hope someone else answers!

So our first couple of days in BA have been lovely - so nice to be warm again and feeling actual sunshine (not the feeble excuse for sunshine you get in autumn in the UK, in between the rain).  Perhaps a little too much sun as we are both a tad on the pink side on the face...  We have been spending our mornings doing a bit of work, and the afternoons we have walked the town flat, soaking up as much as possible to get into the swing of things, get some more photos for the website and try to orient ourselves a bit before the group arrives with millions of questions!

BA is split into 48 barrios or neighbourhoods, each one has quite a different feel, so we have been trying to visit one of the main touristy ones each day.

Puerto Madero
Figuring we deserved a bit of luxury after the incredibly hectic couple of weeks before we left the UK, our first day took us to Puerto Madero, the posh river-front (well canal-front really) area that has been fairly recently developed.  A bottle of wine (or 2) in the sunshine, a couple of empanadas (like cornish pasties made with lighter pastry and slightly more identifiable fillings), and a lovely afternoon watching the world go by (often on roller blades, or walking up to 10 dogs at a time) while listening to classic 80s rock (still so popular the world around).  Happy days.

Soaking up some long-overdue rays

The "mothers" bridge in Puerto Madero

Recoleta
The number 1 tourist must-see in BA is the Cementario de Recoleta, final resting place of "don't cry for me" Eva Peron.  An incredible place to wander around, with the great and the good having built huge monuments to themselves and their families, some more elaborate than others, but all quite impressive!  After wandering through for quite a while we were worried that we were going to have to leave without having located Eva Peron's tomb itself...  but fortunately we discovered a map (that we had walked straight past when we first came into the cemetery), and were able to retrace our steps and find it for those all important photos!

After finishing up at the cemetery and having a rather luxurious dulce de leche icecream (think caramelised condensed milk, absolutely delicious and a sugar hit of note!), we wandered further afield to the Floralis Generalis, a giant metal flower that surprised us both with how stunning it looked, definitely worth a visit, and we are hoping to get the chance to see it at night at some stage too - at night the petals all close up, but it is lit with coloured lights, must be quite a sight to see.  But for now, daylight photos.

La Boca
Talked up as the dodgiest part of town that tourists generally go to, with big sections of the barrio marked as "considered unsafe for tourists" on the Lonely Planet map, this wasn't on the top of my list of places to go, but Pete remembered enjoyed it when he last visited, so we set off on a local bus (always an adventure, the bus ride is the easy bit, it is working out how to pay that is the tricky bit!), and arrived at La Boca.  To be greeted by almost every other tourist in town.  And where there are tourists, there are touts, and from our time there, the most danger that you were in was in being well and truly ripped off at one of the tacky souvenir stalls, or being forced to pose provocatively with one of the quite disinterested tango dancers available for photo shoots (for a small fee of course).  It was a colourful, noisy, vibrant, happening little neighbourhood, and was a great place to spend a couple of hours (with more empanadas and wine of course!).

Anyone for a fridge magnet?

Me, not actually in La Boca, but next to a mural that you can visit if you are too scared to go to La Boca itself!

Some bored tango dancers...

Random other BA photos
Here are a few other photos from our wanders around BA so far.

The Jacarandas are in full bloom and set off any photo!

Plenty of sculpture everywhere, and art on the side of buildings -  perhaps why BA is considered to be the "Paris of South America"?

The average BA resident eats 60kg of meat per annum.  Fair to say, they love their beef.

They also love their coffee!  Pete was in 7th heaven when we found this in the posh shopping area (think it was opposite Cartier), but at over $1 a capsule (30p in the UK), the gloss quickly wore off...

The Obelisk (or obelisco in Spanish - see, how hard can it be to become fluent?)

The presidential palace (although she doesn't live there)

Can't guarantee that we will be able to keep this blog as updated as the official one, but will certainly try!  For now, we are off to enjoy a traditional Argentinian BBQ, which starts at 9pm... ish...  Argentinian time of course!