Buenos Aires

After another long 17 hour bus journey, arrived into BA at 5.30am about 2 hours before schedule. Decided to find a cafe to hang out for a couple of hours before waking me auntie up a more respectable 8 or 9am! Its a strange first impression of a city when you arrive just before everyone wakes up and nothing is open but once we eventually found coffee and fresh croissants we were much happier.

Phoned Helen at a decent hour an turns out she´d been awake all morning anyways as her visitors had an early flight to catch - doh! She has a fantastic (seriously its cool!) 2 bed colonial apt in San Telmo right in the heart of the city. The apt is really fab, high ceilings, huge rooms, plenty room and really feels like we´re living a couple of centuries ago (except for the tv, nice kitchen!). Spent the last 2 days sorting out things for heading to Patagonia after xmas so been a bit stressed (I can feel waves of sympathy from ya here) altho its helped that we been eating like royalty. The food here is by far and away the best so far .. anything we have eaten in the trip so far doesn´t even register compared to here. The meat is incredible (melt in the mouth), coffee (caffeine high and associated Grace shakes and hyperness here for the next 7 days - poor Dunk!), chocolate - REAL chocolate (I´m fattening like mad - its great, I can leave the belt off now), fresh food (ahhh I love salads and fruit!), and alcohol. Ok wine is so cheap its stupid. We got a decent bottle for 3 euros last night. Beer is 80 cents (euros) per litre ... its cheaper then bottled water.

Also the city is lovely, people are sooo friendly, welcoming and delighted to see tourists, great parks and architecture, if you liked shopping you´d be in heaven so think we´re going to be very happy for xmas!! The next week promises to be just food glorious food and beer and wine and coffee and of course chocolate!! We´re staying til the 28th and then off to Bariloche for a night before crossing to Puerto Montt in Chile. Plan is 6 weeks hiking and bussing down the Carretas Austral, then back into Argentian Patagonia.

Hope you all have a wonderful festive season. Email me if you want a number to catch us on over the hols!