Bye Bye Argentina...

Tonight is our last night in Buenos Aires as we fly to Ecuador tomorrow. We celebrated or commiserated by having a bottle of red wine (both) with fish (Nina) and Bife de Lomo (enormous steak, Glenn) and then some good desserts at a local restaurant filled with people and very cheap. This pretty much sums up our time in Buenos aires, lots of good and cheap food, red wine, and good fun.

So highlights from our time in BA in no particular order...

1) Tango night at La Viruta with our Irish friends (Emma and Eric) where the lessons were particularly painful (specifically for Glenn) but the evening session where the locals take to the dance floor was pretty special.

2) Food overall. Mostly with the excellent parrillas (wood fired BBQ grills) but especially for our experience at the experimental, modern restaurant called la vineria de gualtierio in San Telmo. The chef trained at El Bulli in Barcelona under Ferran Adria and this restaurant has the same concept.. but at south american not European prices. (Think Heston Blumenthal, liquid nitrogen dishes but totally delish). We did a 14 course tasting menu which included many different wines, so it was like a fantastic wine tour alongside top food.

http://www.lavineriadegualteriobolivar.com/menu.html

3) Boca Juniors stadium. We missed the football because of the xmas break (oh dear, said Nina) but we took a walk to the Barrio to the football stadium and soaked up the atmosphere. We particularly liked the third tier , 45 degree terracing.

4) Relaxing at the Hippodrome (race course) and betting on a horse race solely due to the name of the horse which was called Miss Dolly Dolly. Unfortunately it came 6th out of 9...

5) Night life was fantastic and one our fave memories was spending 5 or 6 hours in a club watching (and dancing to) videos of Oasis, beatles and stereophonics to name a few and getting back to the hostel in time for the free brekky at 8pm on Sunday morning. Sober of course...

6) Dakar rally on 1 Jan. For those of you who are blissfully clueless about this event it is a car and motorbike rally across different countries and we saw the Chile Argentina stage. So lots of cars and motorbikes through central Buenos aires with c 50K people watching and cheering. Unusual way to spend New years day!

7) Day trip to Colonia del sacramento in Uruguay on a slow boat across the rio del plata (think day trip across the channel to calais). Very relaxed and pretty place (UNESCO listed) and a nice break from the big city.

8) Wandering around the city enjoying the sights, people, shopping, ambience, gardens and weirdness (e.g. office workers ripping up their diaries and throwing them off the top floor on New years eve) etc. One random thing to do is go to the cemetery in Recoleta which is basically rich Argentinians displaying their relative importance in the manner of Egyptian pyramids, the bigger and more ostentatious the crypt the more important and rich the family was. Slightly odd but not as odd as the tourists who thought it was tasteful to take pictures of the coffins visible through the mesh doors!

Overall a top place and we could have spent a lot more time here, and written a much longer blog about our time here. Plus Argentina are joining the tri nations rugby in 2 years time. (comment by glenn...).

Love to everyone and Happy 2010. Hope the weather in the UK isnt as bad as it says on the BBC website.Hopefully, it will make you all feel better to know that it is really warm here!

Nina and Glenn xx