Buenos Aires

We arrived in Buenos Aires in the morning of Saturday, the 12th of January after a 14 hour bus ride from Mendoza. The bus was actually prettty comfy! Our hostel, Che Legarto was really cool! It had its own bar and restaurant, free internet, kitchen, common room with TV. We shared a room with a Canadian who was working at the hostel bar.

Since it was a Saturday in BsAs, we had to go out! We prefunked a little until 1:30am, then we walked to a club nearby. It was huge and in a really cool building; it looked like a ballroom in a palace or something. Unfortuately, drinks were expensive and it was trance all night! So we decided to go to another club, Amerika. it was about 40 pesos (12USD) to get in, BUT you got free drinks all night!! Yes, FREE...ALL NIGHT! Not only that, the bartenders are not stingy with the liquor. We danced on the second floor which had pop mixed with electronic for the beginning of the night. Around 3amish we headed downstairs to the main dancefloor. All of a sudden from the ceiling above foam started to fall! And it kept coming throughout the night; at one point the bubbles reached our chests. It was amazing! Just like dancing in a huge bubble bath with thousands of strangers! We finally left around 7am, and thankfully caught a cab home despite being soaking wet!

Our second day we visted Recoleta Cemetery, which has Evita's final resting place. The cemetery was really cool. Next we went to the Bellas Artes museum, which had lots of international artists, as well as Latin American. Later that night we went to this bar, because we thought they had karaoke. But no such luck, just some drag queens doing a comedy act. We talked to an Israeli guy who didn't understand what was going on either. It closed a little after 2am, and on our walk back to the hostel we ran into a local. We started talking to him, and we ended up buying some cervazas and going back to his place. He showed us some photo albums from past trips to Bolivia. Between our Spanish and his English we got along pretty well. We stayed until 6:30 and then caught a cab home.

On the third day it was ridiculously hot!!! 100 degrees and humid! So we didn't do a whole lot that day. Slept til 3pm and tried to walk around a bit, but it was miserable. At night was better and we walked to get some pizza.

The fourth day was much better! We wandered through Av Florida, the main pedestrian street with lots of cafes, restaurants, street performers and shops. At night we went to a tango show. Which was incredible! The footwork is so intricate. They also breaked up the tango dances with singers, a live band and a folklore style musicians. One of the coolest things was when a lady dressed in a white gown on a balcony sang Don't Cry for Me Argentina in Spanish. Everyone at our table was drunk; they kept ordering bottle after bottle of wine! We went back to the hostel around 12:30am, and decided to hang out in the bar for a while and drink a 1 1/2 litre of Budweiser. About an hour later it started to rain. Then came the thunder and lightning, and more rain! The bar area flooded...which sucked...excpet we got a free pitcher of beer! It settled down for a bit, and then flooded again. So, more free beer!

The fifth day we went to the Latinoamericano Art Museum, which houses the biggest collection of Latin American art in the world. Afterwards, we went to the Evita Museum. There we saw some of her clothes, newspapers clippings, television footage of her speech and her death mask. Later on we also saw the Casa Rosada, where she stood on the balcony to give her speech.

The sixth day we mostly just ran some errands. We also went to a mate bar, where we tried mate for the first time. FYI: Mate is a type of tea that pretty much everyone drinks here! It was pretty good. That night we went to the Roxy Club, where a promotion group, Club69 was having a party. Several people from our hostel were also going. The flyer said it's "the most amusing electronic party!" The dancers were dressed like club kids from the movie Party Monster. There were break dancers and gogo dancers. Around 4am this big drag queen in a red dress came out with a cake, and all the dancers sang happy birthday. Then they passed out the cake to the crowd. We made our way to the front and got the last piece of cake to share! Yum!! We were kinda getting tired, when all of a sudden a man and woman came on stage. They were dancing around, and eventually the chick started to strip. We saw everything! Everyone (aka guys) were taking pictures. It was great! After the strip show (around 6:30am) we decided to call it a night! oh and PS - all the clubs in Buenos Aires smell like weed!

The morning after Club69 (the seventh day) we had to wake up early and change from our 8 person room to a 20 person dorm. Boo! But at least it was only for one night. Our last day in BsAs we went to a neighborhood called La Boca. There were really colorful houses and tango dancers in the streets. That night we decided to go to bed early, because we had to wake up the next day at 6:15am (which is normally when we are stumbling home!) to catch a boat!

Thus far, Buenos Aires has turned out to be our favorite city! It's cheap, good food, nice people, great bars and awesome nightlife! If you ever get a chance, come here...and take us!!