No Bailar!

The only thing I had heard about Buenos Aires other than they have great carne, was that the night life is meant to be spectacular. But so far I have yet to see it. On my second night here, after considerable partying at the hostel. A group of us headed out to look for a club or a bar to continue our drinking. Unfortunately we couldn't find anywhere that was open, admittedly it was 3am by the time we left the hostel. Not dissuaded, we decided to try again a couple of nights later. This time we asked at the hostel where was a good club to go to. And we were told there weren't any, that they were all closed. This was said to be due to a fire in a club here in Buenos Aires around new years, where at least 200 people died. Since then all clubs have been temporarily shut down. We found it some what hard to believe that all the clubs would be closed. We decided to head out and try our luck anyway. Surely something would be open. One of the guys staying at the hostel had a friend here in Buenos Aires, and he gave him the name of a place to try. So off we went. We spent a g00d 20 minutes driving around the dock area looking for the place and eventually had to stop and ask one of the countless police on the street for directions. He told us the place we wanted to go was closed, and kindly recommended another place for us. So off we went again. Success! We had managed to find a club that was open! The next challenge was getting in the door. I was a bit dubious as to whether be let in as we all seemed to be wearing sandals. But this wasn't a problem. The problem it appeared was that you weren't allowed to dance (no bailar). The guy on the door explained that we could go in but we were not allowed to dance. No bailar! Thinking this was bit of a joke we went in anyway. The club was great, well it would have been great. It was 2am on Saturday morning, what should be the busiest time for a club and they weren't even half full. There was about 30 odd people standing around inside dance music pumping out, and nobody dancing. Not one person. The one time a couple of girls got up and started dancing, the door man came over and asked them to stop. It was the weirdest thing, being in a club playing dance music and nobody dancing. We stayed for a drink anyway and got chatting to a few of the locals, who told us we had come at the worst time. They all told us to come back in mid February when it was expected the ban would be lifted and the clubs reopened. But if we were interested Fat Boy Slim was playing a free concert down the cost tomorrow, unfortunately it was somewhere over 300kms down the cost.

luckily I plan to be in South America for a little while, and I will definitely be coming back here to see the night life, and eat more carne! Speaking of the carne we had a BBQ here at the hostel last night, yet more beef and more beer. I am loving here.

Later
Zac

Carne! Carne! Carne!

Okay I have been here for about three days now, so I figured it's time to post a little something. I am currently in Buenos Aires, I landed on Tuesday. The flight over was uneventful, scored the seat up the front with all the leg room so I can't complain too much. Though I did have a brief moment of panic as we touched down and was contemplating not getting off the plane and asking them to take me home. Then I realised that this wouldn't work as the plane probably wasn't going back to Australia. No choice but to get up and get on with it. Before leaving Australia I booked a hostel over the internet, the deal was that they were supposed to be waiting for me at the airport and give me a ride into town. But... me being the lazy bugger I am, I left it to the last minute to do it. So I got no confirmation email to say it had been sorted before I left, but I thought no stress. I'll check my email during the stop over in New Zealand, surely they will have internet termials there. Well they did, but they only took New Zealand $2 coins. I had four different currencies on me, but not a New Zealand anything... So I figured bugger it, I just take my chances. Anyway as you can guess, there was no one waiting for me at the airport, so I grab my bag and jumped on the bus. This worked out great, the bus went to the terminal in the city. And once there I asked how to get to the hostel, and they said they would give me a ride there. Brilliant! Only problem was I gave the guy driving the wrong address, and after driving around and not finding it and yelling at me in Spanish and me not understanding a word, he dropped me off on the foot path along with my 30kg bag. Now this wasn't as bad as it sounds, or so I thought at first. Some guy off the street gave me directions, turns out I was looking at the wrong number on the map, but I was told the street I wanted was only about 4 blocks up the road. So I threw the bag over my shoulder and off I went. Four blocks quickly turned in to about ten. And by this stage I wasn't feeling very well, I was managing about a block at a time and then I would have to put the bag down and catch my breath. I even thought I was going to through up for a little while there. I finally reached the street I wanted and checked the map again, realizing that my hostel was about another 15 to 20 blocks away. So I converted the bag into backpack mode and somehow managed to get it up on my back and set off. By about the 10 block mark I was becoming desperate, I was starting to question everything, I was on the verge of walking into the next hotel or hostel I saw and staying there. But I preserved, and about another 2 blocks on stumbled into my hostel where I promptly dump the back and almost collapsed. Okay so I am exaggerating a little, but I was buggered and could barely stand let alone speak. Anyway the hostel is great and was worth the effort. I can´t remember much else from the first day other than passing out at about 8pm and not waking up till at least 9am the next day.

My 2nd day I spend wandering around the city. It's an amazing place, so big, I can't get over the size of it. I had a few things on my list of things to do for the day. Numero uno was to find travel agent and arrange my flight to Cusco. So I went into the city and picked a street that looked good and walked down that looking for somewhere to get a ticket. And I walked and walked and walked. I've since looked at the map and seen how far I walked that day. I think at the end of the day I'd been wandering around for at least 6 hours or more. And no I didn't find a travel agent. But I did find at least a dozen McDonald's, a few bugger Kings and a chain of Pizza shops that will do a large cheese pizza for $2.99 (about $1.50 AUS).

Yesterday I continued my search for a plane ticket, and found another half dozen McDonald's. One even had an 'Auto-Mac' (drive through). I also managed to find a travel agent, and have now sorted out my flight to Cusco. I am flying there on the 3rd of Fuburary, so I have another whole week to spend here in Buenos Aires.

I intend to spend the week looking around Buenos Aires, there is so much to see. And so much beef to eat! The steak is amazing, and cheap. Last night I found the 2nd thing I was looking for, a steak the size of my head. Okay so it wasn't quite that big, but it was well large and cheap too. The food here is a meat lovers paradise. You can get a steak on it's own without any of that salad crap or anything. Or if you want that I guess you can order it, me I go with steak and chips. Though for lunch today I had steak and eggs. If the hostel didn't provide breakfast I think I would be having steak three times a day. It's so good, so big and juicy and tender... Okay I am getting a little carried away here, but you all know how much I love my meat and this is heaven for me.

That's about it for the moment, I'll try and get a few picture online sometime soon. Though I haven't taken all that many yet. If you want to write to me you can put comments on this thing somehow or just email me.

Later

Welcome

Hi this is my Blog. Wondering what a blog is? Well go look it up, you have the internet. Here I will keep an online journal of my travels. Feel free to read them, share them and make comment as you wish (you can do that here or email me).

This is my second trip to South America. I am currently in Buenos Aires enjoying the beef (I just had the best steak). The itinerary for my trip is vague at best. I intend to spend at least a year here in South America, and for most of that time I will be based in Cusco. While I am here I am going to try and do a trip up to Columbia, Venezuela and Cuba. One through Bolivia, Uruguay, and maybe one down to the south of Chile and Argentina. Whether it works out that way or not is anyone's guess. I guess you will just have to stay tuned to find out.