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