La Boca

On saturday morning I set off early to discover the colourful suburb of La Boca.












This area is a very working class (poor) area which has a section of houses in three streets that are very brightly painted in all different colours. hey are also finished in corrogated iron and timber.... very basic kinds of houses here in Buenos Aires.





I took lots of photo´s of these houses for you to see.



I had a very traditional breakfast at one of the cafe´s, Croissants with ham and cheese... and a pinapple juice.....



The area is a big tourist spot so I was glad I got there early as soon the buses started to roll in full of other tourists.



To get back to San Telmo I decided to catch a public bus for the first time. It was very cheap, a single ride cost 1.20 Pesos which is around 40cents. The bus drivers drive very fast and over the cobble stone streets it gets very bumpy. But they are very efficient.

San Telmo

My first hotel when I arrived in Buenos Aires was in the suburb of San Telmo. This area is part of the District Historico (old town).

There are a lot of old buildings, cobbled stone streets and the area if full of character.
I stayed at the Hotel Carly on Humberto Primo. It was a bit run down, but I had my own room and a balcony overlooking the street, which seemed great to begin with. The bathrooms were down the hallway and I had to share them with everyone else. There was three on my floor so it was always easy to get one. However the toilet shared the space with a bidet and the shower. So I was standing beside the toilet while I was having a shower! very interesting.
I decided to venture around San Telmo street by street. The streets form a grid pattern so it made for easy exploring. But I had to watch where I stepped, because lot´s of people have dogs here and there aren´t really any parks in San Telmo so there is lots of doggy doo doo to watch out for.

I have taken lot´s of photo´s of the houses and buildings of San Telmo and will post them at some stage soon. The houses were once lived in by the very rich people, but Yellow fever spread through the area and the rich people moved to escape the disease. Some of the houses have been restored, but alot are still very run down.

There is one street in San Telmo call Defensa, it is where all the antiques shops are located and there is even a mercado (market). This is where I had my lunch which was like a quiche, but I am not exactly sure what they call it here. It had egg and zucchini in it and was served warm. Very delicious.

I was very tired from all my walking so I got myself some beer and went back to the hotel, I sat out on the balcony and watched the passing parade of people. There was a clothing store opposite that was playing very loud music all afternoon and into the early evening. I decided to have an afternoon nap and woke later to the thumping noise of a bar across the street that had started up while I was sleeping. Their music kept going until around 5am..... so from that day on I started wearing ear plugs to bed.

Beautiful Buenos Aires

So here i am on day two of my great adventure. I am a bit shattered from the flight over and not really getting any sleep for the past three days, more on that later. The flights went well with some unexpected surprises. The first being Aggie as a passenger on my flight form Brisbane to Sydney. She was surprised to see me as she thought I had already left. Then I made my way to my international flight. As I was walking through the international terminal I thought wouldn´t it be funny if my friend Carlos was working the Buenos Aires flight today. As I entered the aircraft he was the first person I saw. He is now a cabin services manager with Qantas. But the coincedences don´t stop there. I made my way to my seat and sat down and said hello to the lady sitting next to me. Her name was Debbie, She asked me why I was going to Sth America. After telling her a bit about my intended trip I asked what she was going there for only to hear that she was heading to work.... She was joining the Star Princess cruise ship to be the Spa Manager for the next six months. This is the same ship that my friend Leanne is currently working on as a purser. So we talked about our experiences working on cruise ships and organised to share a cab into the city and to go to dinner on the first night. It was nice to make a new friend and now she will also have a friend on the ship when she meets Leanne.

The first day in Buenos Aires was a very tiring one as I didn´t sleep on the plane. I was feeling quite tired because I had only slept about 4 hours before leaving Brisbane and then stayed up all day when I got to Buenos Aires. Unfortunately for me when I got back to the hotel to sleep, the bar across the street had started up and the music played all night until about 5am. I have now taken to wearing earplugs at night to block out the noise.













My second day was a fun day, I went to the pier to meet Leanne and go on to the cruise ship for lunch. I had to wait for Leanne to finish work so was sitting around in the terminal when Debbie turned up to joing the ship. Once I was onboard Leanne showed me her office where she works and her cabin.








She has a lovely double bed cabin that she has all to herself. Much nicer than the pokey cabins that I had when I worked on the cruiseship. We went to one of the restaraunts on board and had a nice buffet lunch and the view from there of Buenos Aires was amazing, it really showed just how big this city is. After lunch Leanne had to go back to her office so I sat at the bar at the back of the ship by the swimming pool and had 2 margaritas.






They were made for me by Leanne´s lovely boyfriend Zayn, he is from South Africa. I also did a quick walk around the ship and visited Debbie in the Spa area before saying goodbye to Leanne and heading off the ship. It was nice to see Leanne even if just for a short while, but hopefully I will get to see her again when I go to spain. The rest of the day was spent walking the streets, which was exhausting but also fun as there is so much to see here. Lot`s of amazing old buildings, tree lined Avenida´s (Avenue´s) and people everywhere. It is a very busy place. The guy in the last picture is walking around 11 dogs at once.... I ran into him twice during my time in Buenos Aires.

12 hours from departure

The night before departing and all the farewells have been made. The big boys understood that they won't see me for a while but I don't think Ty really understands yet. I have given them a big map of North and South America so they can track where I have been and mark it with dots.

LESS THAN 24 HOURS TO GO.....

Well the time has almost arrived for me to set off on my "excellent" adventure, hopefully I've got everything organised and haven't forgotten anything...... my next post will be from Buenos Aires.......