Part 1 - Buenos Aires, Census day, and a death of a president.

Part 1

'Big' Danny Jenkins and I board our 1st class, full cama, it's the last bus journey I'll take in South America so why not go large, top booze and food, executive bus, to Buenos Aires. We've left behind some wonderful people in Mendoza but the Buenos Aires nightlife and women are calling Danny, and on top of those, my plane home is calling me.

Full cama means that the seat will recline to horizontal instead of the normal 3 inches back. Most of the time you'll travel semi cama, which obviously means half way, so you only half sleep. But with full cama? it's like being on a 1st class plane, or a very very small bed, covered in cheap leather. Perhaps a bit like a S+M dungeon bed for midgets.

We immediately start harassing the steward for alcohol but he's refusing to serve drinks until dinner is served, which is of course, not until 10:30pm. Of course it is.
We do manage to get him to give us some aperitifs, so we sit back, adjust the chairs to semi cama, and relax watching Mendoza slip away, and the countryside replace it.

Danny makes the mistake of asking me what my favorite part of my trip was, and so I launch into some tales:

He seems engrossed when I tell him about the crazy, nutjob girl in Brazil, who managed to get herself pregnant by another man, just before she was meant to marry my mate.

He laughs a lot louder and longer than really necessary when I tell him about being drugged by a man in Sao Paulo.

He looks out of the window when I talk about the Inca's in Peru, and how seeing the ruins has altered me as a person.

He is clearly bored when I tell him about the Welsh in Patagonia, and my love of the Welsh culture and language.

He puts his Ipod on when I tell him about the splendors of the Salt plains in Bolivia.

And finally he just pulls a curtain between us when I try to tell him of the amazing people I've met, and how the friendships and relationships I've made will carry on for many years to come,

"Well you asked!" I say before I realize that dinner, and by dinner I mean drinks, are being served. Danny and I enjoy the meal, have a few drinks and laugh and talk until it's time to go full cama and get some sleep.

We wake up in Buenos Aires and I have my last ever breakfast of assorted biscuits. That's all they'll ever serve you on a plane, bus, or train on this continent. A assorted biscuit selection. It's like waking up in the morning for afternoon tea with you granddad.

Buenos Aires, and by the way, I will write Buenos Aires all the way through this because everyone I meet calls it BA, and it sounds so wanky and annoying that I want to kill everyone, for example,

"yah, yah, we hit BA for a few days then left. It was great" or

"Yah, flew into BA and, like, totally took it over! BA is so cool and cosmo, you'll really love it!"

anyway, Buenos Aires is like a ghost town when we arrive, all the shops are shut, nobody is on the streets, there's barely any other cars on the road except for a couple of taxis. Even the McDonalds is closed! I've NEVER seen a McDonalds closed at 9am. Never.

Turns out that today is census day, and everyone has to stay indoors and be censured by people who will knock door to door to get details of who lives where, and what they do! It's totally crazy to see in a country as big as this that people still find the census details by walking door to door! We get to the hostel and ask,

"Can we go to the museum?"
"no"

"the cinema?"
"no"

"the church?"
"no"

"the art gallery?"
"no"

"the zoo?"
"no"

"the shopping mall?"
"no"

"the park?"
"yes. yes, you can go to the park"

We think about it for a while and decide to go to the park. The park is full of rollerskaters, runners, skateboarders, families, 5 a side football, street hockey, but mostly it's full of bemused tourists who don't know what the fuck to do. We've not eaten since the biscuit madness of 8:00am and it's 1pm now. We are starving but every restaurant is closed. We spot an ice cream guy on a bike who looks like he'll retire on his earnings later that day. We buy some ice creams at an outrageous price and wander round the lake in the central park. The women are sensational, and more than twice I nearly lose my ice cream down my front.

The ice cream barely touches the sides and we resort to buying some chorizo burgers from a gypsy who has the health and safety standards of a homeless man. As we queue we marvel at his cross contamination of cooked and raw food, and watch open mouthed at his faultless display of under cooking meat. As we sit down to enjoy this glorious feast I feel like I'm playing Russian roulette with a hot dog.

That night we head out into the Palermo district to meet up with Gina and Kate, 2 amazing girls I met in Igazu Falls. They both guessed correctly that the pasty, white, ginger haired, English speaking guy would have sun block, and they ask me for some. They are both hotties so I asked them what they were up to,

"we live in BA (aaarrrghhhh!) studying and working" they replied,

"I leave from there in a couple of weeks, I'll come and harass you, and you can take me to the best steak places"

Stupidly they actually agreed! so Danny and I put on shirts and head off into the night.

Palermo may as well be the village in New York. It's basically tree lined streets, cool arty shops, posh wine bars, and restaurants. It's amazing but a genuine culture shock as it's so unlike the rest of Argentina. It's nice and everything but I live in London and places like this are on my doorstep, so I find it hard to really get into it. But the company is wicked, and I enjoy yet another steak and malbec, before going to meet up with Gina and Kate's pals in a bar while they watch the world series.

I vowed that I would eat a steak and drink red wine every other day for the month that I stayed in Argentina, and I have kept my vow. However, I didn't really think the plan through and I am now carrying a decent bit of weight. In fact, some shirts are now off limits as my paunch is too visible. Normally I would let this bother me, and maybe even get a little down but not anymore. Life is too short for any negative thoughts, and I make a pact with myself to drop the weight as soon as I get home. A mate is running the marathon next year so I'm going to train with him.

I've done it before and I'll do it again.

The next afternoon I wake up slowly. It's hard to get up early when you only get to bed at 4am, and that's considered early over here! People go to clubs at this time, not go home. It's mental. I eventually get downstairs and hear that the ex president has died, and that because of this, the country will go into 3 days of mourning. 3 days! he's not even the current president, but the current president is his wife so she basically does whatever she likes, which includes making the subway system free, and canceling ALL the league football! which means that my trip to see Boca Juniors is off. Out of the fucking window. Gutted. It was the only thing I wanted to do in Buenos Aires, apart from eat steak, drink wine, go clubbing, and kiss girls. I'm sick of doing anything else.

The next night Danny and I decide to have a change and go to eat sushi. We get in, order some sake, water, beers, and loads of fish. The waiter comes back with some drinks but Danny isn't happy,

"uhm senor, es possible, sake caliente?"

"did you just ask for the sake to be hot? I've already done that" I said,

"yeah but it's cold" replies Danny,

We both look at the table and Danny lifts his wine glass and repeats,
"it's cold"

"yes Danny, it is cold, but that's because it's water" I try to say without laughing.

That night we get really drunk and meet an English fella called Shane in a Irish pub. He'd managed to get himself into a conversation with a mental local guy, but we rescue him. We go downstairs and there's a proper cool nightclub under the Irish pub, it's a massive contrast but it works really well. Then we head to a super club called crowbar, but by that point I don't really have the faculties to really take it in. It's the most drunk I've been in a good couple of months. It's wicked.

We fall out of the club at 7:30am and into bright sunshine, and maybe it's because I'm not full of drugs, as I normally am if I fall out of a club at this hour, but the light is blinding. We hail a cab and sing Michael Jackson all the way home.