First Impressions

Well, here we are in Buenos Aires, Argentina!  After a very long flight the first challenge was getting through Argentine passport control and customs. The queue for the former was pretty impressive, making a lot of Southeast Asian immigration queues pale in comparison. The next challenge was finding transport from the airport into the city - we had been well informed previously about which minibus we needed to take, but said minibus proved elusive. So elusive that we gave up in the end and got a shared taxi.

We had pre-booked an AirBnB in Buenos Aires and this proved to be an excellent choice. We turned out to be staying in an extremely grand, former palace of a house. It is owned by a British lady, who employs some people here to look after  and run it. It is very much a work in progress, with various rooms in various states of restoration. The rooms on the first floor, where we were, are accessed via the sweeping original staircase, and all the doors are covered in mirrors. Mosaic floors, stained glass windows, high ceilings ... we had it all. Highly recommended! It also had a garden with hammock and resident dog, cat and chickens (and avocado tree) - great.

In front of the grand staircase

Our AirBnB recommended us a place to change money. We went along the touristy street, up a flight of stairs to a level at about 0.5 between ground and 1. Then down to the end of a corridor to a completely blacked out office, where we were quietly ushered in when we knocked on the door. Not many words were exchanged, but currency definitely was.

The money exchange office

For the past few days we have been exploring the city and getting a feel for life here. It is an interesting place. Very mixed, with horrific breezeblock apartments alongside very grand, former colonial mansions and palaces like the one in which we were staying. It has a ramshackle feel to it and a lot of the downtown areas seem like they are in a recession - the pavements are cracked and crumbling, most of the roads seem to be being dug up (there are bulldozers and roadworks in every other street) and we are constantly being dripped on by air conditioning units. Despite this we like it - it is quite a loveable state of disrepair. Other neighbourhoods of the city are quite different - the Recoleta area, which we visited today, is full of posh mansions and hotels, art galleries, boutiques and foreign embassies. More a la Mayfair! Like many other cities, there is definitely a pronounced rich and poor divide.

Highlights of our recent sightseeing include the Casa Rosada (literally, the pink house), where the presidential offices are; the famous Recoleta cemetery, where we saw Evita's tomb; an art gallery with Rodin statues and plenty of impressionist paintings; and a tour through underground tunnels of BA, where old tributaries used to run. The tour guide for the latter was very informative as much about present day life as the past - we learnt a lot about Argentinian politics, e.g. this year is an election year and the mayor of BA is standing against the president.

La Casa Rosada

The food is, shall we say, somewhat meat heavy! They do meat very well but vegetables are hard to come by. I tried to be healthier the other day ordering a mixed vegetable grill rather than meat. It came swimming in oil... think maybe best to stick with what they're best at! The empanadas are veeery tasty.

Enough for now - see you next time! We're going to try and update the blog every Tues and Fri, internet depending.

All Packed

This is my (Kev's) first attempt at writing for an audience, so my apologies for my output in the coming months. There are no such excuses for Jo's entries though! We're hoping to include pages with a map of where we are and where we've been, as well as some stats (any ideas for what to track are welcome) and links to photos. This is still a work in progress though.

The contents of Kev's bag

We're writing this now we're all packed and ready to fly to Buenos Aires, Argentina. The nerves are beginning to kick in now after a non-stop couple of weeks leaving work, moving out of our houses and seeing as many people as possible for the last time in a while. It hasn't really sunk in until now as we haven't had time to sit down and think clearly.

There are so many questions that need answering. What have we forgotten? How are we going to cope with local transport after a 14 hour flight? How are we going to get anything done with our poor Spanish? Where are we going to stay after the first couple of nights? This is all a familiar feeling to us both, but we don't tire of it - the anticipation of the unknown.

The (less organised!) contents of Jo's bag

It's been great to see everybody over the last few days even if we haven't been able to spend as much time with each of you as we'd have liked. It's very weird to say goodbye to people that you've been seeing so regularly and now won't be seeing again for months.

We hope to publish a couple of times a week on here, so you should probably add it to your RSS feed. We'd love to hear from you as much as possible - while away, we always enjoy hearing what all of you are up to. We look forward to your comments and messages!