....and Buenos Aires keeps entertaining...

Man, what a place. I´ve been having a blast here every night since new year. I continued lessons for a couple of weeks, in those afternoon classes, and they were pretty good. I´ve finished now as I have learned all I´d reasonably need to know for the rest of my time here, and just need to practice that. If I was going to be in South America for longer I´d probably take more classes and work a bit harder at it generally, but it´s not necessary and I´ve paid enough out on classes already. I still get compliments sometimes on the amount I can speak and understand in the time I´ve been learning, so that´s encouraging.

Buenos Aires (literally, Good or Fair Winds) is the 3rd biggest city in South America, which makes it pretty damn big. In 1536 a port was founded where the district of San Telmo now stands, called Santa María del Buen Aire, which translates as "Our Lady of the Fair Winds"). The indigenous folks, naturally, didn't take kindly to the newcomers and attacked the settlement, which was abandoned by the would-be settlers in 1541. Then in 1580 Juan de Garay sailed down the Parana River from Paraguay and successfully re-established the place. He kind of kept the former name, but opted for the elaborate Ciudad de la Santísima Trinidad y Puerto de Santa María del Buen Aire. Try saying that ten times fast. It translates as "City of the Most Holy Trinity and Port of Saint Mary of the Fair Winds" but inevitably good sense prevailed within 100 years, bringing the more convenient name we use today.

The city's divided into barrios. There's the microcentro, which is far from micro but undoubtedly centro, and is where I live in the heart of BA. To the north is Recoleta, another busy commercial area but not as intense, and with a few tourist attractions, and beyond that Palermo, more affluent with wider streets, bigger parks, nicer bars and beautiful people, in both the positive and negative sense. On the western side of microcentro is artsy San Telmo, where I spend many lazy evenings before the big nights, in Plaza Dorrego sipping the local beer - Quilmes - and sometimes spying on the tango dancers. Puerto Madero is like a big dockside development where lots of office workers go after work to unwind. South of centre is colourful La Boca, home to the famous Boca Juniors that Diego Maradona played for. Those are just a few central ones, there are many more but these are the areas you're more likely to come across. There's areas within areas too, like the street that's got a cluster of Irish bars. The Guinness costs almost double what it does in Dublin or even London but it tastes soooo goooooooood.......

The apartment continues to entertain. This is the view from my bed......


And this is the view from my balcony.....



I´ve had a little luck with the girls here too. I wasn´t sure whether it was just a myth that they like western guys but from what I´ve seen it´s true. One in particular I´ve been seeing a fair bit of the last few days and I´ll miss her when I do decide to move on.



My mate Jason from NZ is here for a few days, so we´ve been hitting it pretty hard and having plenty of fun. Tomorrow we´re off to Punta del Este, in Uruguay, for 4 days. It´s supposed to be like the Ibiza of South America and it´s where loads of models and princesses hang out, so it should be, uh, interesting.



After that Jase will head back to the Caymans, where he´s working, and I´ll need to start getting my head and body together for life back on the road. I´ll probably have another 2 weeks in BA and plan a little more. After that I might go to Rosario for a few days, then check out Iguazu Falls and then push up into Brazil towards Rio for Carnaval. Not that that´s gonna be a massive party or anything.....