More Buenos Aires

By Monday the heat had really kicked in; it was about 30 degrees but felt hotter not least because we were in the middle of the city. In search of at least some breeze we headed to the recently redeveloped port area, Puerto Madero, which as would seem typical of such areas across the world is full of higher end restaurants and bars. Quite interesting to see but nothing too special. We also wandered onto a tall ship which had been turned into a museum - it was good to see photos of some of the expeditions it had survived especially as some of the places were down south of the country ie where we are headed next.

We then walked through to the main square - Plaza de Mayo - home of the famous Casa Rosada (Pink House) ie the main government building where Evita made her famous speeches to the people. This area is also where all the other government offices are concentrated, as well as the cathedral. After walking for a few hours I was starting to feel the effects of the heat (Andrew's theory is that my body is confused because it should be nearly winter!?) and so we headed back to the hostel to crash for a while.

I soon felt better and we decided to head out to a highly recommended steak house (Parilla) called Desnivel, which was so good that even I almost got excited about eating steak. Also, before we went out I had called Margarita's sister Nancy to try to arrange meeting up. I found the conversation really difficult as the place I was calling from was very noisy, and I'm really not very good at speaking Spanish on the phone at the best of times. We got there in the end and I arranged to call her mobile the next day to arrange meeting up on Tuesday evening.

Tuesday morning was the first of Andrew's classes so he went to school and I went shopping! There is an incredible amount of leather on sale here and at a fraction of the price you'd pay at home. I resisted the shoes (Em aka fabshoes - you would love it here!) and came away with just a new purse - pretty controlled, I thought. I suppose it helps that I don't like shopping that much in the first place, especially when people are trying to push you to go into their shops. Nevertheless the range is very good and if I didn't already have nearly full backpack I might have been more tempted.

After Andrew finished class (he'll post more details later re what he's been learning) we headed to the vast Retiro bus station to arrange our trip out of Buenos Aires. It was also a good way to get into the air conditioning to escape the 35 degree heat! As Andrew's classes were 2 hours a day for 5 days, we opted to get an bus to Puerto Madryn overnight Saturday - a 17 hour trip, yes Argentina is big! Once we had sorted that out I managed to speak to mum (and dad again) which was great although I have to admit made me want to go home! I'm fine again now but I suppose it would be odd if we both didn't have our moments as life on the road is far from normal (whatever that may be...)

Anyway, after looking at some more bus options and puzzling over how on earth we're going to get to all the places we want to see in the time we have, we headed off to the really fascinating Evita museum. I already knew a fair bit about her life, but what I didn't realise was the extent to which she was hated by many. For example, I wasn't aware or at least didn't remember reading that after her death her body was kidnapped then remained missing for years. Her influence here was clearly immense, but love for the Perons certainly wasn't universal.

Meanwhile, throughout Tuesday we had tried to get hold of Nancy but with no success, so we ended up having a quiet dinner near the hostel - where bizarrely Andrew's chicken was served with a fried banana! When I finally spoke to Nancy again on Wednesday it turned out that she hadn't received my messages and had been trying to contact us at a different hotel with a similar name. Unfortunately this meant that we had missed the meal to which we had been invited on Tuesday, but we did makes plans for later on the week.

Wednesday meanwhile was good in so much as the heat had subsided, and I was therefore much happier to be doing some more walking round. Andrew went to class, whilst I wandered round the attractive and affluent area of town where his school was (Palermo). As it happened the place where I had worked five years ago was nearby, so we had lunch at the cafe from which I had eaten takeaway twice a day for about 2 weeks! It was odd that they area didn't seem too familiar to me but then it was a long time ago. We spent the afternoon in the MALBA modern art museum, which I would summarise as generally interesting but not necessarily our most highly recommended!