We arrived in Buenos Aires late last Monday night and after a quick beer in the hostel we hit the hay in preparation for a day of exploring!
Once we got our bearings we set off the next morning to find out what all of the fuss was about. The first thing we wanted to see was a book shop called El Ateneo, which was originally a theatre before it was turned into the most beautiful book shop...
After this we wandered around taking in the sights of BA and came to realise just how big the city is!
We visited the famous La Recoleta cemetary, which is basically a maze of ornate tombs, a place where BA's elite classes chose as there final resting place, a mix of crumbling forgotten graves and shiny new ones...
At the end of our first day we sought out two of the things that Argentina is famed for, steak and wine! And we were not disappointed, some of the best steak and wine we have ever had!
We had already decided that we wanted to visit the theatre when we were in BA and we were lucky enough to watch the Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra which was such a wonderful experience...beautiful music in a beautiful setting...
After a few days of city life we needed to plan our next move. We had always planned to visit Patagonia during our time in Argentina. It's famed for its Welsh community who settled there during the late 19th and early 20th century. Argentina is a big country so we decided that in the interest of saving time we would fly down from BA to Puerto Madryn. On our first day we went to Gaimen a small town with Welsh tea houses. After 3 months on the road, we have started to miss a few home comforts, so visiting a tea house and eating masses of home made cake and good tea was very welcome!! We were a bit disappointed that there we no welsh cakes, but they probably wouldn't have been as good as Rachel's nanna's anyway! It was a but surreal as it felt just like being in Wales but with a spanish twist! Rachel even got to speak welsh to a local chap, which made her very happy indeed!
Tea and cake!!
Our next stop is El Bolson, 12 hours away from Puerto Madryn as we begin our climb north to Santiago ahead of our flight to New Zealand on the 26th July...
The weeks highlights:
Best view: Even though we only managed to get standing tickets for the Orchestra in BA, it was still a fantastic feast for the eyes and we had a great view of the performance and of the theatre.
Best Food:
Bit of a shortlist this week... We had some great food in BA, big portions of steak with Malbec of course - the best being in San Telmo. We also ate at some great health bars as we needed to mix some greens into our largely protein diet. Not forgetting all that cake and lovely bara menyn in Gaiman.
Lesson learnt: Who knew that sea lions could climb up steps?!
Love Monday Funday: Another reason that we wanted to visit Puerto Madryn in Patagonia is that this time of year it's a great spot for whale watching. On Monday after a great tip off about a near by beach we headed down just after high tide and were amazed by how close the southern right whales came to the shore...not great photos though, sorry, the better ones are yet to be taken off Rachel's camera.
Hours on a bus: 4
Hours on a plane: 2.5
Number of whales spotted: 8-10 roughly!
Have a great week!
Love Lisa and Rach xx
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