Salud!

Peter, Nick and myself are still safe and well in Buenos Aires, the city that never sleeps. This city will take your breath away. The buildings we have seen are like something out of the Paris left bank, the people have a sassy attitude and South American spunk is alive and well.

Today Peter got ripped off by a corrupt Metro official. He bought some subway tickets with a 100 peso note, and didn´t notice that the official only gave him 6 pesos in change!

After that sobering experience we made our way to the eerie Recoleta cemetery. There a thousands of sarcophagi sprawling through the urban jungle, you can look through the glass windows of the tombs and see the coffins inside, which are often covered in lace and offerings. Some coffins are stacked on top of each other, some are rotting away and you can see what´s inside!

Desperate to soak up more Spanish to help us get by, we hot footed it to El Ateneo, a bookstore, to buy Spanish phrase books. We have all noticed that even when we are desperate and try to communicate using simple English, hardly anyone understands and it is a real necessity to have a survivable level of Spanish here. This fine eve some people in the street asked us where they could find a place to ´beber´ (drink). We replied in stilted Spanish, they replied in English. Turns out they were Brazilians and were also struggling with the language.

I was lucky to meet up with my uncle Charles tonight, who showed us an insider´s view of Buenos Aires. He took us to an incredible cocktail bar and sandwich cafe, where the appletinis and lemon drops were unforgettable. Nick was rather peeved that there was not a certain type of whisky available, but the bartender made us some interesting concoctions.

The buildings and architecture are on a phenomenally large scale. The Reserve Bank has entry doors atleast 4 storeys high. How the hell do they open those massive doors? Almost everyone here wears denim, even the chairs in the youth hostel are made of denim, it´s like the national uniform. It seems to be slightly reminiscent of Harlem in New York.

On Friday we are venturing to Santa Cruz de la Sierra, one of the main towns in Bolivia. It´s a 36 hour bus ride, we hear. Whenever we mention that we are going to Bolivia to the Argentinians, we get these knowing looks, like they think it´s a whole other world up there. It probably is, but we can´t wait to experience it.

Ciao,
Brittany