Buenos Aires, Argentina

We landed in Buenos Aires (BA)in good time, it was early afternoon so we had lots of time to get to the hostel ans start exploring, well so we thought! We went though to get out luggage and waited and waited and waited after about an hour there were a series of announcements in Spanish and every one tutting and moaning. We found some one that spoke English and they explained that the airport was on strike and no bags would be coming out until 5pm. We had a 4 hour wait! About 6.30pm our bags came through. We jumped in to our cab and drove to the our first hostel, through lots of riots and burning cars. We had been told that Buenos Aires was one of the safest places in South America. We found out there were lots of protests going on due to some government issues.
We finally arrived at our hostel, another Che Lagarto hostel which was supposed to be a good one. The guys on reception weren't the friendliest and had no private rooms. All they had was a 20 room dorm! Great! We had no choice, all the hostels were chocka blocked so up we went to our huge room which stunk and was freezing! There were 17 guys in there, one girl and me and Brett!! We quickly sorted out all of our valuables to put in Brett's bag to put in the locker as you couldn't leave anything lying around, we then headed out to get some food and see what was around. The streets didn't seems as safe as I expected but we just kept going to the recommended area of town and had a lovely dinner. We didn't expect BA to be as busy as it was as we thought it was low season and always got accommodation so easily in Brazil. But we were wrong. The hostel we were in had accommodation for the next day but nothing for a while after that. So we had to make sure we could get accommodation. After dinner we headed to an internet cafe to look for rooms before going back to the hostel for a drink and then to sleep! we were right by the door and people were coming and going all night long, it wasn't the best night. The next day we went on our mission to get accommodation, so with every thing with us we headed to a hostel we'd been recommended via an internet cafe to check for another option. Bad move. We had our bag stolen not the one with nothing in the one with all our valuables in we never go out with any thing of value on us, typically the one time we do it all gets robbed! So we were minus our passports, i-pods, camera, mobile every thing it was a night mare! The people in the cafe just weren't interested in helping us and reluctantly called the police for us. The police arrived and took us to the police station, the first thing they asked was who owns the Falklands the UK or Argentina. I just ignored them. We were in the police station a good few hours doing our report. I had Mum at home calling as many numbers as she could to get things canceled for us and then we had to find the embassy to cancel our passports! Not a good start to our time in BA!
We returned to our hostel, a little stressed and the plan was to get a shower and go out for some dinner. But with our luck as it was the hostel had had a power cut there was no hot water or light - joy! So, we headed out for dinner, it was such alovely restaurant and just after our starter I received a call from Brett's mobile which had been stolen and it was the guy wanting to do a deal he told me to call back so I called the police who just weren't interested and hung up on me. I text the guy and asked him to return our things to where he had stolen them from he replied with quite a nasty message, so we turned the phone off and ignored it. The next day we got a phone call from an English girl saying she had our passports. Shes had her bag stolen too and her passport along with ours had been returned. Unfortunately for us it was too late to reverse the cancellation and get back our 260 quid. But it was nice to have our passports back. I'd rather them in our hand than some criminal! Lucky for us we had a month in Argentina, the girl that returned our passports was due to fly back to the UK the next day and was traveling alone. Fingers crossed the insurance company will be good to us!
After our little night mare, we went to stay with a friend we had met in Brazil. She had an apartment in Argentina for a week and had room for us for a couple of days. we were then booked in to the Milhouse hostel for a week after that.we chilled in the apartment and had some home cooked meals before heading to Mil house on the Sunday night, which is known as the party hostel.
We were booked in with a double room with en-suite and it was so nice and clean. The hostel was huge, it had its own bar and DJ and parties every other night. There were a couple more guys staying there who we had met in Brazil so it was nice to catch up with some old faces.
Our first night there was the night the hostel organized a trip to Pacha so of course we went along to. It was happy hour in the hostel and we headed to Pacha at about 1am. It was rammed in there and so hot, the dance floor extended to the outside too. At about 4am we headed home as we cant take the pace (some of the others didn't return until midday the following day). On route to the cab station we came across one of the guys from the hostel staggering across the car park. Tanya (one of the Aussie girls we met & stayed with) took pity on him and we said he could jump in with us....huge mistake about ten mins in to the journey he was sick all over himself and the back of the cab and the outside of the cab. The driver pulled over and was about to kick us out but the guy gave him a 100 pesos and started to clean up. So we had a smelly journey back to the hostel with the drunk guy in a bad way!
The next day of course was spent sleeping and recovering.
we had so many plans for our days in BA but it always seemed that we were hungover the day we were due out.
we were fully recovered by the Monday and were meeting up with some other frineds we had met in Brazil for one of there birthdays. We were heading to the famous 'drums' night, which is basically about 20 people playing the drums. It sounded a amzing and I'm probably not doing it justice! Its only on till 10pm so we stayed there and had a few huge beers before heading back to the hostel for happy hour, sambuka & fives...it was a very messy evening. About 3am we headed over to the club across the road from the hostel for some more fun and games. Another late night and another day spent recovering!
We had a chilled Tuesday night and went out with a few of the guys who were due to fly home the next day. We just went for a chilled dinner with no drinking. The next morning I woke up at about 6am feeling awful I thought I had food poisoning mixed in with a hang over but I hadn't been drinking. I woke up later and felt even worse but this time with a temperature and the sweats. I won't bore you all with the ins and outs of it all but i spent most of the day in bed feeling awful with Brett telling me that I need to see a Dr and me refusing. He eventually just went to reception and called a doctor out to me as I was in such a bad way. we were told we would get an English doctor, an hour later a Spanish speaking Doctor turned up and couldn't speak a word of English. He took my temperature and looked at me and told us through the reception guy that i was to go in ambulance straight to hospital! I've never been in an ambulance or hospital before or in an embassy or filled out a police report so I thought I'd wait to be on the other side of the world to visit all of the above! I wouldn't recommend it.
We arrived in an awful hospital and I had loads of tests. I wasn't allowed any pain killers and had to wait for results in a room with a home less drunk! The Dr was concerned about when my flight out was and kept saying appendix and change flight. It was a long wait and just awful. There was blood on the walls, the foam mattress I was on was all split it was disgusting! After four hours they came back and said I had a infection, diagnosed painkillers and antibiotics and sent us on our way in to the rough area where no cabs come to. We eventually got back to the hostel at 7am under strict instruction to rest, but we had to be out of out hostel by 10am so we didn't need more of an excuse and booked ourselves in to the Hilton for two nights! Hilton here we come...
The Hilton was absolute luxury and such a fab treat for us with carpet on the floor, clean sheets and a duvet on the bed, room service and sky tv with a bath and a shower! We spent our first day eating healthy food and sleeping, by day 2 we tried to get up and out but after an hour out it was too much for me and we had to go back. We saw a famous ex footballer in the Hilton he was stood right next to us, his name was Julio Batistuta (if thats how you spell it).
The whole time we've been in BA we've tried to go to Boca where the famous football stadium is but we've always had some thing come up like being robbed, going to hospital etc.. so we finally made it there and had a tour of the stadium and went to the street where they have all the famous colourful houses and the tango dancers on the street. It was worth the wait and I'm glad we finally made it there.
Since before the hospital visit we've been trying to make plans to leave BA but kept having obsticles in our way so finally after far too long in BA we managed to get a cheap flight instead of 48 hours on a bus and head to El Calafate which is South of Argentina.
So after an interesting time in Buenos Aires we were heading out and down to the cold.......