Tropical thunderstorms to Cama coaches....

Well here is my first official entry! I´m sorry everyone but pictures will have to wait until next time because I left the lead in my room!

Anyways Sally and I arrived in Bariloche this morning on a 20 hour bus ride, after being in Buenos Aires since Sunday evening. It´s really nice to be in a new place, especially as this Argentinian town is like a mini-Switzerland - it´s got amazing chocolate,big lakes and mountains!! Not sure how long we´ll be here for but definitely 5 days, we´re going to do some trekking and Sally wants to do an adventurous activity! I´m yet to be persuaded into horse riding, cycling or kayaking!! Rafting is my favourite option at the moment.

Buenos Aires was cool - but I guess very much like any big city. We went to Recoleta where we saw Evita´s (aka Madonna in the ´Don´t Cry for me Argentina´ film) grave, which is a really touristy thing to do but we found slightly weird. The graveyard was bizarre with all these elaborate graves of wealthy families and it felt quite morbid taking pictures! (Saying that I took some, so will post up soon.)

We also saw a tango show in the basement of a restaurant, which was amazing. I´m really tempted to learn tango as there was lots of intricate leg twizzling, which I loved!

My favourite story about BA happened yesterday though, just before Sally and I were about to leave the hostel to catch our bus here. We thought it would be a good idea to pop to the supermarket two blocks away to buy some food for the journey before we checked out. So we get the food and then as we walked towards the entrance we noticed a tropical thunderstorm had suddenly started!! All of the local people were huddled under shelters and inside shops, but we decided we´d better just run for it because we were in a hurry. (well actually I thought we should) Hmmm this turned out to be a crazy idea because as soon as we stepped out we were completely soaked though!! The rain was pelting down in thick heavy drops (nothing like English drizzle) and as we were running people were whistling and cheering. It was humiliating. And then as we were wading through the collection of water by a kerb my flip flop got carried away!!! Luckily we could laugh about it!

That turned out to be just the beginning of the adventure as the local transport system was in chaos (the tube we´d carefully planned to get to the bus station was no longer running), so we tried a cab - they were all full as everyone in BA got there first, and eventually we looked for a bus to take us there. The last option was so confusing, as we were just wandering around asking people at bus stops!! But the people were all so helpful and at one point the man we asked didn´t know and so he yelled out to everyone waiting!!! All of the people at the bus stop were trying to direct and help us. By some miracle Sally eventually spotted the right bus and we jumped on!!!
Don´t think it was plain sailing from there though - when we got to the bus station after waiting an hour we discovered that we´d been given the wrong information and we´d missed our bus! But once again a really nice man who worked for the bus company took pity on us and sorted us out a new bus ride, where we were upgraded for no extra charge!!!! Then began the most luxurious coach journey I´ve ever had in my life - Cama bus is definitely the way to travel! English coaches do not compare. We had a chair that became a bed, two meals, a DVD player right infront of us and the whole downstairs to ourselves!! The coach drivers also liked us and so let us sit in the drivers seat (as you´ll see next time!)

Well thats enough to keep you going for a little while - I´m fine, still adjusting to living out of a backpack, having Monica-in-Barbados-style frizzy hair (with no straighteners!) and having to concentrate so hard to understand people - Argentinians have v different pronounciation! I love you all and really like reading your comments!