So on my first friday night I find myself in Palermo at Club Niceto, shooting four bands, playing ping-pong, drinking fernet & coke, 3 rock bands & a dub band, some great music in a really full club. Everything did seem very familiar from the way sound techs soundcheck to the way bands get a crowd going. Back to the hostel around 1am and got a little sleeping done. On the Saturday morning I meet all the other people in my dorm room, A Dane (Anne) and an English girl (Larissa). Myself and Anne spent the day wandering the streets of Buenos Aires, visiting the rather bizarre dead city of the huge cemetery starring Eva Perons grave. Then hanging out in the rather trendy Palermo areas, eating ice-cream, watching a man get arrested, watching a Carnivale in the street and not having any idea what was going on.
That night, sitting around in the hostel chatting, a group of people gathered together and at 2am went out to huge nightclub just outside the centre. Filled with literally thousands of people, we drank cans of beer & watched the famous buenos aires nightlife experience. The following morning after very few hours sleep we went for a wander in San Telmo market, had my first and pretty terrible Argentine steak. The afternoon involved a bicycle tour of the south city on bikes made from bamboo which seemed to impress everyone we passed by. I nearly acted like a tourist, taking touristy photos of the various barrios. And on the advice of our tour guides, Manuel & Danielle, we then went out and watched locals & tourists doing both dancing the tango & some listening to some kind of Brazilian style drum samba group who were competing for the ears of the people in the square. No photos taken. Before this, I had my first real Argentine steak experience, a huge butterflied rib steak, amazingly juicy & too big to finish. Tim (the australian biochemistry student) Anne (the art history student)
Monday the 7th, we checked out of the modern & comfortable America del Sur Hostel & went to catch the ferry to Colonia, Uruguay. An hour trip on the airplane-like/seacat/buquebus brought us to a whole new land (and another new passport stamp). Colonia seemed like a rather poor city but with a quaint small area of the old colonial town, filled with tourists taking pictures of little old buildings, the crazy stone paved streets & cars with trees growing out of them Not a place I'd really want to have spent more than a day in. Then, onto a bus to the capital, Montevideo, what was meant to be a 3 hour or so trip had the fun of a breakdown in the middle of a highway. Like other bus breakdowns before, I head outside to see what was going on, 3 men scratching their heads, looking into an engine. About 1½ hours later, another bus came and picked us up and brought us into the city. A taxi ride to the wrong hostel, led us to walking the wrong direction with the fully loaded backpacks. So a good nights sleep in sweaty un-air conditioned rooms was had in the viajero hostel. A breakfast of South American cornflakes & a peach into me, it's now time to explore Montevideo.
(Again, no rock bands being photographed, just having a cool relaxing time for the moment)
Sounds great!
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