Buenos Aires Days 3-5

Day 3

Didn´t rise too early today. Met with Shell and Lorraine about 11 and we headed down to Florida street to the tourist information kiosk to do the city tour. Costs Arg $70 which is a bit steep but its what you expect for a city tour hop on hop off bus. Have to be honest ... one of the worst organised bus tours I have ever been on. After queuing for well over an hour to get tickets (12-1), we couldnt board the bus until 15:30!!! Even when we did get on it was kind of boring. Beautiful city but the bus tour is rubbish and I would avoid it if I ever came here again. Just pay a few pesos and get the subway and you will see everything and twice as quickly. We got off the bus tour about 17:00 and had a bit of a rush to get from Recoleta back to San Telmo for our 18:30 pick up at my hostel for our Tango night. Good fun .. and would recommend this. Its pricey (about 200Arg$) and very ´touristy´ but you have to expect that. We had a Tango lesson followed by a meal and a traditional Tango show. Good fun, but I´m smothering with the flu at the moment. Cant seem to shake it off. I think I need a few days to relax. 

Day 4 & 5

Woke up today in bits ... went to chemist to get antibiotics for my chest (which they sold over the counter which was great). Our ticket for the bus tour from yesterday was still valid so we used that for a bit today but didn´t do much. We spent the afternoon around Recoleta looking at the ´Cementaria de la Recoleta´ which is an amazing cementary in the middle of the city. One of the big tourist attractions in BA.

Had an early night hoping my flu would be gone by next day but woke up feeling just as lousy today. Today we had an early start. I met Shell and Lorraine in San Telmo at 8:30 and we boarded our bus for our ´Estancia´ trip. The whole thing lasted a full day. It was an organised tour to another town outside BA called Lujan (pronounced ´Lucan´!) where we visited some Cathedral. We then went on to Estancia Chica´ near a small town called San Andres de Giles´.

http://www.estanciachica.com/

They certainly fed us enough meat! Plenty of it. Not the best place to go to if you are a vegetarian! It was quite touristy and pricey (Arg $240 or 55 Euro) but its a once off trip and was good to see it. Went horse riding, saw traditional ´gaucho´ games, music and dancing.

We arrived back to BA about 18:00 and we went for a drink in town. I headed back to San Telmo and Shell and Lorraine went back to Recolata to pack as they are flying back home tomorrow morning. Will miss them when they are gone.

Ive extended my stay in the hostel until next Sunday, only becuase Im hoping to go to a Boca Juniors game on Saturday night which would be a super experience. I´m hoping to get a bus ticket for an overnight bus on Sunday night to a place called Bahia Blanca and hopefully stay there for 3 nights. Not sure where to go after that.  

http://maps.google.ie/maps?hl=en&q=bahia+blanca&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl

I had planned to work my way down the Eastern coast all the way down to southern Patagonia but it may be a better idea to go down the Western Coast and head up the East coast as the weather gets better. I hear in December and January the weather gets real nice and it would be super to spend a few days on the beach as I head back up North.  Tough decisions!