The Adventure Begins...
with a 3am start at Chez Hadleys on 28th June. On convoy we travel across London to Heathrow where we are kindly waved off / made sure we got on the flight to Madrid!
A quick flight and a short wait at Madrid airport and we were soon on our way to Buenos Aires thanks to Air Iberia who are completely old school. Aaron, who had been getting very excited by the prospect of playing with the games console and watching as many films as possible, was quickly disappointed to find a communal TV screen and a collection of the worst films possble awaiting. Coupled with a self-service on drinks and snacks... in the 12 hour trip I think Aaron managed to drink his own weight in Diet Coke which he collected in multiple trips up the aisle to see his new best friend, airhostess lady.
On arriving in Buenos Aires we, untraveller-like, splashed out on a taxi to the hostel. We luckily or what thought was luckily arrived at the hostel at about 9.30pm just as it started to rain on the cold dark winter night. However, luck was not on our side and it turned out that the hostel was full and they had booked us into their sister hostel a few blocks away. Not such a big deal we thought just before the skies opened and we got lost (thanks to our rubbish Spanish). Drenched through we eventually turned up at the sister hostel. We dumped our stuff in our room and in true Hadley style wandered down to the bar to toast our eventual arrival with a nice cold beer :)
We spent 4 nights here wandering around the town, taking in the sites and buying warmer clothing! It´s a great city with a really European feel to it. It´s hard to believe that we´re so far away from the UK with this atmosphere - it could be Europe.
One of the highlights was wandering around the city for the morning with the general aim of going to see a big famous market. However, after walking for hours we found the space that the market should have been... under renovation ...and the market was in pieces in one corner of the piazza area. Great Hadley timing on doing the tourist thing as always :)
New York City to Santo Domingo PACKAGE (flight + 3 nights) - From: $498
Los Angeles to Buenos Aires - From: $678
We also managed to take in a Tango show - just for the kicks - and it was hysterical although not on purpose. It was a 4 piece band (piano, accordian, bass guitar & violin) which consisted of 3 OAPs (65-80yrs old) and one guy who wasn´t told about the age requirement of the band and was only about 45. That or it was take your son to work day. The band was actually really impressive. There was a young couple that did some tango dancing to about every 3rd song and then there was the lounge lizzard - Del Boy crossed with Columbo. A real character - who sang with great passion and, since we were thrown in a front row table, often to me directly... thankfully he wasn´t put off with the clearly bemused looks he was receiving from me since I couldn´t understand a word. It really was like being in someone´s front room and your grandad inviting some mates round to put on a little show. Very special indeed!
And of course we couldn´t go to Buenos Aires and not test out some of their famous beef. We had the most amazing steak, the size of our faces, and some beautful red wine, which was just delicious and such a fab treat. The one thing we are really succeeding at so far is spending outside of our ´travelling´size budget! But then that´s no surprise really.
We´re having a fab time and now looking forward to our trip to Uruguay... a couple of days in Montevideo and Colonia before coming back to explore more of Argentina.
Thinking of everyone back home. Big Love xxxx
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