Maradonna, Evita and Cocaine drug runners
Trip Start
Jun 12, 2006
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77
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Trip End
Jul 01, 2007
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Monday, November 13, 2006
About 2 hours in to the trip we were stopped and searched, this has become A regular thing in South America and the bus carried on when the police and sniffer dogs got off.
I had just got to sleep when we were stopped again and taken off the road to military check point, guards boarded again this time with bigger guns and trying to find something. They called a ticket number out for a bag, a blonde lady got up and walked off the bus. 1 hour later after waiting the whole bus had to get off and we had to collect our bags for inspection. While queuing up we looked into a guarded room, there the woman sat with around 30 large bags of cocaine. The police held us up for another 2 hours, checking our passports, travel tickets and emptying our bags.
At 6am the following morning only 2 hours I had got back to sleep, a baby behind me started kicking my chair, I asked the mother after 20mins of this to try and stop the kid, the little bastard then pulled my hair. I turned around gave her an evil look and she went to the back of the bus, I couldn't get back to sleep. We were almost 6 hours delayed by then and didn't arrive until 4pm the following afternoon, 23hours on a bus. Doh.
So BA, its putting years on me, i desperately need to get some extra sleep.
The city is my favorite so far, beating New York and Rio, a by a long way. The city is really classy compared the other South American cities and look more like Rome than Lima, Rio, Quito or La Paz. But all the glamour doesn't come at a price and you can pick everything up for peanuts.
I have been eating steak, most nights. You can by a decent cut in the super markets for a pounds and eat the best in a restaurant for 4 pounds, the wine is also top notch.
Apart from the drinking and endless nights, which don't finish until of later I have also managed to get a bit of culture in.
The city has a number of cool districts, san telmo has a great market on Sunday and an antiques fair, lots of cool cafes and steak houses. We stayed in a hostel here for the first weekend.
We then moved to Millhoue and meet up Matt again, the last time I will see him on this side of the world and until I get back to Blighty.
After unsuccessfully trying to get a tout ticket for a bocas game, we decided to go a tour of La Boca. This is the old port and the home to the famous Boca Juniors team. The area is known for its brighty colored buildings and where tango started. During the tour of Bocas ground, I started to get a bit pissed with all the photos of maradonna, and they love the goal he scored against england, I tried to remind them of the other (hand of god) goal, which cheated us and the fact they haven't beaten us for 8 years. Have some of that....
I spent one full day with Jamie a american sounding brit in my room and sarah a kiwi. We did the whole tourist thing, catching most the old buildings and the cometary. This is more like a small city, with 10 foot high tombs and of course Evitas grave. I also spent a morning checking out the Rose Palace, where Evita would come out on the balcony to the crowds.
A couple of hours left I am just preparing for my trip to Chile and onward to the Easter Islands. But I am going to miss BA and Argentina and this is a country I haven't seen enough of and I would really want to return one day.
