Buenos dias Buenos Aires, part two. Time to say goodbye

Our journey back to Buenos Aires is miraculously on time, and gives us time to shower and change before Bonne Maman treats us to dinner and a tango show. We have much needed G&T, red wine and good food before the dancers come on and do their thing. The movement of their bodies, the story they tell, the costumes and the way they dance is just outstanding.













This particular blog is a story of goodbyes. Having done a quick shop in the morning for the essential dulce de leche and empanada pastries, Bonne Maman and I have a teary goodbye before she heads off to the airport. Vicks and I have a lazy day and chilled out movie watching evening, then on her last day (sob) we do a bus tour of the city, stoping at La Poesia, our favourite bar for a spot of lunch.




And then it's off for our final supper and a lovely bottle of fizz (a parting gift from Vicky), a bit of dancing (both in the flat and on the balcony) and a lot of hugging.


Vicks gets up with me at 5am to say goodbye. She has been the best travel buddy and I've loved every minute of our wonderful adventure together - apart from the hospital admission, during which she was absolutely brilliant. I know I'll miss her terribly, but well be reunited in a month and Jess Veale awaits me in Peru.

La Isolina - heaven IS a place on earth

Racing to the bus station, trying to keep Mum and Vicky calm. 'Chillax, it's Argentina - the bus will be late'. We get to the bus station with 15 minutes to spare. No sign of our bus, until we see a bus from the company we've booked with leaving the depot. Off to customer services, who eventually ascertain that the bus is late. An hour and a half late. No matter. We're on the bus soon enough and six hours later, we arrive in Olavarria.

The lovely Maria meets us at the bus station and takes us to the estancia, La Isolina. We are immediately wowed. It's stunning. We're invited to take a seat and have a glass of wine and some nibbles before going in for dinner. Maria's family are staying too, and they are absolutely lovely. The food is to die for and Mum spend the entire trip pestering Maria to write a cook book.




La Isolina







Maria's beautiful family (with apologies to Eugenia for not being in this photo!)

The following morning, we're up and about for a leisurely horse ride across the pampas with Jorge, Maria's husband. Jorge speaks French, as does Bonne Maman, so they get on famously. I ride Chimanga, who will become 'my' horse for the duration of our stay and he is brilliant, but my god, he loves to eat!









We ride out every day, most days twice a day, topping up our tans, going faster and faster as we get more comfortable on the horses and spending the interim period eating and lazing by the pool.


On Saturday, we have the most wonderful barbecued lunch, where we all help ourselves to various pieces of beef and sit under the trees. The black pudding is to die for.












On our last afternoon, we all gallop back to the estancia and have our pictures taken on horseback on the lawn, before Mum and I go for a walk around the grounds and get some last minute hammock photos. Chimanga has a tear falling from his eye as I say goodbye to him, and this nearly sets me off as well, he's been such a good horse.












Sadly, all too soon it's time to say goodbye, after four amazing days of riding, eating, and properly relaxing. We head back to Buenos Aires for the final part of Vicks and my grand adventure. Jorge and Maria have been the most wonderful, attentive, inclusive hosts, and we have had the best time at their estancia. I hope to return again soon!

Buenos dias Buenos Aires - part one.

At the airport we jump in a taxi and whizz past loads of big memorials to previous Argentine generals and various wars. Must not mention the Falklands, must not mention the Falklands....the taxi driver asks where we are from, and we tell him 'Londres', though I am quite tempted to say 'Australia'. It takes us forty minutes to check in to our hostel as the guy at reception is new, but he's cute and friendly, so we forgive him. It takes a further ten minutes, and the help of a friendly Aussie, to find our room. The hostel is in a huge building of faded grandeur, and our room is obviously one of the maids quarters, but at least we have a private room.

We head out shopping the following morning. We get on the bus to Palermo, and can't pay, as buses only take coins, which are surprisingly hard to come by. So, we feign ignorance nod travel for free. Vicky and Helen 1 - City of Buenos Aires 0. Palermo is lovely and Vicks instantly decides this is where we're staying when we come back from the Estancia. We walk for miles, my shoes start to rub, and eventually we stop off for lunch, before heading to the cemetery where we have a guided tour and make the obligatory stop off at the tomb of Eva 'don't cry for me Argentina' Peron.




That evening, we head out to a tango lesson, followed by dinner, unlimited wine and a tango show. As about 50 of us, majority female, stand in the room where we are to learn tango, I can't help reflecting that maybe the unlimited wine BEFORE the tango lesson would have made everyone a it more relaxed. We learn the basic steps, and both Vick and I are called to the front of the class to show 'em how its done.







The show afterwards is spectacular, and having bonded with several other people over tango and wine, I head off to the sister hostel of ours to drink and dance. I have a vague recollection of dancing the tango in the street with strangers, and being sick on my shoes, and Vicky tells me I wake her up coming in at 3am. Needless to say, we have a very chilled out Sunday.

We wander up to La Boca on Monday, before finding our favourite bar in Buenos Aires, La Poesia. With several glasses of Malbec under our belt, and having made a few new friends, we head off to a tango bar. We dance a bit of tango, drink some more and then decide to head back to our hostel. We have a very chilled out Tuesday.




Plan A - spend the day exploring Buenos Aires. Plan B - get drunk on Malbec.



Wednesday morning dawns bright and early, and I'm off to the airport to pick up Bonne Maman, who had decided to come and see her darling daughter for a week. The airport is chaos, like the tube at rush hour, fortunately, I am used to the tube and can elbow it with the best of them. Bonne Maman comes out, we have our 'Love, Actually' airport moment and I take her back to the hostel, clocking that she's packing Bollinger - hurrah! We go empanada making, which is (as with everything in this city) fuelled by Malbec and hosted by yet another reception hottie, who insists on calling my mother Mama, and tells us we can make willy shaped empanada should we so wish. HELLO, I'm with my mother......In the freestyle empanada making contest, Vicks makes a bear, and I make Christ the Redeemer, and we both win a cocktail. Yay, us!












That evening, we take Maman to the best steak restaurant in Buenos Aires and eat meat to die for, which some poor cow of course did, but the sacrifice was worth it. As one of the girls at reception in our hostel says, 'Meat is murder. Tasty, tasty murder.'







Maman has coped remarkably well with an overnight flight from London, and spending all day in Buenos Aires, but we eventually call it a night and prepare ourselves for the six hour coach journey to Olavarria and our estancia stay.

Igauzu Falls - more water than you could ever imagine.

Checking in at Rio, we meet an American couple who are heading the same way as us and agree to spend the afternoon on the Brazilian side of the falls before heading to our separate hotels. Trouble looms when our taxi driver who takes us to the falls tells the Americans that they need to have paid $160 and have printed proof of this before we can cross the border. They don't have this, and are most put out. We agree we will go to the falls and then head back to the airport to sort out their paperwork before we cross into Argentina.

The falls are most impressive and there is a variety of wildlife to keep us entertained as we undertake the two hour walk around.










Then it starts chucking it down. The rainforest lives up to its name. We get soaked to the skin. Fortunately, our taxi driver is unperturbed, and after a brief sojourn at the airport to sort the Americans out, we are on our way to the Argentine border.

The river is the border between Brazil and Argentina, with the Brazilian flag painted along half the bridge, and the Argentine flag on the other half. I'm quite nervous about this border crossing, as animosity between Britain and Argentina is high, but the tension is relieved when the American lady tells us her daughter is studying 'cock' in Central America (after fits of giggles from us, and pursed lips from her, we ascertain she means conch). The border crossing is drive thru, we don't even get out of the car, and pretty soon, we're ensconced in the luxury that is Loi Suites.





We have the most amazing steak and Malbec for dinner, then prep ourselves for a soggy day on the Argentine side of the falls.

It rains. All day. It's a bit like being at home. We see the amazing falls, and using the adage "if you're going to get wet, might as well go swimming", we take a boat right into the falls.








Now we are literally soaked to the skin, but it was worth it to see the awesome power of all that water. We decide to take the little train up to what is considered the most impressive part of the falls, the Devils Throat. It's a kilometre trek on a metal bridge out over increasingly fast flowing water, but it's so worth it. In spite of the rain, the might of the tons and tons of water falling and creating massive clouds of spray and the birds seemingly flying out of the water is jaw dropping.









Heading back to Loi, soaking wet and looking forward to a hot shower, we agree that we're really pleased we added this detour to our trip. However, we're also in dire need of some sunshine, and look forward to the following day, and our flight to Buenos Aires.

Location:On the border - Brazil and Argentina