Crap Elvis in Argentina - from dentist to death

Well, I guess the welcome to Buenos Aires could have been a little better - having jumped in a cab at the airport, the driver proceded to scream down the freeway towards the city at a pace suggesting his wife was having a baby and his house was on fire at the same time. Unfortunately at it's last service (which by the condition of the cab looked like was somewhere around 1969), mechanics must have failed to check the bonnet securing mechanism as it suddenly flipped up, smashed the windscreen and blocked any view of the middle lane we were in. Just a bit scary. Nevermind, we veered across the other lanes to the side of the road, screeched to a halt, and then the driver got out, flipped it back down and then bashed it a lot to hold it in place. 30 seconds later we were screaming towards the city again, and I was screaming internally until we arrived.

Then there was a flood in the area where we stayed, and a tornado hit the nearby river.

Then I had to find a dentist as my face felt like someone was sticking a screwdriver in it constantly. Having clarified it wasn't the cab driver actually sticking a screwdriver in it constantly in another quick fix situation, the dentist started root canal surgery straight away. 4 days of dentist visits later I was back to normal and quite disappointed not to be visiting the sister/brother team of Marisol and Gustavo again (it was the first time ever my dentist has given me a kiss each time I arrive!) If you want some stupidly cheap, but amazingly good dentisty done contact them at http://www.dental-argentina.com/

If you're in the UK, USA or Canada I think they have a freephone number to contact them. You can pay for your flights, hotel and dental work for the price of just the dental work back home. Smash your teeth now and get over there.

Can't avoid the Tango



Checking out the local music scene - if you ain't got a squeezebox, get off the street.

So the rest of the 2 weeks spent in Buenos Aires was just hanging around, enjoying the place really. It felt like a European city, except you don't have to mortgage your house to buy a cup of coffee. And if you eat meat, it's heaven. Cheap and really tasty steaks every night. And if you don't eat meat, you're probably too weak to turn on a computer and read this anyway.Took a while to get used to the fact that if you have dinner before 11pm, you're a bit strange. Off to the pub around 1am, then hit a club after 3am, because of course no-one will be there before then. The weekend pretty much starts on Tuesday, and I think that normal working "portenos" (Buenos Aires people) have some sort of time-shifting ability because they obviously get up for work about 2 hours before they've arrived back in from the night. Maybe


The day I nearly died: during a tour of La Bombonera stadium (home of the legendary Boca Juniors - Maradona's team), I whipped out the suit, completely forgetting it was the exact colours of their arch rivals River Plate. Oops!



Fortunately I didn't make the same mistake when I went to this "clasico" local derby between Boca and Independiente undercover in plain clothes. 60000 people went abosolutely loco.


Crap Elvis and Crap Maradona on the streets of Camonito, Boca

Another thing I loved about BA is the dog walkers. There are so many dog owners in BA, that a professional dog walker will take up to 15 dogs out at a time, so the owner will never have to deal with the whole dog-owning experience. But of course with so many dogs in a city without much grass, that means a lot of mess on the pavements. This is where I reckon Argentinians get their amazing dancing ability, as a walk anywhere in the city will involve shimmying and sidestepping your way around the steaming piles. Trust me, it's an art.

So many bums to sniff, so little time.

Now for the big one - you may have been to many of the world's biggest theme parks, but have you been to Tierra Santa - the world's first relgious theme park? Complete with anamatronic "Last Supper", please please please check back here soon to see the video of a 18 metre high plastic Jesus resurrecting by popping out of a fibreglass mountain ONCE AN HOUR!!!



Also, no trip to Buenos Aires is complete without checking out Recoleta Cemetery where Evita is buried in one of the stupidly extravagent death huts (probably not the official term). Up until this point, I didn't know it was possible to get thrown out of a cemetery.



Evita's grave.





In a pensive mood in our street corner guesthouse