Buenos Aires again y Montevideo - Uruguay

So happy we decided to make the 18 hour trip back to Buenos Aires and experience the city on the weekend.

When we stepped off the bus we enquired into the price of a taxi and were told it would cost $70 pesos. Luckily we knew this was a ridiculous price from our endless hours of walking the city 10 days before. There are many opportunists ready to take advantage of 'naive tourists in the city...luckily we don't fall into the former.

So instead we topped up our bus card (which we bought at the post office on our previous visit) and made our way to the 'other' Milhouse hostel.

The Swedish girls had already arrived an hour before so we quickly dumped our stuff and set out to La Boca - where i'd been dying to go! La Boca is situated in the working class part of town and is lined with colourful corrugated-metal buildings and houses. It's filled with artwork, tango dancing and of course many restaurants and gift shops. It's also next to an old port which is lined with market stalls on the weekend. We went a few streets away from the centre and found a lovely little restaurant blaring 50's music. It offered good food for much cheaper than those on the main streets. I was very happy as I managed to get a delicious vegetarian meal! Although it's touristy, La Boca has a wonderful atmosphere and is a great way to spend the afternoon. However it's apparently not safe after 5 o'clock and you're supposed to get a bus directly into the centre as the outskirts are dangerous. However our bus had decided to drop us off outside the centre so we had to navigate our way through these areas. It was very quiet but the few people we did come across were actually very friendly considering we were in 'the hood'.

Saturday night we decided to go to a club night that sold tickets through the hostel so that we could spend the night with everyone we'd met. The club was a little out of town and was absolutely massive! It was next to the water and felt like it had a million and one rooms that were in and outside, some with decking and lots of lovely seating areas. A bit more upmarket than the clubs we usually go to. The clubs don't open until 1:30 am here so it was 11am before our heads hit the pillow.

Sunday we explored the San Telmo market and finally went to a steak restaurant for kath and the girls. The market was amazing and ran about 2 miles up a street called Defensa in the west part of town. I could have filled my bag with everything from there. Midway up Defensa in the middle of the square people were tango dancing. It was quite surreal, like something you'd see on a movie set. As you can see in the pictures below it was looking slightly miserable because a thunderstorm was about to hit. I've been very unfortunate when taking the photo's as they all look very grey. I've been taking better ones on my camera but I can't upload them quickly onto my blog.

Kath and the girls very much enjoyed their steak and as you can see from the photo's below they give very generous portions. Unfortunately I did not enjoy mine quite so much, they breaded the chicken and covered it in cheese, which was not on the menu. Either way it was fine and I had a lovely evening regardless.

Pictures below of us leaving BA on the boat and of the first beach area in Montivideo, the capital of Uraguay.