Wednesday 22nd Sept morning. Drop Coby at Nursery then off to Heathrow via Arsenal Tube. Got to Heathrow ridiculously early for the trip to Paris. Why Paris do I hear you ask? You are going to Buenos Aires and you live in Spain. Ah dear reader, two factors are involved. Firstly Coby (and his parents) live in London and secondly Air France (via STA travel) came up with the best package for cost and conditions for the whole trip. For those who care the price was GBP 400 cheaper per person than the Iberia from Madrid. Supply and demand, someone said. After a 2 hour wait in CDG we were off on our Boeing 777 to Bueno Haire (spoken in Andaluz). Sufficient leg room and an aperitif of freebie champagne. Decent dinner and breakfast ( they are French) but holy sh** Batman, 13 hours is a loooooooooooooooond time.
Arrived spot on time and cleared immigration in 5 minutes. 20 immigration officers available. Took a taxi into town to our Ayres Porteno Tango Suite in San Telmo. Managed to check in although only 10 am. A brief siesta was followed by a walking tour down to the San Telmo market and Russian Church. Then down to the new marinas and high rises along the old docks. Brand spanking new high rises and landscaped gardens. Contrast this with the pot holes in every street in the older part of town. A simple dinner near the hotel and we were tucked up by 20.30. 11 hours later we were sampling our hotel(?) buffet breakfast. Rubbery queso and dodgy ham (standard Argentinian fare) but at least they had wholemeal bread which had some taste unlike the normal white paper bread. Went walkabout and took the tourist bus round BA in the afternoon. 2 1/2 hours on the top deck and I only had short pant on. Bloody freezing! Needed hot drink at the end and went back to hotel (back packs stored) to change into long pants. Took dinner at a restaurant recommended by the hotel, huge portions of beef and escallop and refused the offer of a doggy bag! Marianne only managed about 1/4 of her asado rib and felt totally guilty about the abundance of food having just 3 hours earlier seen the terrible poverty in the La Boca and Caminito areas. Taxi to the Retiro. The place is enormous and 200 buses can be leaving at any one time. Took 15 minutes to locate the departure point for the bus, within 15 bays, as the actual bay only gets announced 3 minutes before departure time and left on our bus spot on time at 23.31 for Cordoba. First bus journey so we spoiled ourselves and travelled ejecutivo, comprising dinner, wine and whisky if you wanted it, but most importantly a seat that converts to a flat bed. Only room for 6 people downstairs in that configuration. 20 minutes late arriving at Cordoba where we were met by Hanne (08.30, don´t think she has been up that early for years!) Taxi to the flat and a brief siesta of 2 hours. We have been promised a good lunch then a trip for some shopping.
Thats it for now. You probably won´t get this amount of detail for future posts (thank god I hear you say) but we are open to (legal) suggestions in this regard. Let us know vot you tink!
