Bienvenidos a Buenos Aires!

After spending Christmas and New Years in Europe with family and friends, we are now one week into the second half of our six month 'holiday', and after a week here, we can safely say that we are big fans of Buenos Aires! It's a great city with lots of character, plenty to see and do, an abundance of great restaurants and aside from one day of rain, we have been lucky to have had excellent weather.

We spent the first two days in a hotel in a rather suburban 'barrio' and took the time to wander around, get over the long flight and acclimatise. As we had not yet planned much of the trip, and with it being peak summer season, we spent some time booking a few key aspects of the trip to come. We then moved to another hotel in the centre of the city, and we have found it to be quite a gem. It's a 4.5 star boutique hotel, with the look and feel of a small W Hotel in NYC or London. We had a comfortable room with kitchenette and the hotel provides free access to a relaxation terrace with sauna and hot tubs. A brilliant way to spend a late afternoon after a day of walking through the city.

We spent much of the week walking, walking and walking, which allowed us to explore quite a lot of the city. We are also hoping that this provides sufficient exercise/preparation for the hiking we are going to do in Patagonia!

We saw many of the city's landmarks and have so far been to the Cemeterio de la Recoleta, the botanical garden, the Japanese garden (which was extremely busy, although Joost was disappointed by the lack of Japanese he saw), the Recoleta weekend market, the San Telmo Sunday street market, the shopping streets in Microcentro (where a protest was taking place), the designer stores of Recoleta, the restaurants of Palermo, and the antique stores of San Telmo.

We also took a day trip out to Tigre, where we took a local commuter boat ride out into the delta to see how people live along the banks of the brown river.

We also managed to sample some of Argentina's delicacies, including the infamous steak and Malbec wine and some excellent sushi.

On our final night, we went to see a Tango show, preceded by dinner in the tango hall, which was a lovely experience. We haven't had the opportunity to dance the tango ourselves, but Joost thinks that this is probably best for all those who might witness it! I'm still working on getting him to dance when we are back in Buenos Aires at the end of our trip – fingers crossed!

But for now, it's off to Patagonia!