Christmas in Buenos Aires, New Year in Uruguay

Christmas morning

Strolling around La Boca, BA's tango district


Santa's little helper

We spent Christmas Day strolling around a rather peaceful Buenos Aires – we’d previously been warned that the city literally shuts down over Christmas and New Year and basically resembles a ghost town – fortunately this wasn’t entirely true. We walked the length and breadth of the city taking in the sights and paying a visit to the cemetery (not as bleak as it sounds) where Argentina’s rich and famous are buried including Evita Peron.

Intricate tombs in the Recoleta cemetery

We headed back to the hostel for Christmas dinner (an all you can eat BBQ rather than the usual turkey with trimmings) and spent the evening chatting to a Dutch psychiatrist we’d met a few days earlier at Iguazu Falls (no doubt being psychoanalysed) before heading to bed in true Christmas style – stuffed!

Extremely well fed and watered!

Tom’s friend Edd arrived on the morning of Boxing Day so again we set out to explore, stopping off at a fantastic steak restaurant for a leisurely lunch. Needless to say the run up to New Year with Tom’s other friend Bez arriving on 28th was spent sampling some of Argentina’s best steak joints, all washed down with top class “vino tinto”.

A typical Argentinian restaurant

Tango at the San Telmo Sunday market -

Then came the plan for NYE – finally convincing the boys that travelling to a beach in Uruguay on New Year’s Eve only to travel back to BA the following day with nowhere to stay when we arrived there was a terrible idea, they finally succumbed and we booked ourselves into an incredibly overpriced hostel for 31st Dec and 1st Jan. Then came the tricky execution of the plan... we finally set off from BA around 3pm on a ferry to Colonia, a small port in Uruguay. Unfortunately as this was easily the busiest day of the year for the ferry company our departure was massively delayed which meant we had a pretty tight timeframe to work to. Arriving in Colonia we jumped on a bus down the coast to the capital Montevideo where upon arrival we were told all the buses to Punta del Este (our destination) were full and were left with only one option – a 2 hour, expensive taxi ride. So speeding our way to Punta frantically texting my friend Anna who was already there planning a firework party for our arrival, we reached Punta at about 10pm. Rather unfortunately our Montevideo taxi driver didn’t have a clue where our hostel was which added about 45 minutes to the journey. By this point we were all starving so made a beeline for a pizzeria, we ordered and ate in record time but were then faced with a total lack of taxis (by now the time was approaching 11.30pm so clearly all the taxi drivers had called it a night in time for midnight). So we were stuck desperately searching for a taxi as the minutes continued to tick by. I had a horrible realisation that after all our effort I was in the same beach town as one of my best friends but with absolutely no way of meeting her (needless to say pretty annoyed with fate’s cruel hand...)

However it wasn’t all bad, by midnight we had found our way to the beach front and watched an incredible firework display all around the bay. The town then turned to party mode and after a last attempt at flagging down a taxi (still none in sight) we partied on the beachfront with the crème de la crème of Uruguay and Argentina (who all flock to Punta to celebrate NYE).

New Year’s Day was spent sunning ourselves on the beach before we headed back to BA earlier today (2nd).

We’re now on an overnight bus to Mendoza (the country’s wine region) where we’re planning to spend the next few days tasting some of the best red wine on offer in South America – not bad for two backpackers on a tight budget!