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Tuesday, 05.03.2002: Bushcamp on the way to BA - Buenos Aires
We had scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast and left at 8am. We stopped at a service station and Nick was transferring diesel from the reserves to the main tank. He drove off to the air pressure stand and we were leaking diesel. Helen saw it and shouted at Paul who was chasing the truck to stop him.
At 1-30pm we pulled up into a McDonald's - we wanted burgers! Got takeaway to eat on the truck.
McDonald's on the truck
We got to the outskirts of BA by 2-30pm and got lost again on the way to the hotel but finally parked up the truck.
Since it was the last night of the first leg we all went to an Italian restaurant. The kitty paid for the drinks. We left at around 1am.
Wednesday, 06.03.2002: Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires (means good airs because there is always a wind to cool us down) is a lively cosmopolitan city with many attractions. It is also called the Paris of South America and it does look a bit like Paris. It is a wonderful city and we were actually grateful to Darrell because he needed an extra day to join us after finally getting his passport, which meant that we had 2 full days there instead of one.
We went on a city tour at 9am. Our tour guide was very good and funny. We went to La Boca - an area with cobbled streets with lots of old colourful buildings. From the coach we saw lots of dog walkers. Had the next stop at the President Palace and the final one at the old cemetery where Evita Peron is buried.
No space on the post cards to write!
We spent the afternoon shopping and had a meeting with our new tour leader, Prue, and met all the other people joining the truck. We thought there would only be another 5 joining us but there were actually another 15(!!), meaning the truck was full!! No space at all. But we had a good laugh at the meeting.
Wednesday, 07.03.2002: Buenos Aires
We had another lie-in and got up at 9-45am. Together with Andrea from the Famoo truck we went on another city tour visiting some of the places we hadn´t seen yet. We had lunch at the Hardrock Café and afterwards went to the square in front of the President Palace to see the grandmothers protesting against state crime - 30.000 children went missing in 1978! They protest since then every Thursday at 15-30pm.
Downtown Buenos Aires
On our walk through the city we could see all the banks with smashed windows, corrugated iron and wooden barricades still showing the dents and graffiti from all the attacks when the situation flared up at the beginning of Feb. However, we didn't have any problems getting money as we thought we would.
There were several demonstrations whilst we were there. We were walking down the main parade - two 4 lane carriageways separated by grass and trees - when police motorbikes came along at what must be the busiest intersection, and just stopped all the traffic within seconds. Then there was a massive explosion nearby and we all wondered what on earth was happening, thinking it was a bomb. But it turned out to be some kind of firecracker at the start of a massive demonstration, with hundreds of people with drums, trumpets etc. The traffic of course just backed up for miles as it took ages. We watched for half an hour but there were so many drunken people amongst the crowds that we thought it better to return to the hotel - well in such a demonstration the people are obviously not happy!
Demonstrations in BA
We went back to the hotel to pack up our gear. It´s going to be an early start tomorrow morning! Afterwards we joined up with truck people we'd already been travelling with and went to an extremely posh restaurant at the waterfront - champagne reception, table cloths (gets a mention because we're just not used to them anymore!) and 6 waiters just for the 8 of us!!
Posh dinner in BA
Afterwards we headed to a Tango show to meet up with all the old truck people but it turned out to be just singing no dancing. Then we all got in taxis (another hair raising journey) to an Irish pub for a farewell drink!
Boring Tango show
