I am quite certain that I can safely say that when Helen and I left Sam and Tom to return to El Chalten to fly on up to Buenos Aires, they were flirting like Bella Emberg's character did with PC Quilley in Z Cars. That is to say, a lot. At time of press they were travelling around South America together, snogging a bit and getting into scrapes that only a couple with a combined height of less than seven foot can. We miss them dearly and hope to see them back in Blighty soon.
The short flight to Buenos Aires was pretty uneventful but retained a certain level of excitement as we were looking forward to being in a city again. We landed at around nine o'clock at night, and soon discovered that nothing about this neck of the Argentinian woods was going to be easy.
We needed to get a bus to the San Telmo or Centro area of BA to get to the hostel we had reserved two beds in. As we struggled over to the bus stop we encountered a very friendly young bloke who luckily told us that we needed almost the exact change in coins to get the bus. We had nothing but large notes. Sprinting back into the airport I asked everyone that I came across if they could possibly change our note. No dice.
I got pointed in one direction and then the other for about quarter of an hour before I finally reached an old man's little desk who begrudgingly gave me change, after buying six litres of water and three packs of chewing gum. Right, we were in.
The bus journey there was ordinary, and the bus driver was helpful enough to tell us when we needed to get off. When we did, we had about a five minute walk, ten with our bags, to the hostel. On the way there we walked past another hostel called the America del Sur that we had heard about in El Chalten as they have a sister hostel there. It looked fantabulous. But we soldiered on to our hostel; safe in the knowledge that anything that labelled itself the Antico Hostel Boutique probably had to be a bit special itself.
We got there and were buzzed upstairs by the lad on reception. We sat down for five minutes and sorted out the usual rigmarole of passport numbers and fake professions - I believe I was a semi-professional paraglider here - before we were shown to our rooms. Ah... rooms.
The place was pleasant enough, with a fantastic roof bar that had a private function going on upstairs, and it was all rather nice wood and stone floors etc. The toilets did look like something out of Porridge though. The showers were like those in your Sunday football teams club house, six sprinklers in a square room, not exactly the most private affairs.
We didn't want to spend our entire week in BA in separate rooms, so we made the flashquick decision of telling the bloke on reception we were nipping out to get a bite and we'd be back in twenty minutes, and then going back to the America del Sur to see if they had any beds for us.
Ten minutes later we were there booking two beds in a fantastic four-bed dorm for the next five nights, we would just have to sleep at the Boutique place that night. No problemos.
We went back and settled in, I was the only person in my room bar a drunken old man that had all of his valuables scattered throughout the whole room, and took reasonable interest in me. I soon discovered exactly why he was there. He'd been kicked out of his house by his wife - but he was nice enough. Helen was sharing with a less-than-friendly Irish girl.
The next morning, we got up, paid the receptionist and explained that we had made a mistake and thought we had two beds in the same room. He seemed absolutely fine with this and we went on our merry way to the other hostel. Checking in we were supermega excited to be in Buenos Aires and in a seemingly glorious place to stay whilst there.
'Have you got the iPod?' asked Helen.
'No. I thought you did...' I said peering into her massive backpack.
'I can't see it... I had it in... Oh fucking bollocks.'
Helen and I had been listening to the iPod on the flight here, and had thus had it in our little day bag, a bag that had not had a lock on it the previous evening as two of our padlocks had messed up and were as much use as bad metaphor.
The bag had been in my room when we went round to the other hostel the night before. Neither of our rooms had lockers in, but we thought twenty minutes in an empty hostel would be a fair risk assessment rather than carrying it around BA at night. In fact, our rooms did have lockers, but they were all smashed in. Perhaps we should have paid more attention to this fact.
To cut a reasonably long story quite a bit shorter but not quite short, either the fucker who signed us into the hostel or the cunt who he changed shifts with whilst we were out had gone through our stuff and half inched the music player. We went back to the hostel, and as calm as can be expected under the circumstances, explained in pidgin Spanish what we thought had happened to the girl who was on reception, and the same lad we had first met, who seemed to keep tripping up over his words and was physically shaking. It was definitely him.
The girl tried to pin it on the old alcoholic who I had shared my room with, but there is no possible way it would have been him. So we went to the police station to file a report, knowing that we had been fucked over and there was nothing that we could do about it other than get a police number so we can claim on the iPod when we got back. We'd had nothing stolen in seven months and within two weeks we'd been bumped twice; 'Welcome to South America' as our new mate on reception in America del Sur had said when we told him about the iPod.
Thus our first full day in Buenos Aires was spent in police cars and three different stations. This did offer me the chance to put my wrists together out of the window like I had been cuffed and shout 'I'm a patsy!' out of the window, but I don't think the policemen liked that very much. Still, I was ticking boxes.
The short flight to Buenos Aires was pretty uneventful but retained a certain level of excitement as we were looking forward to being in a city again. We landed at around nine o'clock at night, and soon discovered that nothing about this neck of the Argentinian woods was going to be easy.
We needed to get a bus to the San Telmo or Centro area of BA to get to the hostel we had reserved two beds in. As we struggled over to the bus stop we encountered a very friendly young bloke who luckily told us that we needed almost the exact change in coins to get the bus. We had nothing but large notes. Sprinting back into the airport I asked everyone that I came across if they could possibly change our note. No dice.
I got pointed in one direction and then the other for about quarter of an hour before I finally reached an old man's little desk who begrudgingly gave me change, after buying six litres of water and three packs of chewing gum. Right, we were in.
The bus journey there was ordinary, and the bus driver was helpful enough to tell us when we needed to get off. When we did, we had about a five minute walk, ten with our bags, to the hostel. On the way there we walked past another hostel called the America del Sur that we had heard about in El Chalten as they have a sister hostel there. It looked fantabulous. But we soldiered on to our hostel; safe in the knowledge that anything that labelled itself the Antico Hostel Boutique probably had to be a bit special itself.
We got there and were buzzed upstairs by the lad on reception. We sat down for five minutes and sorted out the usual rigmarole of passport numbers and fake professions - I believe I was a semi-professional paraglider here - before we were shown to our rooms. Ah... rooms.
The place was pleasant enough, with a fantastic roof bar that had a private function going on upstairs, and it was all rather nice wood and stone floors etc. The toilets did look like something out of Porridge though. The showers were like those in your Sunday football teams club house, six sprinklers in a square room, not exactly the most private affairs.
We didn't want to spend our entire week in BA in separate rooms, so we made the flashquick decision of telling the bloke on reception we were nipping out to get a bite and we'd be back in twenty minutes, and then going back to the America del Sur to see if they had any beds for us.
Ten minutes later we were there booking two beds in a fantastic four-bed dorm for the next five nights, we would just have to sleep at the Boutique place that night. No problemos.
We went back and settled in, I was the only person in my room bar a drunken old man that had all of his valuables scattered throughout the whole room, and took reasonable interest in me. I soon discovered exactly why he was there. He'd been kicked out of his house by his wife - but he was nice enough. Helen was sharing with a less-than-friendly Irish girl.
The next morning, we got up, paid the receptionist and explained that we had made a mistake and thought we had two beds in the same room. He seemed absolutely fine with this and we went on our merry way to the other hostel. Checking in we were supermega excited to be in Buenos Aires and in a seemingly glorious place to stay whilst there.
'Have you got the iPod?' asked Helen.
'No. I thought you did...' I said peering into her massive backpack.
'I can't see it... I had it in... Oh fucking bollocks.'
Helen and I had been listening to the iPod on the flight here, and had thus had it in our little day bag, a bag that had not had a lock on it the previous evening as two of our padlocks had messed up and were as much use as bad metaphor.
The bag had been in my room when we went round to the other hostel the night before. Neither of our rooms had lockers in, but we thought twenty minutes in an empty hostel would be a fair risk assessment rather than carrying it around BA at night. In fact, our rooms did have lockers, but they were all smashed in. Perhaps we should have paid more attention to this fact.
To cut a reasonably long story quite a bit shorter but not quite short, either the fucker who signed us into the hostel or the cunt who he changed shifts with whilst we were out had gone through our stuff and half inched the music player. We went back to the hostel, and as calm as can be expected under the circumstances, explained in pidgin Spanish what we thought had happened to the girl who was on reception, and the same lad we had first met, who seemed to keep tripping up over his words and was physically shaking. It was definitely him.
The girl tried to pin it on the old alcoholic who I had shared my room with, but there is no possible way it would have been him. So we went to the police station to file a report, knowing that we had been fucked over and there was nothing that we could do about it other than get a police number so we can claim on the iPod when we got back. We'd had nothing stolen in seven months and within two weeks we'd been bumped twice; 'Welcome to South America' as our new mate on reception in America del Sur had said when we told him about the iPod.
Thus our first full day in Buenos Aires was spent in police cars and three different stations. This did offer me the chance to put my wrists together out of the window like I had been cuffed and shout 'I'm a patsy!' out of the window, but I don't think the policemen liked that very much. Still, I was ticking boxes.
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