The wheels touched down after our short flight from Iguazu and we were soon in a taxi on our way to our apartment. As Hoff mentioned, we were running behind time as our flight was moved without us knowing, so we were in a rush to get checked in and get to a supermarket before they all closed for Christmas Eve. We had grand visions of cooking ourselves a huge slap up meal with all the trimmings and were positively salivating as we wound our way through the emptying streets towards Palermo, the area of BA we were staying in. On the way we made a quick detour to go via the money transfer place where we’d arranged for some local currency to be sent. As Hoff touched upon in her last post, the Argentinian currency market is crazy with multiple different rates being available at any one time (the bank rate, the official rate, the ‘blue’ market rate etc.), so we’d planned ahead and secured a decent rate with a special service from the UK. However, when we arrived, the shop was closed so we persuaded the driver to take us to our hotel. Once we checked in, we rushed out to try and get to the supermarkets, but we missed them by just a few minutes. Everywhere was closed apart from the local Asian market across the street and our dreams of a grand Christmas meal were shattered.
We found what we could from the limited options on the shelves and went back to our apartment a little dejected, where we cooked ourselves a slightly sad risotto which we washed down with Argentinian fizz and red wine. The booze took the edge off things and soon Hoff was wearing her Christmas hat and we were looking out over the BA skyline, listening to the city count down to Christmas Day. As the clock struck twelve, there was a massive cheer from what sounded like every apartment in the area and soon after the fireworks kicked off. It was a lovely warm evening and we sat outside enjoying the ambience and sipping on our red wine, before we finally got too tired to stay up any more, so retired to our huge bed, wished each other a Happy Christmas and fell asleep to the whirr of the air conditioner.
We woke up on Christmas Day and were at a bit of a loss as to what we should do. Normally in England we’d have been with one of our families and would start the day next to the fire, opening our stockings with a glass of champagne in hand. Whilst we didn’t have the stockings this year, it was warm enough in our room to pretend we had a fire and we also had a glass of home made Buck’s Fizz. We then wandered down to breakfast to find that there was no breakfast! The cafe attached to the apartments, which provided the food for guests, was, surprise surprise, closed. This wasn’t an ideal way to kick off the day so we had to wander around the local area until we found a hotel that was doing food. It wasn’t the most memorable of Christmas morning feeds but it did the job, and we popped back into the apartment to put on the smartest clothes we had with us (which weren’t overly smart but would have to do) before walking to a local church. We were warmly welcomed and Hoff even got invited to be part of the service (which she politely declined seeing as the whole thing was in Spanish). It was a very pretty church and despite not understanding much of what was going on, we got the gist of it and felt part of the team. Hoff even got a goodbye hug and kiss from the priest (as did all the women). I got a handshake (I have to say I was preparing myself for more, as the Argentinians are pretty French about meeting and greeting!) and we wished everyone Feliz Navidad before heading off.
After church we power walked back to the apartment as we both needed a wee after all the morning’s fizz and then settled in to an afternoon of very little as we were preparing ourselves for the tango show we had booked. We thought it would be fun to do something very Argentinian on Christmas Day so we booked the show in advance, and in preparation deliberately didn’t eat much and, apart from a quick gym session, relaxed and watched some English TV on Hoff’s iPad. Before we knew it we were in a taxi on our way to the show. On the way I told Hoff that I had a funny feeling that things might not go to plan. Call it intuition or a sixth sense, but as we pulled up at the venue, it looked ominously dark and we could see chairs stacked on tables. It certainly didn’t look like somewhere about to host one of BA’s top tango nights!
We peered in through the doors and were joined by an elderly gentlemen doing the same thing. The one person moving around inside made the internationally recognised ‘were closed’ gesture (waving his hands over each other whilst shaking his head at us) and the other punter stood outside with us soon confirmed that the place was locked up for the night, having spoken to the tour agent on the phone. For us it was a bit of a sad end to what had been a pretty tame Christmas – no Christmas lunch, no presents and now no tango show was all a bit much, and we felt pretty miffed as we walked across the road to borrow a local restaurant’s WiFi to call a taxi to get home. We did feel bad for the other guy as he had brought his whole family out with him to watch the show and we saw them looking a bit dejected as we got our uber home. As we arrived back at the apartment we quickly got on the phone to our tour agent and he apologised profusely. To be fair to him it wasn’t his fault and he quickly sorted us out with another date in a few days time, complete with a three course meal by way of apology. We drowned our sorrows with some more red wine, ate the remainder of some cheese and biscuits we’d been saving for a rainy day (it had been grey all day and might as well have been raining), and went to bed watching an old school action movie dubbed over into Spanish. What a treat!
After our disastrous Christmas Day we were in need of some cheering up so Boxing Day had a lot riding on it. The weather was beautiful so after breakfast – the downstairs cafe was finally open – we walked to collect our Pesos, then wandered around the local area before heading back to the apartment to catch some rays by the pool. After another gym session – making the most of the facilities, so they say – we went and got ready to head out to Don Julio. We’d heard great things about this steak restaurant and Hoff had even sent one of our friends, Jonny, as a guinea pig to test it out when he was in BA a few months before us. He raved about it so we were expecting good things. From the moment we arrived and were handed a free glass of fizz to the moment we put our cutlery down, stuffed to the brim with delicious steak, it was completely amazing and exactly what we needed to lift our spirits. We’d had a seat by the bar where we could watch the chefs cook the steaks on a huge grill and it was an awesome sight to behold. Even though Hoff had succeeded in persuading me that my eyes were in fact bigger than my stomach and that we didn’t need a huge steak each (one between two was plenty) we still rolled home with a doggy bag of leftovers for the next day. #winning!
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