Buenos Aires Revisited

En route to Antarctica (fingers crossed) finally and a brand new blog - yes, I know it would be easier if we kept all our blogs in one place but think of it as more exciting this way. This is Kara again by the way.

So back to Buenos Aires for a few days. It feels very strange because it doesn't feel strange at all. Eight years ago we flew in here as our first experience of South America and everything was exotic. Now everything feels familiar. We have enough Spanish to gossip with the taxi driver on the way into town, we know exactly where we're going, we wander through San Telmo and notice which bars and restaurants are new (and put them on the "to try" list), we recognise every crack in the footpath and know instinctively to cross to the shady side of the street, the smell outside our old apartment building (a mix of very old wood and slightly smelly street) provokes instant time-travel. It feels  like going to Newstead/Sydney/Galway for a weekend and thinking "it's been ages since we've done this". And then I realise I'm feeling slightly disappointed because the first time we arrived here we had a year of fecklessness ahead and this time only six weeks before returning to real life. Then I slap myself and tell myself to cop on.

We've been wandering around the city, lingering in cafes, lingering in bars and (we suddenly realised) not taking any photos at all, which is going to make this quite boring so we may go on a photo binge over the next couple of days. The featured photo is literally the only one we have taken, that's me in black beside the big Argentine flag at the Casa Rosada (with no more Kirchners!). We've adjusted beautifully to the daily siesta and late nights (a routine Karl hates because of the two mornings per day). We have also been enjoying being able to afford to go out, which our stingy/poor young selves could not the first time around. On Saturday night we had positioned ourselves beautifully with a great people-watching view in a lovely little bar restaurant and then realised that we were actually in such a cool venue that people were queueing to get in! This has not happened in a very, very long time and (let's face it, at our age) may never happen again. So we enjoyed it to the full. Then there was a fantastic thunderstorm and we were able to study the locals' reactions in some detail: initial denial, followed by stoicism, later frantic dashing intermingled with gentlemanly umbrella-escorting and a brief period of dancing at the crossroads. And no, we have no photos of this either, use your imagination. We caught our favourite tango orchestra at our old favourite milonga last night (where we brought you Nath & Ali, couldn't remember if you took a tango class or not?). They, like us, are maturing beautifully but still playing interesting music and seem to still be enjoying it. This morning we went for a run through our old running spot and it turns out my brain has also stored the detail of every footpath, road crossing and dodgy paving on this route - it is every bit as familiar as my run in West End or Mooloolaba. I'm sure there's something more useful my brain could've done with that space.

So now we'll chill a bit more, take some photos and then fly to Ushuaia on Wednesday to catch the boat. Of course our airline had a brief strike this morning disrupting all flights, just to give us a scare, but it seems to be temporarily sorted out now.

Bonus photo: Karl chilling in the courtyard with our laundry drying on the bikes behind.