Argentina - Buenos Aires

We did it!... We finally managed to find a genuinely luxurious bus! We travelled the fifteen hours from Mendoza to Buenos Aires, our final South American journey, in comfort and style :0) The seats reclined and the foot-rests lifted up so we could lie completely flat. They brought around a meal which was too much for me to eat and it turned out it was only the starter, so then they brought around even more food! There was wine. We played bingo (a surprisingly common occurrence on South American buses) and despite the fact that Argentinian Spanish is really hard to understand, I won! Yet more wine! We watched a couple of films on the flat-screen TV that folded down in front of us. By the time they brought us glasses of champagne Ben was nearly wetting himself with excitement! (I think they may have guessed that we're not used to travelling first class!)

So our last stop in South America is Buenos Aires. We've eaten possibly the best ice-cream in the world, we've drunk great wine, Ben's eaten a huge steak, we've seen a Tango show as well as the famous (?) obelisk. We've wandered around and seen some of the city's sites, my favourite being the sight of the "professional dog-walkers" wandering the streets with ten dogs at a time! I've got blisters on my feet due to over-use of the beloved Havaianas (obviously due to defects with my feet rather than the sacred footwear!) and we've reflected on our time in South America.

It's been a wonderful experience, we've seen some incredible sites; Macchu Picchu, some of the highest mountains in the world, flamingo-filled lakes, salt plains, women in coloured skirts and bowler hats and monkeys in the jungle, to name but a few. We've met some lovely folk too and managed, more importantly, not to kill each other! But it feels like we're ready for something different now. We're both really excited about flying to New Zealand today. It feels a bit scary too though. This is the start of our new lives - or is that a bit dramatic?! I'm not so keen on having to start thinking about jobs and bank accounts and the like, but am really looking forward to the New Zealand greenery, being able to understand what people are saying (I'm sure we'll get the hang of the Kiwi accent in no time!) and seeing the sea again. We're thinking of buying a camper-van to do some exploring and my mind is filled with romantic images of sitting outside our little van, wine-glass in hand, BBQ on the go, overlooking the beach :0) So I think we may have a few more travelling adventures left in us yet before the big adventure of settling somewhere new begins.