This is our 2005 trip journal: our 2007 trip will be added here when
the time comes......
30th October 2005
We flew into Buenos Aires with LAB, it had been a stressful exit from Mexico,
Hurricane Wilma struck the 20th of October and we were due to fly from Cancún the
30th, this was impossible, we drove to the Lab offices in Cancún downtown on the 27th
only to be told that our only possibility, to catch our flight to Argentina, would be to:
GET ON THAT BUS! --What?--
We had no luggage with us and certainly did not want to spend two days on a bus
after all we had just been through: our house and our town destroyed.
They said that we should get a flight from Chetumal ( the capital of Quintana Roo) to
Mexico city and that way catch a flight from there that they would organize for us.
So we got a bus to Chetumal and a very expensive flight to Mexico City, from there on
to Bolivia and at last: BUENOS AIRES
Luckily our transport organized by our hotel: Apart Hotel congreso, was waiting and
took us safely to a bath tub.
After cleaning ourselves up we couldn't wait to go out and explore the city, we started
walking and walking, everything reminded us of Europe, we saw a great looking
restaurant, and decided to walk a little more and return to eat, but alas we could not
find it again! That was OK, we found an eating place with stools at the bar and small
tables, and ordered a parrilla, lots of delicious empanadas and a bottle of wine, which
was of with we were amazed to be offered three wine glasses ( Alex, sorry but not yet)
and a bottle of sifón (soda water) which really reminded us of Spain years ago.
Everything seemed so cheap that we ordered way to much and ended up passing it on to
a sad looking woman further down the bar, who couldn't keep her eyes off our leftover's,
we also gave her a glass of wine.
Finally, very full and happy, we found our way back to our hotel, not before buying
strawberry's and cherry's in a small street shop, and slept like "angels".
31 st October 2007
Today we have the job of finding a new push chair for Isabelle, we left our old one in
Chetumal as a wheel fell off, after a lot of difficulty's with language changes as in
México it is called a carriola and in Argentina a cochecito.
I was shocked at the prices and bad quality, but we could not carry Isabelle any more so
we bought a cheap one that "looked" sturdy. We shopped and cooked dinner at the hotel,
but this turned out more expensive than the restaurants!!
That evening I called Sebastian from Andean Roads to organize a meeting to be able to
get a glimpse of what was going to be our home and transport for the next month. I was
getting a little anxious and worried about what was waiting for me.
He was very nice and offered to come and pick us up in a couple of days so that we
could go and see the vehicle and he could start teaching us all its functions.
1 st November
Another day exploring the city, we walked to Puerto Madero and tried to see it all ( not
and easy feat ) It is a lovely place. The old docks have been restored and turned into
fancy restaurants and expensive apartment blocks, the old cranes have been left for
decoration.
We were also very excited about the weather. After 13 years in Mexico we had forgot how
spring weather felt.
We chose a Restaurant with a terrace and sat down for wine and asado through the
meat still was not as exciting as I had expected and been told, watching people and
happy to be able to sit in the sun with out burning.
After a long "circle" walk back to the hotel we had a rest and then went out to find
somewhere for supper, I was sure I had spotted an Japanese restaurant somewhere, but we
couldn't find it, we browsed in all the semi precious stone shop's around Peron street
and finally ended up eating a buffet in a Chinese restaurant for 7 pesos each! (2 us)
we decided after we took a look at the buffet as it had a great selection of vegetables and
salads, which was what we were really missing. We dubbed the owner with the name of
Mama Wong, she is a very hard working lady, with only half a day a week off and
with the dream of going back to China on holiday some time. It was funny how she
half kept her temper while serving some poor people who were stuffing in as much as
possible.
2nd November
We met Sebastian at the hotel lobby and he drove us to his home to take a look at the
motor home, at first it seemed a little small but I think we would have been scared to
drive anything bigger, we went through all the details and made our payments, he then
drove us back and he left us in a different area of Buenos Aires where we went for
another meat lunch ( at this point I was tired of trying to find that perfect piece of
meat everyone talked about) and then we took a cab back to our hotel...
3rd November
we decided to visit the Recoleta area today, everyone says it is one
of the best areas of Buenos Aires, we were amazed by the size of the
tombs, it was like wandering through a mini maze city, in some of the tombs you
could see the bones it was creepy! We went to eat in one of the restaurants near by, and
decided to try pasta as it was the speciality, but alas, it seems that we are too
demanding, or our standards are too high, or we just have got used to the Italian way
of making pasta..still it was a nice location, we then took a taxi back to the hotel.... in
the evening we went to buy Alex some stones and visited Mama Wang again for
vegetables.
4th November
This day was spent along the calle Florida shopping, we went into many shops to
compare prices and quality's but this shopping system is not very good unless you
take a personal computer with you to keep record:-)
I saw some great jackets at only 200 us, but when would I use a jacket in Playa del
Carmen?? so, I decided to leave it out and stocked upon top's, I am not really the
shopping sort of person( lucky for Fernando---maybe that is why he is with me--) it is
too much hassle in and out of changing rooms.
Later we returned to the hotel to get things packed as we are picking up the motor home
tomorrow, I had to sort out what we would not use and put it in a suitcase to leave with
Sebastian. We had also accumulated lots of grocery's such as oil, salt,sugar....
We also studied the camping guide and road map that Sebastian had provided us with,
to have a clear idea of what we were going to do...but first we had to understand how it
was indexed, and get familiar with all the provinces and names, even through we had
put together a giant map and been studying and getting acquainted with it for the
past 3 months it was still a task.
5th November
the time comes......
30th October 2005
We flew into Buenos Aires with LAB, it had been a stressful exit from Mexico,
Hurricane Wilma struck the 20th of October and we were due to fly from Cancún the
30th, this was impossible, we drove to the Lab offices in Cancún downtown on the 27th
only to be told that our only possibility, to catch our flight to Argentina, would be to:
GET ON THAT BUS! --What?--
We had no luggage with us and certainly did not want to spend two days on a bus
after all we had just been through: our house and our town destroyed.
They said that we should get a flight from Chetumal ( the capital of Quintana Roo) to
Mexico city and that way catch a flight from there that they would organize for us.
So we got a bus to Chetumal and a very expensive flight to Mexico City, from there on
to Bolivia and at last: BUENOS AIRES
Luckily our transport organized by our hotel: Apart Hotel congreso, was waiting and
took us safely to a bath tub.
After cleaning ourselves up we couldn't wait to go out and explore the city, we started
walking and walking, everything reminded us of Europe, we saw a great looking
restaurant, and decided to walk a little more and return to eat, but alas we could not
find it again! That was OK, we found an eating place with stools at the bar and small
tables, and ordered a parrilla, lots of delicious empanadas and a bottle of wine, which
was of with we were amazed to be offered three wine glasses ( Alex, sorry but not yet)
and a bottle of sifón (soda water) which really reminded us of Spain years ago.
Everything seemed so cheap that we ordered way to much and ended up passing it on to
a sad looking woman further down the bar, who couldn't keep her eyes off our leftover's,
we also gave her a glass of wine.
Finally, very full and happy, we found our way back to our hotel, not before buying
strawberry's and cherry's in a small street shop, and slept like "angels".
31 st October 2007
Today we have the job of finding a new push chair for Isabelle, we left our old one in
Chetumal as a wheel fell off, after a lot of difficulty's with language changes as in
México it is called a carriola and in Argentina a cochecito.
I was shocked at the prices and bad quality, but we could not carry Isabelle any more so
we bought a cheap one that "looked" sturdy. We shopped and cooked dinner at the hotel,
but this turned out more expensive than the restaurants!!
That evening I called Sebastian from Andean Roads to organize a meeting to be able to
get a glimpse of what was going to be our home and transport for the next month. I was
getting a little anxious and worried about what was waiting for me.
He was very nice and offered to come and pick us up in a couple of days so that we
could go and see the vehicle and he could start teaching us all its functions.
1 st November
Another day exploring the city, we walked to Puerto Madero and tried to see it all ( not
and easy feat ) It is a lovely place. The old docks have been restored and turned into
fancy restaurants and expensive apartment blocks, the old cranes have been left for
decoration.
We were also very excited about the weather. After 13 years in Mexico we had forgot how
spring weather felt.
We chose a Restaurant with a terrace and sat down for wine and asado through the
meat still was not as exciting as I had expected and been told, watching people and
happy to be able to sit in the sun with out burning.
After a long "circle" walk back to the hotel we had a rest and then went out to find
somewhere for supper, I was sure I had spotted an Japanese restaurant somewhere, but we
couldn't find it, we browsed in all the semi precious stone shop's around Peron street
and finally ended up eating a buffet in a Chinese restaurant for 7 pesos each! (2 us)
we decided after we took a look at the buffet as it had a great selection of vegetables and
salads, which was what we were really missing. We dubbed the owner with the name of
Mama Wong, she is a very hard working lady, with only half a day a week off and
with the dream of going back to China on holiday some time. It was funny how she
half kept her temper while serving some poor people who were stuffing in as much as
possible.
2nd November
We met Sebastian at the hotel lobby and he drove us to his home to take a look at the
motor home, at first it seemed a little small but I think we would have been scared to
drive anything bigger, we went through all the details and made our payments, he then
drove us back and he left us in a different area of Buenos Aires where we went for
another meat lunch ( at this point I was tired of trying to find that perfect piece of
meat everyone talked about) and then we took a cab back to our hotel...
3rd November
we decided to visit the Recoleta area today, everyone says it is one
of the best areas of Buenos Aires, we were amazed by the size of the
tombs, it was like wandering through a mini maze city, in some of the tombs you
could see the bones it was creepy! We went to eat in one of the restaurants near by, and
decided to try pasta as it was the speciality, but alas, it seems that we are too
demanding, or our standards are too high, or we just have got used to the Italian way
of making pasta..still it was a nice location, we then took a taxi back to the hotel.... in
the evening we went to buy Alex some stones and visited Mama Wang again for
vegetables.
4th November
This day was spent along the calle Florida shopping, we went into many shops to
compare prices and quality's but this shopping system is not very good unless you
take a personal computer with you to keep record:-)
I saw some great jackets at only 200 us, but when would I use a jacket in Playa del
Carmen?? so, I decided to leave it out and stocked upon top's, I am not really the
shopping sort of person( lucky for Fernando---maybe that is why he is with me--) it is
too much hassle in and out of changing rooms.
Later we returned to the hotel to get things packed as we are picking up the motor home
tomorrow, I had to sort out what we would not use and put it in a suitcase to leave with
Sebastian. We had also accumulated lots of grocery's such as oil, salt,sugar....
We also studied the camping guide and road map that Sebastian had provided us with,
to have a clear idea of what we were going to do...but first we had to understand how it
was indexed, and get familiar with all the provinces and names, even through we had
put together a giant map and been studying and getting acquainted with it for the
past 3 months it was still a task.
5th November
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