One night in a hammock and Others : Buenos Aires, Argentina

(some of robs's sneaky film snaps )

Them hamMOCKS : )

Where am I ? Argentina you say !!

After a pretty epic flight from South Africa to Argentina, with myself and Robyn being split up, and then reunited to the complete stranger welcoming us to his country with a kiss on each cheek and a box of chocolates, we were convinced that our luck was running high! Once we had landed in Buenos Aires, tired but excited and still pretty useless in the Spanish department we headed for a pay phone to try and find accommodation for our first night. Note to self and others : Learn Spanish or at least don't giggle so much when trying to make sense of what the poor dude at the backpackers is saying on the other side of the phone! Anyway to cut a long story short we eventually, after several phone calls connected with a backpackers that happened to have a British guy running the place. This is the part where I tell you that we weren't promised beds, but we were promised one and were told to 'just arrive and we'll make a plan'.

Not too phased and excited for the start of any kind of adventure myself and Robs and the dutch fella who we had met on the plane made our way to the bus station. This was most likely the more challenging part of our trip to the backpackers, I didn't realise that coins (change) was so valuable in Argentina...and this is because they SERIOUSLY lack it. Scrambling for coins or the lack of and trying to make sense of the bus lines we eventually found our seats and began to take in the reality that we were in another country, another continent ! I however, only really registered when someone spoke to me in Spanish and all that came out of my mouth was ....... aaaaaaah 'no entiendo' ( i don't understand). My terrible Spanish was received with a smile and a 'where are you from' in better English than my Spanish would ever be! I can say that right from my initial experiences in Argentina, that I was happy, people were friendly and I never once wished that my flight had instead landed in Russia (that was a joke, I made a joke yes) : ) !

We eventually found our way to the mysterious black door belonging to our backpackers, we knocked, we entered... it was happy! We walked in only to see a long quart yard with a whole lot of people sitting around drinking beers and listening to reggae ton ... a genre of music that I cant really describe but it encapsulates alot of what South America was for me,and it was cool atmosphere to walk into. It was at this stage that we were told that we would be sleeping in hammocks in the quart yard, our reaction... we laughed and said 'OK'. If you are wondering what happened to the one bed that we were promised, we were real ladies and gave it to malik ( the Dutch boy ).

It soon became 'that time', where we felt the NEED to head to the corner store and do a little exploring, so after setting up our very colourful hammocks and sourcing very rough directions from the two Australian girls who seemed to have been living in the backpackers for about a year already?? we went in search of some beer. Yes BEER !That being said, it is however our sleeping situation that made this memory particularly special for me. After returning from our beer mission we decided that hanging out in our hammocks talking to the already 'locals' of the place wasn't a bad idea. The night however was short lived due to a long flight and aided by a Lil jig, soon we were happily hanging out in our hammocks under a full sky of stars ( oh I forgot to mention the quart yard was open air baby !! ) utterly stoked at our situation and excited about the day ahead we decided to call it a night. It just so happens that on this very night, not only did I experience my first hammock in South America but was also woken at five in the morning to be greeted by my first rain in South America as well ... myself and robs seeking shelter found ourselves making friends with the crusty common room pillows and the backpackers old wooden floor, but still a memory that I will forever smile back on! I thought 'what a welcome' and somehow I was sure a rainy night in a hammock wouldn't have been half as appreciated in my own country. Travel ROCKS !