Last few days in Buenos Aires

On the previous post I forgot to write about what happened when I woke up on Sunday morning. I woke up to find a small Mexican lady sat at the bottom of my bed speaking to me in Spanish. She couldn't speak a word of English and was asking Jemma questions in Spanish. She asked if she could swap beds with me and if I could go on the top bunk. I was barely awake but we managed to have a conversation about her family, how her nieces and nephews lived in the US and how many inhabitants Mexico city has. In the end I persuaded her to go down stairs and ask them to put her and her daughter in another room so it wouldnt be so cramped and then I went back to sleep. We have seen her a few times since, and everytime she asks 'are you leaving today?' in the hope that she can have our room. Not sure why she wants it. Maybe its because it has a quadruple bunk?

On Monday we walked to the Japanese gardens where we looked around for a while and then walked past the zoo to Palermo – the young and trendy part of the city – a bit like Camden. We walked around there for a while looking for a good steak restaurant to eat that evening but everywhere was over priced. We caught a bus back to the hostel and asked the guy there for a recommendation. We ended up eating in a restaurant just round the corner which was excellent value - £10 per person for steak, chips and a bottle of wine! I don't usually like red wine but this was nice (Malbec).
On our last day we just hung around the local neighbourhood (mircrocentro) and walked to congress. We did some washing at the laundrette and I bought a hat and gloves ready for our trip to el Calafate. We are currently sat in the airport waiting for our internal flight to el Calafate (I am writing this offline). El Calafate is in Patagonia, right at the bottom of Argentina. Its famous for its glaciers and you can go trekking on them. There are a few good areas to visit down there including el Chaleten and Torres del Paine (in Chile). We have not decided which to go to yet – it will depend on prices. We have booked to stay in a hostel which apparently has underfloor heating and does BBQs (recommended to us by a few people).  After we have had enough of trekking around mountains and glaciers, we are planning to get the coach up to Barriloche (the Argentinian lake district).

Ps Jemma has ripped her only pair of trousers (apart from her jeans) and we have both been bitten all over. Not sure if it is bed bugs or fleas. In our last hostel, the girl below my bunk got seriously bitten by bedbugs all over her body but we didnt have a single bite. Its hard to tell where they have come from.