The Mission
We arrive in Buenos Aires and contrary to what people had told us, we managed to get ourselves on public transport and get to our hostel without any trouble ie. being mugged or harrassed. Maybe because we had already been violated?
The hostel we had booked was a lovely little place – Terrazas Estoril, that we had chosen on the net and also contrare to recommendations. We’d figured that with a total of five nights in Buenos Aires and so much to see that we would try and stay out of harms way and have a few quiet nights to begin with. The Staff at Terrazas Estoril were awesome and only to happy to help (one of them managed to saw off the padlock on the locker when I lost my keys!). Our first mission when we arrived in BA, besides getting to our hostel safely, was to find Sonya a new camera and me a memory card. Surprise, I had left the memory card on my desk at work…
I thought this was going to be easy. Not so much. Technology is so much more expensive in Argentina… Sonya wanted the same camera if not better. She paid about $400 for the one that was stolen and that was a good deal. We dragged our feet up-town, mid-town and down-town attempting to find something that was close. Reality set in though and expectations of the cameras specifications and price were beginning to get compromised. A similar older model was finally found, but at the equivalent of $850! We were pretty close to despair, and this point really needed a beer to sort it out. The Strip club hawker wasn’t too impressed when we asked him for directions, and so we continued to trudge around until we found a seedy sports bar in time for happy hour – the freebie appetisers that come with our bitter bellinis weren’t so happy!
Back on track with some alcohol to fry any good decision making skills, we came across what can only be described as a haven for IT geeks. An entire arcade full of shops selling PC parts, gadgets and whatever-you-call-that-thing. But that’s where we found the shiny beacon of picture takering. The exact same model as Sonya’s at the bargain price of $AUS450! Success!
After all the extremely physical and mentally challenging work that went into finding that camera, we had to retire back to the hotel for cheap Argentinian wine on the roof overlooking Buenos Aires and bed.
