I've died and gone to carnivore heaven !

Buenos Aires, Argentina

"The food here is terrible, and the portions are too small."
Woody Allen

After the crappy time we had in Rio, Buenos Aires was like a breath of fresh air, metaphorically speaking of course as 67% of the city is car choked roads and every man and his dog chainsmokes, the dogs often more than most. In typical Cara and Mik fashion, we didn't bother to arrange any accommodation before arriving, and as I mentioned previously, we had to spend forever trying to find a bed for the night. Eventually we found a couple of dorm beds in a fairly crappy hostel that hadn't finished being built yet. It could have been worse though, and by midnight we were so exhausted we slept like logs.

As has already been written, Argentina is famous for its beef and here was no exception. Something else we discovered while in Iguazu is that the Argentines do like a pie. They are called empanadas, they come with various savoury fillings and cost just a few pence. Technically they are not pies at all but small pasties, but I was prepared to overlook the error on this one occasion as I was just so happy to have discovered them. We ate like kings every night, and in some damn fine restaurants. The wine here is also excellent. For five pounds you can get a great bottle of red from the supermarket and even if you only spend 2 pounds you can find a perfectly drinkable bottle. One of the more surprising discoveries we made was that the restaurants only mark up the price of wine by about 20-30% from what it costs in the shops, as compared with restaurants in the UK that like to charge 100-200% more for the same bottles you find in Oddbins. After a night out in the city we were walking back to our hotel when we decided we'd buy another bottle of red to drink back in the room, so we called into our friendly neighbourhood 24hr café across the street from where we are staying. Being a bit bleary eyed already I just pointed randomly at a bottle on a shelf and asked for one. The guy behind the counter handed over the bottle and said something incoherent in Spanish. I couldn't make out whether he said 14 or 40 pesos so I handed over a 50 peso note and waited for my change. Turns out the bottle was 4 pesos, which is 80 pence. When we got back to the room we opened it up and were surprised to discover it was not weak piss at all. Actually, it was the vilest tasting filth I have ever had the misfortune to put in my mouth. 10 minutes later, after we'd finally stopped coughing and choking, we thought it best to leave that one alone and call it a day. We left the bottle on the floor and in the morning there was a large patch of wallpaper hanging off the wall above the bottle and 2 dead cockroaches next to it. Good vintage! Out of interest, the cheapest bottle of wine we've seen so far was in a supermarket at 1.89 pesos a bottle, about 38 pence. It was sat beside a 1 litre bottle of coke on offer at 2 pesos a bottle, which I think says more about the profitability of the Coca Cola company than it does about the costs of wine production in Argentina.

I don't want you thinking that all I ever talk about is food (although clearly it is) but I have to tell you about a restaurant we visited while in Buenos Aires. It is called Siga La Vaca (translates as follow that cow) and it is in the recently redeveloped docklands area of Puerto Madero. We heard about it from a girl in the hostel we stayed at in Iguazu and thought we'd give it a try. Now the good people of Bs. As. have the crazy habit of not going out for dinner until after 10pm and often staying in restaurants until way after midnight, even on a school night. If you were to go to almost any restaurant in the capital around 9pm it will probably be empty. However, we had heard this restaurant was very popular with the locals so we decided to get there for around 9ish and beat the crowd. By the time we arrived, the place was packed and dozens of people were waiting for a table (the restaurant is enormous and probably seats over 300). We put our name on the waiting list and took a stroll around the docks for 20 minutes. When we got back to the restaurant even more people were queuing outside. We took a seat inside and waited for our name to be called out. As we were waiting, a waiter started walking amongst the queuing customers with an enormous tray of empanadas. Now this was a good start. Any restaurant that hands out free meat pies while you wait gets my vote for president. After a while I wandered over to the front of the waiting throng to find out how long it would be only to find out our name had been called and we missed it. I can only assume this is because we had put our name down as Cara. In Spanish, Cara means face and some people find this a little confusing and assume we had meant to write Carol or Carla. Or maybe they just wouldn't feel comfortable shouting out 'table for face' in the restaurant. So now, to avoid confusion we just write B A Baracus. The restaurant itself is what they call a tenedor libre, which essentially means all you can eat. So we did. They had an enormous parilla, which is a meat grill, that you wandered up to, pointed at various types of meat and the chap on the grill would carve you off a huge lump of whatever you fancy. The meat was fantastic and we made a point of letting the chap on the grill know what we thought. He was so happy he cooked us a couple of perfect steaks and had them sent over to our table. We started to get a bit full at this point but soldiered on nonetheless. I just don't understand how they get the steaks so big and tasty here. To give you some idea of what they're like, imagine the cross section of an entire cow, this would most resemble the huge slab of meat that will arrive on your plate. If, like me, you like your steak rare, the expression they use here is 'vuelta y vuelta' which literally means 'turn and turn'. Throw it on the grill, turn it over and slap it on the plate. Fantastico ! The price was 27 pesos each, which equates to £5.40, and included a bottle of wine EACH and all the starters, salads, chips and desserts etc. I really love this country, but I have to admit I'm starting to feel like I'm walking around with an IV drip in my arm and the other end stuck in a cow. A waiter asked me what I wanted last night and I just mooed at him.

If you're a vegetarian, I apologise if any of this makes you uncomfortable. But if you were here, you'd be tucking in as well. And why wouldn't you, because what is a vegetarian but a failed omnivore? So go on, what could possibly be better than chewing on a cows arse? By the way if you call yourself a vegetarian but you eat fish, buy a dictionary.

The weather was perfect for the whole time we stayed in the city. Hot and sunny every day but not humid or uncomfortable. We had a great time wandering the streets, seeing the sights and drinking in the bars and we were sorry to leave the city. But leave it we must so we bought a couple of bus tickets for a 20 hour ride down to Patagonia.

Ganging up on Mik to snaffle his empanadas

Mik.