Buenos Aires II - It's Quarantine Time!

Day 504.

BA wasn't all Tango, steak and wine however. Maybe we should have heeded the warning signs early on when the museums & theatres started to close - instead shrugging it off and booking a bus to Igazu falls and Rio de Janiero for one weeks time - it'll all blow over by then I'm sure, don't worry said an optimistic craig..

It wasn't long until the tide turned, and oh it turned fast indeed. Closed accomodation, shunned by locals, and certainly no tourism left to be done. It was at this point panic set in, dodging a last minute bus to Brazil on rumours of closed borders was arguably the only good decision we made in this time frame - and that was half luck at that. Being stuck in Buenos Aires with no way home was certainly better than in a border town in the Brazilian jungle.

That was our decision made then, we would go to the airport tomorrow and demand a flight out - which meant we only had one night left to enjoy Buenos Aires in all its glory and boy did we try. Heading to one of the top 5 resturants in all of South America (and 34th in the world) - Don Julio, for steak, malbec and champagne. You know you're in the right place when you recieve 4 free glasses of champagne just whilst waiting for a table outside. Putting the worries of escaping this continent behind us for a few hours was exactly what we needed and it was a meal to remember, a cheers to all our travels and up there with the best dinners we've ever had together.

Our full proof plan didn't last long however when we were swiftly turned away from the airport the following morning - shit. Thus we mentally resigned ourselves to bunkering down in Argentina for the foreseeable future and returned to the safety of our hostel - only to find they would be closing also and we were kicked out onto the streets - darn.

If we weren't worried already, this did us no favours, a fairly frantic 24 hours followed to say the least: A new Airbnb booked after plenty of door knocking (reassurances needed that we had not recently been in Europe of course) more flight plans made and a few bottles of wine purchased to drown our sorrows. Thankfully our Spanish helped us more than once - struggle to imagine how much more difficult this would have been otherwise!

If it's tough watching the virus updates in the UK it's almost 10x worse watching it unfold in another country, in another language and with the assumption firmly cemented that every foreigner including you is the virus carrying devil. It was upon hearing the news of a further lock down we decided enough was enough - a surprise bargain British Airways flight appeared online (I use the term bargain loosely, this was relative to the other £3k+ flights on offer), a few late night BA chats with Diane and Paul later and we quickly changed our plans for the 35th time...

The following day was the fastest we've ever moved, rumours of an impending curfew meant within 10 minutes we were packed and on route to the airport, in a taxi and off. After some bargaining and pleading we got onto a different flight vs our booking and beat the likely collapse of yet another airline, and in no time at all the worries and problems of those few days seemed a million miles away, as we touched down in London just 48 hours later.

And that's the end of our trip so far. It might have sadly been cut short by unexpected events but we have been incredibly lucky to see what we've seen, experienced all we have experienced and spent the time together that we have spent, all 510 days of it, after all that's a fairly big vacation!

In uncertain times the only thing that is for sure is that it's not the end, we will be back for you South America, Limbster and I aren't quite done just yet!

Adios, Ciao, Goodbye!Read more