Rosario

Rosario - the home of Che Guevara, Lionel Messi... and Carlos and Carolina, our friends we met on the Garden Route in South Africa! As they had been kind enough to invite us to visit them in their home city, we thought we would take them up on the offer for a reunion and a taste of 'real' Argentina as opposed to all of the tourist stuff we had been doing.

We had a lovely first day having a tour around the city alongside the Paraná River. The city is beautiful with lots of parks, statues and fountains. That day was actually a fiesta to commemorate the 203rd birthday of the Argentinian flag so everyone was out alongside the river watching boat and plane displays, listening to the band and eating churros (kind of long doughnuts with dulce de leche - Argentinian version of caramel that goes with everything!). 

As seems to be the case in every Argentinian city, there was a memorial to the Falklands war in this park. Most Argentinians seem fine talking about it, but things got a bit heated between Andy and Carlos...

The next day turned out to be a definite highlight of our time in Argentina. Carlos very kindly organised an asado for us at his family home with all of his family there. An asado is an Argentinian BBQ but they do it in style! It's an all day affair with lots of chatting around the asado, drinking and of course cooking a LOT of meat! We tried a variety of bits of cow including different cuts of steak, kidneys, intestines and blood sausage. Just as well I eat beef now! They were all unbelievably tasty and Andy and I could barely move after that meal! Carlos' mum had also made us delicious home made empanadas (Argentinian meat pasties) for starters and pear crumble for dessert so we were definitely done for the day!

Andy also had his first try of Fernet - a bitter alcoholic drink here usually drank with coke. Andy wasn't the biggest fan of it...

We were very sad to say bye to Carlos and Carolina and their family but we're so glad we went to visit them and hope to see them again some day!