Buenos Aires, and a first taste of the raw South America

I noticed I have no pictures to illustrate this post, so here's Evita, passionately giving a speech or singing "Don't cry for me Argentina"

What do you think was the first thing I did as soon as I went through customs in Buenos Aires international airport?
I'll give you a hint: I cried.
Was it the happiness of being back in my childhood country after almost a year?
 Nope.
My backpack (and all of my journals of Australia plus pretty much all of my earthly belongings) had "dissapeared" and never made it to the luggage belt.

Once I wiped my tears, I left Chey taking care of both our daypacks and his backpack  and started walking around trying to fix things (his sleeping bag was missing too, but I guess I was too much of a drama queen and he didn't feel like complaining) .
 After filling some forms at LAN's office, being harassed by at least 5 random men, finding out that everything was double the price than when I left, and discovering that none of the places that charged bus cards had a functioning system to do so, I realized that yes, I was back in Argentina. I told Chey 'Toto, I think we're not in Straya anymore'.

We had to take the bus to get to our hostel because a taxi would've been so expensive that it would've made our trip five months shorter, and also I thought it's better to do the things the way locals do. But mainly it was the money, of course.

 The way buses work in Buenos Aires is this: either you pay with your SUBE card or you pay with coins.
 BUT it is extremely rare to find a place that charges the card, and pretty much impossible to get shops to give you coins. Not even the bank. Seriously.
The good thing is that every Argentinian person knows the SUBE/coins struggle, so when we were getting on the bus we got nice people paying for us with their card and refusing to take the money for it. Thank you, random strangers!

 Two and a half hours and many ugly suburbs later, we arrived in the hostel, dropped our stuff and went hunting for dinner: a massive pizza and the first (of oh-so-many) 1 litre beer bottle.

We had a private room for most of our stay in Buenos Aires (it was almost the same as paying for two beds in a dorm!), which we managed to keep reasonably tidy, and where we did a fair bit of Spanish practice and chilling. The hostel was not very social or english-speaking.
 The neighbourhood was not one of the fancy touristy areas, but a more "real" kind of place, as Chey would call it. We saw the "normal" Buenos Aires people, doing their every day things, and had a bus, the always reliable 39, that took us to most nice areas and sights.

More of the real city that never sleeps, tomorrow.

Note: in the end my backpack arrived to the hostel the next day, which was a lovely and very unexpected surprise. The lesson is: after the first shock you realize you could live without all your stuff. Still I'm happy I don't have to.