Thirsty Thursdays – Buenos Aires Pub Crawl. An amazing night out in ARGENTINA!
Buenos Aires will never be my favourite city on the planet, but I actually really enjoyed my big night out there so today’s Thirsty Thursdays takes us to the party zone of the Argentinian capital city. A pub crawl of the highest standard with a range of nationalities, languages, drinks, food and pubs. Plus I almost got arrested for smuggling drugs through the country…
The pub crawl was expertly organised by the Hostel Florida Suites. I wasn’t actually staying in that hostel, but the pub crawl from my hostel (Limehouse Hostel) was on a different night and due to my schedule I would miss it. I wanted to do a pub crawl in Buenos Aires so I booked this one along with Lena Hoffman from Germany, who I met on the airport bus on arrival at Buenos Aires. Lena was staying in Hostel Florida Suites, about 15 minute walk from my hostel, so I got that one booked. The irony was Lena took ill the next day and couldn’t make the pub crawl in the end, so I went alone ready to meet new people. The pub crawl cost 70 Argentine Pesos and this included a drink in 5 different bars, some food and other random things.
Here’s a bar by bar rundown of the epic crawl!!:
Bar 1 – Fusion, Florida Street.
At 8.30 pm The bar crawl starts in earnest at Bar Fusion. I buy 1 Quilmes in this bar, as a free drink here isn’t actually included in the price. It’s an underground bar under the Florida Suits hostel, but anyone can walk in. This is where the carnage began!
The first bar was Bar Fusion. This is where the pub crawl began. Bar Fusion is on the basement floor just below Florida Suites Hostel on Florida Street, in downtown BA.
After Bar Fusion, we all walked down the lively Florida Street to the end, getting to know one and other and deciding who to share taxis with. I don’t often take taxis actually, but this was part of the crawl as we were heading to the Palermo district to party. I met up with Dawie and Adelaine, a South African couple and we agreed to taxi share and hang out together!
Bar 2- The Bronx Bar, Palermo
Next up we got given a necklace with a bright light on it and were given free entry and unlimited beer for an hour in the Bronx Bar. It turned out to be a bit more beer and a bit of a longer stay!! A photo feast now from Bronx Bar!
Dawie and Adelaine, the lovely South African couple that I partied with!!
I was single at the time and there were a lot of girls there. I was rather shy, given that it was only my second night in Buenos Aires, but I still found time to chat to them later on after a few beers.Local girl Camila Crema was the one that caught me eye, as well as a hot Californian girl. The Californian girl got the party started in earnest with her flirtatious moves and dancing. I thought she was going to do a striptease at one point, when she whipped off her belt!
The queue for the bar at Bronx Bar – it was busy but you could always get served and the beer was unlimited for the first hour, until 11 pm.
I met up with some folk from Ecuador and Australia. I was speaking to the Ecuadorians for quite a while as I knew I would head there on my journeys later.
Then at some point things started to get more fun and crazy! We were given these plastic hats if we agreed to play a drinking game and myself, Dawie, Lucas a Brazilian, another Brazilian and two Australian guys got a team of six together for the drinking competition. Needless to say we won and kicked ass, which led to a glass of bubbly and more free beer, which we were now drinking out of plastic hats. I had a new friend in Lucas now too and it was all fun!
Below is Camila Crema, the hot local girl, and a Californian party girl who said “My reason for coming to Buenos Aires was because I googled online where the party capital of the world was and Buenos Aires came up!” She said all this while wearing a see-through white top, tight and short denim shorts and whipping her belt off, ushering the guys up to dance under her belt. Most of us were gasping in awe…
One of the organisers was Corins Lichtstein and we met up and chatted for a while during the entire belt frenzy! Lots of photos on this post for a change – it was just so epic!
So after the Californian honey wowed the guys with her flambouyance and willingness to lose her belt, it was time for me to go under the belt, I fell over in the process amid cheers and laughs! It was so much fun in Bronx Bar!
Lucas Fernandes, my new mate from Brazil – he was wearing a Guinness t-shirt and as we won the drinking competition and drank together, we somehow had enough beer to carry out with us in a plastic hat and onto the next bar!
This is me with the “hot Californian girl” – touching my belt – who is this travelling Northern Irishman she must have been thinking. I only wanted a photo, and I did win the drinking competition!
Some of the best legs in Buenos Aires, plus some cracking dancing!
More fun and games in the second bar including my shirt being stained by one of the kind drunk locals who spilt his beer on me. This was our winning drinking team!
The Facebook page for Hostel Suites Palermo Pub Crawl includes a ton more photos from the amazing night out, I’ve included one of us here:
Our winning team getting ready for the drinking competition in the Buenos Aires Pub Crawl in Argentina!
Then it was time to leave Bronx and walk to the next bar!
Bar 3 – Hat Trick, Palermo
Like Alanis Morisette, I found it ironic that the third bar was called Hat Trick and that we completed a hat trick of bars by heading there. A free mango shot awaited on arrival (I managed to blag two of them) and I thought of David Healy, twice a hat trick scorer for Northern Ireland in the 2006 – 2007 season!
It was in Hat trick bar that I really just started talking to and mingling with the locals. Buenos Aires is great like that and this organised pub crawl is an easy way to meet the locals. First up though I was posing with bar girl Gricelda who came from Paraguay. I had never met a Paraguayan before that day and suddenly I now knew two (both Facebook friends) and reasons to make Asuncion my next big city on my tour, which I did!
We found a seat at the back with the locals and really began to party. Drinking games, singing, dancing and the local Argentinian guys kept calling me the Irish Amigo, they talked about football and taught me some River Plate songs. They were disgusted to hear that I had visited La Bombonera – home of Boca Juniors, River Plate’s biggest rivals!
After a bit of singing, it was drug time. A night out in Buenos Aires wouldn’t be the same without drugs! It was just marijuana mind you (I call it “dope” since I’m a 1990s Northern Irish teenager) and I was soon smoking joints and feeling like a local. I’m not a fan of drugs at all, but I do like savouring the moment and enjoying other people’s company and it seemed like the right thing to do. One of the local guys was called Mario and he gave me an entire bag of cannabis as a present. Knowing we were out all night, I bunched it quickly into the back pocket of my jeans without thinking anything of it and thanking him for it.
After the madness of hat-trick bar, it was off for a midnight group photo of our entire pub crawl team, before heading to another bar, whose name I forget…
Bar 4 – The Bar With No Name
OK so it does have a name, but caught up in the moment and despite having my travel diary in my pocket, I neglected to write down the name of this pumping bar. It was a mix between a sports bar, a club and a beer garden style bar. Most of our group got up to party the night away on the dancefloor. I was given a free can of Brahma Beer and decided to chill out with the lads and watch the live football! Certainly a pub crawl with variety this. I’m sure that this bar was the last bar for some of those on our pub crawl, but we had one big club up next – Kiki Club
Bar 5 – Kika Club, Palermo!
Forgive me as my memory is hazy but after watching some football in the last pub we headed to the final bar of the night and the pumping nightclub called Kika Club. I was 30 years old and this did seem like a younger persons place, but that really didn’t stop me partying and indeed I stayed in there till about 4am before telling the girls and guys I had an early morning flight to catch…
The next big problem after leaving Kika Club was getting back to the hostel and then heading to the airport. I had been drinking with the hostel crew the previous two nights and they knew I was coming home in the early hours to catch a flight (which had been moved to a different airport at late notice). When I left Kika Club I realised we were miles from the hostel and I only had 20 Argentine Pesos left – I had gone out with only 60 Argentine Pesos that night by the way and my wallet and passport were in the hostel safe. 20 Pesos wouldn’t be enough for a taxi back to the hostel so it was blagging time.
I got in a taxi and told the driver where I was staying, on the main street, Avenida 9 de Julio at Limehouse Hostel but he wanted to charge the full whack so I came to an agreement, I let him dump me off somewhere close and on a main street and I then walked it from there. Past wakening tramps and premature sunlight, it took me about half an hour to walk back, but I made it and it had been one hell of a night out. Within minutes of getting to the hostel, I ordered a quick taxi to the Airport Bus station and caught an early morning bus to the airport.
If the madness of an incredible party night in Buenos Aires wasn’t enough, I was now heading on a flight to Ushuaia to head to Antarctica is just 2 days time on a 2 week cruise. This was an amazing rollercoaster I was living. One thing though, I still had those drugs in my pocket…
Buenos Noches, Buenos Aires (not a spelling error, just a pun)
Bars Visited – 6 (including the Limehouse Hostel Bar)
Drinks – Beer, mango shots, tequila and champagne
Nationalities Met – Argentinian, Brazilian, Ecuadorian, Paraguayan, United States, English, South African, German, Australian
Key Song:
Yolanda Be Cool: We Speak No Americano!!:
My videos from the epic Buenos Aires Pub crawl!:
Party taxi from Florida Street to Palermo:
Bronx Bar in Buenos Aires Pub Crawl in four parts:
Hat Trick Bar in Buenos Aires Pub Crawl:
On the Buenos Aires Pub Crawl:
Kika Club on Buenos Aires Pub Crawl:
Awesome night out! I did the exact same pub crawl when I was in BsAs a couple of years back. It was great fun and I met lots of interesting people throughout the night.
Nice one Audrey! Believe it or not, I didn’t like Buenos Aires apart from the pub crawl and La Bombonera (football stadium) – found it to be dirty and arrogant. But I met some great people in the hostel and pub crawl!