There's an adage in the travelling world that if you absolutely loved a place when you visited… don't go back. You're risking all those glowing memories. But sometimes it makes sense to go back. There was only one transatlantic cruise and it plopped us down in Buenos Aires which is where we needed to be - albeit 5 weeks sooner than we needed to be there. Financially the cruise and the Airbnb together was still around half the cost of two flights - and we needed to live somewhere for those 5 weeks.

So. What brings us to 'needing' to be in Buenos Aires? Funny you should ask. In March 2019 we returned downunder from a mega trip including housesitting and travelling through South East Asia (Vietnam, Angkor Wat, Ballooning over Bagan in Myanmar, India, Sri Lanka). We were exhausted and sat on a sofa sorting photos for a month in a little place called Hope at the top of the south island of NZ (minding a beautiful home on a vineyard and a daffy cocker spaniel called 'Maybe'). We figured we would bite the bullet and book a major bucket list item while there was a little money in the bank. We booked our Hurtigruten Antarctic Circle Expedition for February 2021 - at that point, 2 years down the track. We spent 6 months in NZ that year then flew to Ireland for November, Paris for Christmas and January, Budapest for February… all housesitting. Covid brought the world to a screeching halt in March 2020 and we hightailed it out of Sarajevo two days before the airport closed. The 2021 sailings were all cancelled and we eventually rebooked with a solid discount for Jan 2023 - which is now, finally, here. We are thoroughly overexcited and have sorted out our two (each) big bags - leaving all the summer clothes in the hotel in BA to be collected when we return. We leave our Airbnb on 12 Jan, 1 night in the Hilton hotel to make sure everyone is in one spot (and the dreaded covid test of course) then we fly on a charter to Ushuaia on 13 Jan. We're doing a pre-trip excursion into Tierra del Fuego National Park (because we're there) then joining MS Roald Amunsden - and off we go! Penguins watch out. We return to BA on 29 Jan after hopefully getting as far down as Marguerite Bay - the trip is focussed on going below the circle. Post trip excursion in Patagonia 'hiking at the end of the world' for a few hours then flying back to BA, overnighting then flitting across to Santiago to decompress for 10 days before we leave Valparaiso for the MSC cruise back to Sydney arriving in mid March. Then? Then we're sitting in our apartment for at least 6 months with all the lights switched off.

Finding ourselves in BA for 5 weeks, our impressions of BA ten years down the track have not been great. On the proviso that we were here for one week in 2012 and not five and it was winter, not summer, it has still been less than stellar.

When we woke up on 10 December we were however impressed with the bed, a phenomenally comfortable king size bed, best we've ever had in an Airbnb, or for that matter in 99% of housesits. So the more we sleep the more we seem to want to. In Airbnbs the beds are usually rock hard or dirt cheap or possess craters in the middle from too many guests over too many years. Or if we're really lucky - all three. This bed has made the stay outstanding. The multiple aircon units out the back door roaring most of the time, the young boy next door with either a severe ear infection or behavioural issues who screams a lot, the neighbours who cook dinner at 10 pm and watch raucous Spanish soap operas afterward and the other neighbours who spent a week demolishing a kitchen and bathroom with power tools… them, not so much. But it's cheap… A$35 per night or €20 odd. Not a lot of places in the world where that's possible. And a very nice area.

In the 10 years since we've been here seemingly everyone is poorer. It seems there's not really a middle class as such - people are either poor or rich. Stunning linen dresses are everywehere (certainly in our area - one of the two poshest in the city). We find it quite odd, but given the prices understandable, that dress shops have security door buzzers before you can go in for a look. But liquor stores… head straight on in. One of our bargain outings was a visit to a church flea market - or as they are called here an American Fair / Feria Americana. We found some great natural stone necklaces hidden amongst the junk and only 1000 peso each. Or the equivalent of one G&T. Despite our apartment being in one of the two poshest suburbs we still can't be seen in public with jewellery on - just asking to be robbed and apparently they've gotten very violent over the years. I'm wearing my 10 year old plastic SWATCH which looks raggedy enough and taking my wedding and engagement rings off before leaving the house. When we visit the markets we make it clear we're Australian - as they routinely quote everything in US$ assuming us rich white folks have stacks of real money on hand. I go on to explain the food chain of currency. Euro followed by US$ followed further down to A$ and then Argentinian pesos - also symbolised with $. Because that's not confusing. We found it interesting that aside from the really top end stores (double security doors and a man) there is no gold jewellery being worked any lower down the chain. According to one jeweller/stone shop, it's been 40 or more years since there was much getting done in gold - too costly and too dangerous to hold. Which makes silver the new 'precious' metal. Which leaves the next price level down vacant. That is filled with Alpaca (aka German silver, nickel silver etc - an alloy which has no silver at all). We wouldn't normally bother but a couple of pendants we bought 10 years ago were Alpaca and they still look great and polish up to a super shiny silver. When we first visited the supermarkets here and saw how many people were having their groceries delivered, we thought it was a hangover from Covid and pure convenience, but after a few visits we've come to the conclusion it's to avoid the inevitable beggars sitting at the front doors with their hands out as you enter and leave the supermarket. Or the 'walking down the street and trying it on' beggars or the 'oh look tourists on a park bench' beggars.

Retiro/Recoleta is such a nice area that we usually feel like we're living in the movie 'Out of Time' - a damning indictment. There are the rich, thin, lily white folks swanning about in Italian linen who live in a fabulous neighbourhood (apparently us… though all our linen is from thrift stores and we're neither rich or particularly thin). Then there are the locals who bus in to work as cleaners, doormen, checkout staff, carers for the elderly etc - the brown, chubby, round faced folks standing in the blazing sunshine wearing either uniforms or dodgy t-shirts and waiting for the roaring, diesel belching, ubiquitous BA buses to take them home at the end of their working day. The feeling of parallel universes has haunted us for the duration of our trip.

It's not all doom and gloom of course, there are highlights to being here in BA. Oviously, it's cheap… and there are a lot off Chinese / Asian type restuarants that sell food by weight - which saves us cooking. Their specialties are noodles, rice, veges and local quiches and bakes. The Asian restaurants have made for relative ease of existence. Not to mention a couple of great fruit and vegie shops. Which shouldn't be hard to find, but can be. We make it a point not to frequent anywhere without prices - down that path leads to ruin. The difference in a 50 metre stretch of road can be 800 peso/kg for cherries (€2) to 2000 peso/kilo - or €6. And that's comparing our regular shop to the closest one down the street with prices. We hate to think what the cherries would cost at the no prices joint just next door. We had been looking forward to cooking for ourselves after 3 weeks on the ship, but it turns out to be easier said than done. Until we discovered the Asian pay-by-weight joints, thankfully in the first week, it was looking pretty dire. Supermarkets are something to be endured, not enjoyed - they are usually one of our favourite things to do in a foreign country. Queues are long since it doesn't matter how many staff are floating about organising deliveries, only 2 checkouts are ever open - and that is even presuming you find what you were looking for - quite often we'd find something we liked, go back and there would be empty shelf space for a week or two until it was (maybe) resupplied. And the fruit and vege offerings were sometimes dire - lettuce and salad goods in particular were on their last legs and unlikely to survive the walk home. The discovery of the fruit and veg joint near one of our main supermarkets was fabulous - they have done very well from our stay due to being fresher, better and cheaper - and so much quicker! It's not all bad - we had a strange discount of 10% on our docket one Wednesday and it turns out it's 10% off for pensioners/retirees on Wednesdays. Given the massive queues at the checkout I think they give it to everyone - to avoid people being offended at being thought old, or peeved if they don't get their seniors discount. Not going to get any arguments from us about a discount - groceries on Wednesday it is.

The markets designed for the tourists (of all stripes) are also great. We are a 10 minute walk from Recoleta Cemetery and it's beautiful weekend markets. We visited the famous cemetery back in 2012 and saw Eva Peron's grave - no need to go again (and they now charge 1400 per head). We did however have a whale of a time at the market. I bought a blue onyx (onix cielo) pendant back in 2012 and it's never had the wear it deserves - mainly because it was such a 'piece' that no earrings ever did it justice. Well, it's time has come. On our Recoleta visit we bought the earrings and bracelet with the same stone. Brilliant - and also learning a language via shopping. Necklace and pendant are collier and colgante respectively and bracelet is pulsera - which makes sense when you think it sits on your wrist pulse. Pendientes, which one might think would be pendant, is in fact earrings - or pendants for the ear. The only thing left on the 'hopeful' shopping list is a ring (anillo) to complete the set.

It is a slightly sloggier 40 minutes from our apartment to San Telmo's famous Sunday street market. That's just to the beginning. From there it's 13 blocks to cover all of it (and god help us, 13 blocks back again). We found out the hard way on our first Sunday in town that this pretty little market from 2012 is now a behemoth - and a very long way in 36 degrees (felt in the low forties due to humidity). All up a 16,000 step day or around 13 kms. Suffice it to say we had a rest day on the Monday. Aside from breaks for World Cup finals, Christmas day and New Year's day, we've visited both Recoleta and San Telmo 3 or 4 times each and have officially finished all possible shopping. We even have a couple of carved stone penguins to commemorate our forthcoming trip down to the Icecubes and back. Super cute.

We were here for seemingly Argentina's entire World Cup Football campaign. The Church of Messi incidentally is a real thing. The day we arrived was actually the quarter finals… We were quite possibly the least popular people in Argentina that day as we endeavoured to buy a few groceries and a roast chook and salad for dinner. It's not that shops were closed at 5 pm on a Friday - more so the inmates had taken over the asylums and shut the doors so they could watch telly in peace. The following Tuesday was the semi-final against France - thankfully Argentina won. The nation would have been collectively on the verge of self-harm if they'd lost. We weren't even watching and the roar of the crowds in the apartment buildings around us was enough to commentate the game and there was a risk of our ceiling cracking with the jumping up and down immediately above our sofa. With the final coming up on the Sunday it was hard to walk down a street that didn't have vendors flogging world cups and Argentina shirts - even jackets for dogs. Finally the last round was fought and didn't that just seem to go on forever. We pottered out to the San Telmo market in the morning where a few hard-core stall holders had set up for a few hours. We were very conscious that every man, his dog and all the dog's fleas would be on the ground soaking in the atmosphere on one of the many big screens spread around the city. We thought it kicked off at 4 pm but actually 12 noon - so it was a quick market trip and a fast trot home. Suffice it to say the city went collectively mad and the celebrating continued well into the night. By the Tuesday we were a bit worn out and had a home day. Only found out about midday with the noise outside that it was a public holiday for the footballers' welcome home parade. They were in an open top bus and 4 million people were in the city on the main drag - a hellish 17 lane avenue that cuts BA in half. It got so wild they had to stop the bus parade and transported the team via helicopter instead. Seems a bit daft but people were actually endangering the gods they worship by chucking missiles onto the bus. Great day to chill out and made a risotto from scratch.

Our transatlantic cruise pretty much killed any urge to eat out and we're watching the pesos like hawks during our 5 week stay in BA. Our only social engagement has been meeting up with a fellow cruiser who splits his year between Paris and BA where he fundraises for a Catholic charity. Nice man and he introduced us to a stunning little cafe spot with an outdoor terrace/bar and pretty indoor dining rooms in the Palacio Paz. Not as I originally thought the Palace of Peace… which, given part is given over to a military musuem, made no sense, but the Paz family. We walked from our edge of Retiro where it bounds with Recoleta to the other side of Retiro and the Plaza St General Martin and the astonishingly beautiful Circulo Miltar / Palacio Paz. Given the stunning spot we thought 1000 peso / €3 for a G&T was incredibly reasonable. Economics in action is seeing that price go to 1030 peso within 5 weeks - the ubiquity of inflation is rife here. I saw a pendant at San Telmo market around Christmas that cost 5000 peso. We had already spent our market allowance that day so put it on the backburner. When we went back in the first week of January the new year price was 7000. We agreed on 6000 in the end and bought a pendant for James's birthday as well - so she was a very happy vendor.

Inflation whether rampant or rife is just one aspect of Argentina's nutbar economy (also referred to as crazy, stupid, annoying, bonkers and the FFS Economy - depending). The official currency is the Peso - it's symbol is $. Imagine, if you will, trundling around the supermarket totting up the thousands as you go - even a jar of simple Barilla pasta sauce (being an imported luxury) is $1600 odd / €5 / A$8. We have resisted the top end stuff - but the local food products are processed to within an inch of their lives and artificial sweeteners and fillers are everywhere - as it brings down the prices. Our cash handling and totting skills are certainly being tested to the max.. 1000 peso is around 3.30 euro or A$5. 1000 peso can be one note. Or if you keep getting small change of 10, 20, 50 and 100 peso notes… 1000 peso (remember, €3 odd) could involve 100 x 10 peso notes at its most extreme. It's a strange feeling stretching purses and handbag compartments with literally wads of notes and periodically we spend the small notes just to make space - for instance a kilo of cherries from a street vendor could be had before Christmas for 600 peso. A bottle of wine for our Christmas treats for 550 peso. It also contributes to the worst queues for a checkout - nothing is fast. The process is excruiciating. Slow meets slower. The handing over of the money, the counting of the money, the printing of the receipts, the printing of the discount and advertising dockets. People using cards don't speed it up - have to check ID and then, take a note of the number. Sheesh. We try to have the cash counted out in advance of joining the queue, but it's pointless. We eventually get up there, items scanned, at least one item will scan incorrectly, always in favour of the shop. Challenging a price is a time consuming nightmare so we often let it go if it's say 200 peso or less. I see the total, holding my stack of folding money and start flicking through the wad like a queen of the cash economy. Count, count, count, handover a bit more than the total, breathe, then the attendant counts it up, heaves, sighs and hurrumps and eventually issues change (please, not the coins, please not the coins, there simply isn't room). We don't know why but the check out folk have no forward planning skills at all - we're amazed they remember where to turn up day after day. Not quite the lowest common denominators - but close. They can see their till drawer getting lower and lower in small notes and higher and higher in big notes. Eventually they run out of 20s and 50s and start purposely short changing customers because they don't have change. As senior citizens (apparently…) we have time to wait and are slowly but surely educating the local Carrefour supermarket that there is always time to go and get a 1000 changed.

So why not pay with card? Well, travelling on a shoe string means economising and despite the law changing in early November 2022 allowing credit card companies to process $ Peso transactions at the blue rate (unoffical) none are doing so. So if we buy anything, anything at all on a card, we are paying double. Instantly. OK. Nutbar Economics 101 - one US$ (100 cents) officially buys 160 peso. On the blue rate it buys 310 peso (as of mid December). We were hit with this palaver back in 2012 at the end of our year's travel. So we withdrew € in Spain to bring with us solely for the purpose of converting to pesos. Should have brought more. Argentina and Vietnam are the only two countries in the world that we've actually considered buying a money clip and using it. Haven't. But have considered it. We bought euro over with us from Spain and exchanged at the unofficial rate of 305 peso to a euro, vs. 160 peso to a Euro. And it changes - when we changed our 2nd chunk of euro it went to 345 peso to €1 (and since then… 380). Admittedly our first money change was a 'come to the house' with a back pack of cash' service - which felt safe and sensible, but there is a premium. Our latest transactions have been at a private office business off Calle Florida (or Cambio Street! Change Dollar! Change Euro! Cambio, cambio!). This is the reason no one hides pesos under the bed - the shrinkage is shocking! We've only been here 5 weeks and when we arrived it was 310 peso to US$1- the other day when we scraped our last few US$20s together it was 349 to US$1 and it would have been more if they'd been $50 or $100 notes - the gold standard (or real) Argentinian currency (up does mean up across the board - the 'official' rate for €1 is now 194 peso and US$1 is 180 peso). Yup. Inflation and fluctuations - all day long.

We refuse to be those people who express surprise every year that Christmas is just around the corner. Chrissie being on 25 December every single year is one of the few certainties of the world we live in. Within a week of arriving we found a local vegetarian restaurant making Asian food and filled our freezer with enough food to last for a couple of weeks - including some predone roasted spuds, pumpkin etc for our Christmas lunch. Aside from us filling their till during their last week, it was a good year for them and they shutdown from 18 Dec to 8 Jan for a trip to China. What we were impressed with is Mumm champagne made in Argentina under licence and we got a bottle for Christmas Day for around 1100 peso or €4-5. We weren't expecting much but it was superb. A great accompnaiment to our roast chicken, predone roasted vegies and chocolate not-quite-a-fondant for dessert. We don't have any Christmas decorations here which is a bit sad, but also can't be bothered buying them. In lieu of decorations we bought a beautiful floral centrepiece from a local flower man and that was stunning on Christmas Day and lasted for a week. Just before Christmas the airconditioner sighed it's last cold breath and reverted to making noise and fanning air about without actually cooling it. Thankfully it was a cool couple of days and the owners got a technician out to fix it just before Christmas. The weather immediatly cooled right down and Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day were only 23 degrees - the peace from no one using their AC units had to be heard to be believed. On Christmas Day the morning temperature was only 13 - fabulously cold for this time of year and we chilled indoors, watched holiday movies and listened to Elvis's Christmas album. Boxing Day was slightly more energetic and we walked a block or two over to a very posh street (vs. our posh street) and the Alvear Palace (combination exceedingly posh hotel and posh shops) - nice to walk around but the air was thoroughly too rich for our blood. We call places like that the NOH chain - 'Not Our Hotel'!

In the leadup to the New Year and our annual tradition of watching the Sydney fireworks on Youtube, the height of excitement was a powercut for 3 or 4 hours on the 30th. Thankfully the hot water and cooking was gas so we were fine and the power came on again at about 8 pm. We've made sure we keep things charged up so that nothing interferes with Netflix viewing of an evening and the torches on the phones always work. Once we were finally into 2023, the forthcoming trip seemed almost real. We're not up to much at all, basically trying to stay away from people and Covid and people with Covid most of all. We found a groovy, albeit not cheap vintage shop - which was much bigger on the inside than the frontage led us to expect. They have solved the whole inflation issue with the avoidance of prices - tags are instead marked with Xs. So depending on the day, X might equal 300 peso (or more or less). Some top end items like Vuitton bags had 100X on them for instance. Funnily enough, I suspect there would be less security at a Vuitton shop in Paris or Sydney for that matter. Just to come into this shop we had to stow our bag in a big locked tote bag which you carry about with you and get unlocked when you leave. We also had to show ID and it was marked down on the entry sheet with time and date of entry. We weren't overly impressed with the downstairs offerings but climbed to the second floor and found an absolute bargain coat that only cost 5X or 1500 pesos - about €5. The material is a beautiful shiny, lustrous, black fleece - Astrakhan or Persian Lamb. It was so popular in its heyday that it was faked even in the 1950s - and right next to this beauty was a faux-Astrakhan which was dull, lifeless and screeching of static electricity. Why so cheap for vintage Astrakhan? A tiny bit of mending required on the shoulders where someone has wrecked a luxurious coat with the regular application of a heavy handbag. It isn't even an impulse buy really… I've been eyeing them off for years in the Paris vintage coat shops we frequent and always resisted as they have a bit of weight and they're too cosy for non-Northern climes. Now? We're one flight away from getting on a ship to Sydney - it's been stowed away and is ready for its cruise home. Come the next iceage - I'll be sorted.

Early in the new year we felt like a leg stretch and hoofed across town to see the Monumental Tower (once known as the English Tower, but the war in the Falklands/Malvinas put paid to that name). We've discovered some more Asian joints in our travels and even found one that does a 50% discount for the last half hour of the day between 3.30 and 4 pm - bargain. We undertook our final market visits on the weekend of 7/8 Jan - Recoleta supplied a ring to complete my blue onyx and Alpaca set and a second penguin for our collection. On Sunday we ventured to the edge of the map, the Costanera Sur - a park/wetlands/promenade near the ocean. A nice enough walk though a very warm day. We scoped out the Hilton Hotel and walked along the water until we reached the equivalent of the far end of the San Telmo market. At that point we cut inland until we reached the market, bought some water as we were almost melting and made our final purchases and then home - a very hot and humid day and whilst fun - would have been better with clouds and coolness.

Our final few days in BA we are avoiding the heat, hiding out at home and trying (and failing) to keep a lid on our excitement. Tomorrow we're off to the Hilton and so begins our next adventure. Icecubes and penguins - ahoy!