Buenos Aries was another stop to partake of city life for a while and recuperate after the tours of Bolivia. We had heard a lot of really good things about BA and thankfully were not disappointed. We had decided to make things a little more like home for the week we were in situ' and rented an apartment in the Recoleta district of the city (something akin to Kensington in London). Our first day was spent scouting the areas and finding our feet. Initial impressions were that this city had embraced some of the best things on offer in London and Paris and had successfully combined them together to create a very relaxed place full of cafe culture and beautiful architecture. We took the relaxed amotsphere and the international food to the extreme and in the first 3 days ate at Hooters, TGI Fridays and Hard Rock Cafe! Though we did eventually manage an Argentinian parilla at the end of the week - best steaks in the world! BA even has a underground metro system called the Subte so we made good use of it riding around to various parts of the city. The most famous site in Recoleta is the cemetry, though this is not quite as morbid as it sounds! It's most famous occupant is Eva Peron though her mausoleum is surrounded by larger and more ornate mausoleums of those of who on a national basis had more influence in the development of the country and its eventual independance, over the last 200 years. The whole place must be a square kilometre of avenues of mausoleums to the rich and famous of Buenos Aries Families and Argentinians in general - some of which would have counted for a small family home. Whilst there were some fantastic statues and monuments in the cemetry with beautiful old trees interspersed to give a very peaceful feel to the place it was sad to see how many of the tombs had fallen into disrepair - perhaps not a place to visit after midnight! General San Martin was responsible for liberating Argentina and creating it as an independant country in south America in 1816. For his efforts and contributions to the country he has a plaza named after him in another district of the city, which is surrounded by some beautiful buildings. His body is entombed in the Catholic Cathedral on one side of the square which is strangely sedate in its design and looks more like the Bank of England than the obvious and ornate architecture of other cathedrals we have seen in other parts of South America. The plaza is most well known from the scenes of mass demonstration when thousands of Argentinian labours filled the plaza in the 1940's, to be addressed from the bacony of the pink palace by Eva Peron herself. Unfortuneatley, the country is in a similar economic position now and the devaluation of the Argentinian Peso in the last couple of years has caused great hardship for many of the middle and lower classes of the country. This reached its height a couple of years ago when effectively the banking system collapsed. The remnants of national outrage can still be seen scralled across many of the monuments and buildings within the city. This is obviously all still going on as one day we passed a bank (which the previous day we had thought was a disused building) covered in graffiti and in the process of rasing its automatic barriers across the doors and windows as though a bank raid was in progress, yet all there was were a few people in protest outside. Tensions are still running high in the country. On a very beautiful and sunny day (which was not to last throughout the week!) we walked through a number of the parks and avenue lined streets of the northern part of the city - eventually stumbling on Buenos Aries Zoo. We decided to make an afternoon of it and toured the landscaped parks that housed the various species of animals that you would expect to find in the Capital City's zoo. However, we were both of the opinion that the place needed an injection of capital to make it more acceptable to international visitors as many of the animals were housed alone, though they did not seem in poor conditionwe are pleased to say. The other thing that completly amazed us was that people were allowed to feed a good portion of the animals - though I had to remind Chris that this was authorised food alone and did not allow him to feed most of the small children to the big cats! The rest of our vist to the City was spent soaking up the atmosphere, relaxing in the sidewalk cafe's and shopping for new clothes, as the ones we brought with us are now threadbare and for the sake of common decency (ie the developing smell!) need to be replaced - at least we will look different on the photos! It has been a great week in the capital and a much needed period of rest and relaxation for the two of us (though I should mention that not once did Chris make Carol breakfast or wash up! - some things never change!!!! ) From here we now have a enormous round-trip journey north to Iguazu, the town on the border with Brazil and Paraguay, from where we will visit the waterfalls there.