Our flight landed in the Argentinean capital city on Monday evening and with a few daylight hours left it was a hunger for steak and beer that tempted us out for the evening. Over a few beers we got talking to some Canadian and Spanish travelers and made plans for the next three days.

Tuesday morning and after breakfast we decided the best way to see the centre of the city would be on foot, stopping at plenty of cafes to check the quality of their coffee. The city is sweltering with summer heat but strangely all morning it felt like it was starting to rain, the reason, hundreds and hundreds of air conditioning units stuck on the sides of apartments are dripping down onto the street watering the passers by. We saw loads of very historic and beautiful buildings, had a great time and then went for a curry.

"Now go to officina 2, now go to officina 3, now go to offinica 1, now go to officina 2, now go to officina 3, now...." Aaaaghhh Not a bad flashback to my days in the office but the reality of Argentinian bureaucracy.

Our new camera was due to arrive at the hotel on wednesday but customs had decided they didn´t like the cut of my invoice and decided to detain the package and requested the pleasure of my company. An 80 km round trip out to the international airport terminal and a Spanish language test was just the beginning of the days fun. I walked into airport customs, eventually found the correct corridor and a row of three offices called office 1,2 and 3, and took a seat outside office 1. Wrong. Everyone starts at office 2. Of course, how silly of me. Fill in this form and wait outside office 3. Sign this section and wait outside office 1. In office 1, they typed something into a computer and said, go and wait at office 2. Fill in another form, duplicate at, sign it and go to office 3. The guy brings the camera to me and says "Is this for you", "Yes", so he takes it away. "Now go back to office 1".
"Give me 50 pesos"
"Why"
"A holding fee"
"I didn´t ask you to hold it"
"Do you want the camera?"
"Yes"
"Well, pay me"
"OK" (he had a fair point)
"Now go back to office 2"
"What! for the third time!!!"
"Do you want the camera?"
"Yes" (another fair point)
At office 2 they ripped all the forms in half, gave me another one to sign. After no less than eight separate visits into offices and another good look at the passport they finally sent me to the warehouse to collect the camera. Legendary red tape bureaucracy.

In the afternoon we explored the south of the city, the first area called San Telmo was all cobbled streets, antique shops, hippies selling beads and trendy cafes. Then it was over to Puerto Madero, the floating harbor part of the city, which looked just like Bristol harbor, complete with old cranes, renovated brick warehouses into cafes and people sitting around drinking wine. It would have been criminal not to have stopped for bottle, so we found a good 2 for 1 deal and settled down. After leaving we walked past the ferry port office and decided it would be a good idea to buy tickets to Uruguay for a day trip.

Thursday dawned and we took the subway up to explore the north of the city. Palermo Soho is the leafy, cool area of the city, boutiques and international restaurants. As the only thing we knew about Evita was that Madonna played her in a musical, we visited her museum. . Evita, actress turned socialist and tragically died very early was quite a legend. She married the then president and used her influence to start the country´s socialist movement introducing workers unions, homes for orphans, a benefits system for disabled people and generally exercised the Homer Simpson philosophy of, "share the wealth". Cancer sadly took her life at 33. Left the museum singing "don´t cry for me Argentina".

Uruguay, tomorrow, here we come!

Cooper Out

Love Dan and Kat