Home to the Tango, beef steak and the Boca Juniors, the country's capital sits on a vast plain on the eastern Atlantic coast in the north of Argentina. With such an enigmatic name as Buenos Aires (Good Air) it was as good a place as any to take some time off our busy schedule and stop moving for a whole 7 days.

Buenos Aires brought the promise of much excitement to our adventure. It was not only where we would be meeting my parents who we will be travelling with us for the next 2-3 weeks but also a return to home comforts in a modern apartment we had rented for the week. Arriving by overnight bus from a weeks worth of grotty hostels it was the kind of luxury we craved and hopefully would offer an opportunity to recharge the batteries. However in reality the 4 3 hr Spanish lessons we had booked with a private tutor put paid to any ideas of rest. With little English spoken on this continent Spanish lessons seemed like a bright idea. The lessons were great and I'm sure will help us in the long run, but we hadn't accounted for the effects returning to study would have on us, after an 18 year gap (only 3 years for Sally). Tiring isn't really the word, it soon emphasised why I haven't felt the urge to hit the books again since leaving University! Now turn to page 23, language role-play and homework were terms I thought were a distant memory. Although I wouldn't advise continuous 3hr language lessons, we got through it and are now armed with some new Spanish verbs, nouns and phrases which will hopefully reduce the number of blank expressions on the remainder of our journey.

Buenos Aires has a strong place in it's heart for it's favourite son Diego Maradona and daughter Eva Peron, whose legacy will seemingly remain for eternity. Eva Peron, the charismatic first lady in the 1940's was the peoples favourite and before dying of cancer at a young age famously sang to her country not to cry for her. Diego Maradona may be remembered for his 'hand of god' back home but here he is still revered as if he was a God. Growing up in a once shanty town area of the city he is still the hero of La Boca.

The city is proud of it's football history and a bit like Liverpool has it's blue half in Boca and red half in the south of the city in River Plate. Interestingly the blue and yellow coloured 40,000 seated stadium of of La Boca has even had special permission from Coca Cola, to use black and white advertising from the drinks manufacturer rather than show any allegiance to their red and white rivals of River Plate.

The La Boca area, home to the famous Boca Juniors football team is a bustling outdoor museum, vibrant, fun and not short of colour. Houses of all standards from wood to corrugated iron are all painted in a mixture of any bright colour you can imagine. Home to the first settlers in the city, short of building materials they have thrown together houses from anything they could find and any random pot of paint. Although there are lots of pinks and reds there is a slight bias towards the yellow and blue colours of the boca team with a few buildings even painted like a giant football shirt. Many of the walls display colourful artwork of gauchos (Argentinean cowboys), the tango or Diego Maradona. The narrow cobbled streets are filled with craft shops, bars and cafes, many offering gaucho or tango dancing whilst you dine. It is an area of immense character, charm and colour and certainly easy to take a liking to as soon as you leave the taxi.

The character of the city exists in the old town with it's bustling streets and European architecture. The other sights are mainly contained to the Puerto Madero area with a south bank style modern canal front of bars and expensive restaurants. The nearby Presidential office of the Casa Rosa is as you might expect a red coloured building at the end of the 12 lane, 140 metre wide Avenida 9 de Julio, that cuts through the heart of the city.

The exclusive area of Recoleta also holds many spacious parks, snazzy apartments, galleries and sculptures, none more impressive than the Floralis Generalis. This building sized silver work or art was donated to the city in 2000. Everyday the petals open as if in bloom, closing again in the evening.
Recoleta also houses the cities famous cemetery. Normally, merely a sobering place to visit, this one holds row upon row of large individual tombs of varying grandeur including that of the Eva Peron, always adorned with freshly laid flowers. Such is her popularity amongst the people this has continued for the fifty plus years since her tragically early death, at the age of just 33.

A Tango show or club isn't hard to find and a trip to Buenos Aires wouldn't be complete without seeing a few of the moves. The streets of San Telmo, La Boca, or numerous restaurants or cafes across the city hold regular shows to entice the willing tourist. We chose the historic setting of Cafe Tortoni at the heart of the city. The cosy and intimate room at the back providing a stage and a 3 piece band, 2 dancers and a compare/singer the entertainment. Hoping to see the energetic flair of the tango we were a little disappointed to only see the occasional short dance but instead spend most of the evening listening to the compare. Almost over dressed like an estate agent or football pundit, but with hair slicked back he belted out a few Argentinian classics. 4 days of Spanish classes were unable to help in translation but i assume he was singing something about cars and pudding as I could only make out the words 'Cortina' and 'Semolina'! When they did make a fleeting entrance, the dancers moved about the stage legs flailing effortlessly and rhythmically more in the style of Mark Ramprakash than Anne Widicombe and were a joy to watch. It's just a shame they couldn't take more airtime of the compare/singer!

Buenos Aires is renowned as a party city and with bars or cafes on every road and nightlife scenes in areas such as Recoleta or Palermo it is easy to see why. With restaurants noticeably buzzing at 11pm and clubs reportedly kicking off at 2am unfortunately as most nights were actually 'school nights' we were not able to sample this for ourselves.

Our apartment was located in the area of Palermo, an upmarket area and convenient base only 5 minutes walk from the nearest tube stop. With block after block of modern apartment residencies we were surprised and quite frankly disgusted to see so much rubbish and dog poo littering the streets. It turns out there are no laws on dog mess and with apartment owners for some reason keen to keep dogs the pavements required extreme vigilance at all times. It didn't require Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot to deduce that the areas professional dog walkers (paseadores) sometimes grasping 8-10 tugging leads, were the principle perpetrators.

Our 2nd day coincided with my mums birthday so we made sure we ventured out to enjoy the streets of San Telmo in the glorious weather. The evening festivities took on the the local speciality of Bife de Chorizo (Steak) and a bottle or two of red wine and a few litre bottles of the local Quilmes beer in the charming streets of La Boca.

After a great week sampling the delights of Buenos Aires it is time to move on again. For the first time in a few months we must now pack away our flip flops as we leave behind the warm weather and take a 3.5 hr flight to the Southernmost city on earth. Ushiahia at the foot of Argentina will not only bring near Antarctic weather, but hopefully penguins, wilderness and the start of a Patagonian adventure......