So the last few days have passed in a bit of a haze. Without the assistance of my handy dandy diary, which ive helpfully left upstairs, I cant quite remember when anything happened, but will attempt a guesstimate anyway.

On Wednesday I took myself off to Recoleta. Recoleta is a rich area of BA, most famous for its cemetary (which sounds quite weird really). I started the day with a visit to El Ateneo Grand Splendid - a huge bookstore set in an old theatre. Its a beautiful setting, but unfortunately the English books section was restricted to bodice-rippers and Tom Clancy, not really my scene. Not even a Harry Potter or Dan Brown in sight! After grabbing some lunch in a beautiful and pretty damn cheap downtown restaurant (788 Food Bar), I headed to the Basilica de Nuestro Señora del Pilar. Its a beautiful catholic church, with an altar decorated in solid silver plating, and lots of very detailed and pretty gruesome crucifiction statues. Unfortunately no pictures were allowed, and the tour of the underground tunnels which lead all the way under BA was hugely expensive, so on I moved.

The church is right next door to the famous cemetary. The cemetary is absolutely beautiful, with hugely grand mausoleums crammed into every corner and avenue. Its also incredibly eerie inside, as after about 10m the street noise from outside is completely blocked out, making it spookily silent. The abundance of stray cats only adds to the atmosphere. I spent a long time in the cemetary, wandering round the peaceful alleys and attempting to read the inscriptions on the various memorials and mausoleums. In true catholic style, its very over-the-top-grief, which I absolutely love, so I now have about a thousand pictures of various statues and monuments. Unfortunately for all my searching I couldnt find a Robinson tomb, so my hopes of being buried there one day have been pretty much dashed. On the way out of the cemetary there was a huge crowd gathered, along with a big black hearse complete with casket and mourners. I managed to restrain myself from photographing the mourners, unlike the other tourists present, but it was interesting to see a modern day burial in such an ancient pĺace.

From the cemetary I walked further towards the town boundaries to get to the Floralis Generica. This is a huge metal sculpture of a flower, which opens every morning at dawn and closes every morning at dusk. Unfortunately I wasnt there in time for dusk, but it was still fascinating to see - BA is really big on modern art, and a lot of its parks and plazas are full of quite abstract sculpture and murals.

For dinner that evening we headed to a local Peruvian restaurant (Argentinian food leaves quite a lot to be desired, especially in the vegetable department), and then I hot footed it back to the hostel to get ready for a tango show in the evening. The show was like a dinner show, and was absolutely stunning. The dancing was of an incredibly high standard, and very intelligently put together as a whole. And they even played my favourite piece of music - Por Una Cabeza - so all in all it was a perfect night. After the show I headed back to the hostel, to find a strangely empty bar, so stayed up to the wee hours with some of the new guys in the hostel, indulging in some bad-taste banter mostly surrounding Joseph Fritzel. Well, you{ve got to do it sometimes.

Next day I got my walking shoes on once more and headed up to Congreso, just off the centre of town. This area is like the Capitol of Buenos Aires, and is very much like a South American DC. After stopping off at Palacio Barolo, a building modelled on Dantes vision of hell, complete with 22 floors representing hell, purgatory and paradise, I headed up to Plaza del Congreso. The plaza is beautiful, with a huge fountain and monument, and home to the Palacio del Congreso - essentially the white house. Its a beautiful area, and I even managed to get a milkshake at last - perfect.

Unfortunately this is where my memory gets hazy and my ability to get out of bed in the mornings starts to fail. Understandably, the evening I turned 24 was fairly messy, with lots of people attempting to buy me incredibly strong cocktails, and lots of other people attempting to make me down those cocktails (and I do love a challenge). Nonetheless, I had a great, if a little slurred, night. The next morning I woke up surprisingly early (well, 11am) and headed out for a birthday lunch with a group of people from the hostel - mostly British guys, an American, a New Zealander, some Germans and some Brazilian girls. We had a nice lunch of chicken wings and burgers, obviously washed down with more beer, and the entire thing was hilarious, mostly due to some significant ordering issues (Spanish-English translation really didnt work out too well) and poor Tom being brought 4 different main meals and trying to explain to the manager (in a hilariously heated way) that he didnt order any of them. Luckily, when we told the manager it was my birthday he seemed to forget all about it, and brought us all free brownie with ice cream, excellent. After a quick afternoon nap we went back to the hostel and got the beers again, before heading to a party at the sister hostel round the corner. We ended the night in a pretty seedy bar not far from home, where we got through a few more beers and had some late night empanadas (cornish pasties) - perfect.

Cant really remember at all what happened for the next few days, just because days seem to roll into each other here, but yesterday I headed to the San Telmo market for a bit of a wander. I thought the market sold clothes and souvenirs, but had obviously managed to get confused and found myself in an antiques market. I{m sure Mum and Dad can imagine how much I enjoyed looking at what was essentially old tat for a few hours (Dad especially), but managed to pass a Carrefour on the way home and picked up some fresh fruit and veg to make a nice (and cheap) lunch for myself. My body definitely needs the vitamins at this point!

Dont have too much planned for the next few days, mostly just sorting logistical things for the next few legs of my tour. On wednesday morning I fly down to El Calafate in the South of Argentina, to visit the Perito Moreño glacier for a few days, before heading back to BA again. Very excited about the glacier - its the only "stable" glacier in the world, but its actually advancing. 2m of ice gets shaved off the glacier every day (by nature, not by man), so when you do a boat trip around it there are huge chunks of ice falling into the sea around you. So yes, very excited, and will try to get a good blog entry in either from El Calafate or on my return to BA.