We arrived at our hostel in pouring rain and checked in. Called "Hostel Inn Ritz", we think this must have been the site of the old, old, Ritz Hotel. It had one of those old fashioned elevators which is always quaint, at first. Though they somehow didn't have our reservation, fortunately they had a room for us.

Our room was lovely, wooden floors, high ceilings, big doors opening out to balconys, a nice old wardrobe, good size with a good bathroom. And we were right on the corner of Av de Mayo and Av 9 de Julio, the big wide chaotic street synonymous with Buenos Aires. We were on the 3rd (top) floor, and when the ceilings are enormously high it makes for a heap of stairs, but we thought we could use the exercise so generally used the stairs.

We asked at reception for a recommendation of somewhere for dinner. Lindsay asked for something "healthy", and the response was "there's nothing healthy in Argentina". He was able to recommend a vegetarian restaurant, or a pizza restaurant that was much closer. The pizza recommendation won, purely due to the rain. It was quite a delicious and cheesy pizza though, washed down with a grapefruit soft drink.

The next morning was still overcast and brisk, but fortunately the rain had stopped for a while. Our first task after we filled up on yummy croissants and jam (best hostel breakfast so far), was to look into getting a visa for Paraguay. Without holding a visa, the only other option would be to fly into the airport at Asuncíon where a visa can be issued on the spot, but flying was going to be about thrice the price of a bus.

We walked to the embassy, but were informed on arrival that the consulate was at a different location, about half way back to where we'd come from. At the consulate, we were told we would have to return the next morning as the person we needed wasn't there, but that when we did it would take an hour to process.

By now the rain was starting to fall again. We stopped in at Starbucks for a typically average coffee to see if it would pass. It didn't. We were now nearby to the vegetarian restaurant and it was nearing lunch time so we attempted a quick dash there, if only it had been easier to spot. Soaked by the time we found it, we were please for find a seat right under some warm air and enjoy a delicious meal.

The rain had definitely set in again for the afternoon, so we decided to return to the hostel to utilise the time to catch up on some blogging and research what to do in BA. Despite the extremely limited kitchen facilities in this hostel, we attempted to cook a packet soup with a few more added veggies. The exercise failed miserably given there was a single working burner on the 2 burner electric stove, that would switch off and back on often enough to ensure nothing would boil. Needless to say, whilst it was quite healthy, dinner was very unsatisfying!

We returned again to the Paraguayan consulate the next morning at 10am as instructed. This time, we were greeted by a plump and cheerful gentleman who had obviously spent some time in the United States where he had picked up rather good English, though he sounded just like his voice was passing through one of those synthesiser things they use when you get a call from an Indian call centre.

He gave us the paperwork to fill out, attempted to overcharge us for our visas before apologising that he has "misread" the price, and asked us to return at the same time tomorrow. I guess the 1 hour turn around time wasn't going to happen.

We then found a non-starbucks coffee shop sold coffee with milk in a tazon (translation = bowl, literally), where we could jump on some wifi and arrange to meet Anne, our German friend who was to fly home later that evening. We agreed on a meeting place outside the Recoleta Cemetery which would give us a chance to check it out while Anne packed her bags.

Cementerio de la Recoleta is the resting place of Argentina's high society, former Presidents and politicians, and of course Evita. It's like a bizarre miniature city for dead people. Whole families are buried in above ground tombs, built in the shapes of replicas of churches or buildings. One was like a little castle, another a mini Pantheon. Some "buildings"were quite recent, or well kept, others were crumbling to pieces, which we suppose is like any full sized living person city we have visited thus far in South America!

Next to the Cemetery is the Basilica Nuestra Senora del Pilar. This church wasn't very impressive inside or out, but had a little museum at the side with some old artefacts which was interesting. It had been built in 1732 by the Recoleto priests.

We then waited in the cold for a while, before we met Anne and had an enjoyable lunch to farewell her back home. It was really nice to have caught up with her one last time. Afterwards we made our way to the Florida shopping area where we were confronted by the black market currency exchange phenomenon.

Literally every 3 metres along these streets was someone chanting "Cambio, cambio cambio". "Change dolares, reals, pesos". This was all happening completely in the open, but even more surprising was that there was often a police officer standing within reach, seemingly unconcerned. Apparently there is a loophole in the law, making this practice a bit of a grey area and therefore the police don't bother with it. While tempted to test out this market which offers an exchange rate of about 11 pesos to the dollar instead of the official rate of 8 pesos (assuming the cash you receive isn't counterfeit), we didn't actually need any cash.

When we reached Av. de Mayo to turn back to the hostel, we glanced in the opposite direction and noticed a bit of commotion. On the edge of Plaza de Mayo, outside the Museo Historico Nacional del Cabildo y la Revolucion de Mayo, a military ceremony was preparing to take place. We stood in the freezing cold with gathering crowds, and when we were about to give up and leave, the ceremony finally kicked off.

Soldiers stood in formation and responded to various commands, while the military band played and official people made speeches. After catching a great photo of the soldiers shooting their rifles into the air, the official guests of the ceremony were escorted inside the museum. Following this the band played the anthem, both the soldiers and crowds around us sang with gusto. In the background were the drums and bungers sounding from a separate crowd of protesters that had gathered in the plaza while this ceremony was taking place. The ceremony ended with some dances, by a dance group all dressed in traditional clothes.

While we didn't really understand most of the ceremony except that it had something to do with marking the revolution of the independence of Argentina in 1810, we did feel quite lucky to have stumbled upon it.

That night, we accepted that the hostel kitchen wasn't going to be our friend, so we purchased possibly the easiest to prepare meal ever - a pre-made salad and some empanadas that we just needed to heat in the oven. So much nicer than the night before!

Friday morning saw the usual start to the day - croissants and a visit to the Paraguayan consulate. We arrived at 10 as instructed, but our visas weren't ready. After some negotiation we agreed to collect them in another hour. We treated ourselves to a couple more bowls of coffee, then returned to the consulate. The man we were dealing with was no where to be found, and it took another lady about half an hour to track down our visas, but we got them in the end!

While finally sunny, the day was freezing so we returned to the hostel for warmer clothes before heading for La Boca. Unfortunately catching a Boca Juniors game was out of the question, as the season had ended the weekend before (with Boca losing to their rivals), but we did pass the stadium before hitting the area of Boca renowned for lovely colourful buildings, Caminito.

What an onslaught of tourist kitsch this place is! It seems odd that a country with so much taste is capable of creating such tackiness. Between the Diego Maradona look-a-like charging to have a photo with him, the tango dancers trying to reel in every reluctant soul passing by, endless arcades of souvenir shops and overpriced Parilla restaurants, it was actually really difficult to find a spot to take a photograph remotely recognisable as the same place you see on postcards.

There was a few cool things to see, such as the "yarn-bombing" on some of the trees, and cartoon-like figures leaning from balconies. There was some amusement to be found.

We walked home via the San Telmo neighbourhood which was really lovely. The cobblestone Defensa Street included a marketplace filled with some very intriguing antique stalls (aka old crap), a porcelain doll shop that had an expected level of creepiness, and other random shops. We also finally purchased some candied peanuts from one of the many street vendors and they were delicious! A perfect snack. Why had we been avoiding these guys before?

Night had now fallen so we returned to the hostel with another pre-made salad and some frozen fish to cook in the miniature oven for dinner. It kind of failed miserably, as the batter didn't crisp up very well. Probably not helped by Fergus forgetting to oil the tray.

Saturday was our last full day in BA. We started by visiting the bus station and purchased our ticket to Asuncíon. This must be the biggest bus station in the world, right?

We had booked to do a street art tour in the afternoon, which started near the Olleros Subte station, so we caught the train there and found a nice little cafe that had an eggplant lasagne special for lunch before meeting up with our tour.

Our tour leader, Wenzel, is a street artist himself. From Germany, he had ended up in BA a few years ago after he had all his money stolen in Central America. He's a scientist with a PhD (Mineralogist?) but after having difficulty finding work in that profession he now paints and runs street art tours. His third word to us, and possible his fifth and tenth words as well were the F-bomb. It's looking like it will be an interesting tour!

We first jumped on a train for 2 stops, then wandered a neighbourhood that had been a pretty bad area in years prior, but the government had encourage street artists and other initiatives to help make it a bit more "trendy". We learned that street art in Buenos Aires, while still technically illegal, is not policed at all making it a unique place for artists to visit. As such, artists from all over the world stop by BA.

We saw pieces by a few well known artists such as Blu, and an Australian called Fintan Magee. We also learned about different materials that tend to be used in BA, other than the standard spray can, due to the cost of cans and the lack of variety of colours available. We were even lucky enough to see a couple of stencil pieces done by our guide.

The tour ended in the Palermo Hollywood area in a nice cafe, over a hot chocolate. Wenzel gave us a good recommendation for dinner, so after a few cerveza's we had an enjoyable meal there, before heading home exhausted.

We awoke on our last morning in BA, with Lindsay feeling under the weather with a bit of a fever, so after checking out we hung around in the hostel a while before it was time to go to the bus station.

*Warning - blog may contain bad words from this point*

The streets outside the hostel had been filled with protesters all morning, marking the anniversary of the 1810 revolution on the 25th May. They had been relatively ordered so we weren't concerned by them, and didn't need to walk through any protesters.

Just around the corner from the hostel, a man approached to inform us a bird had done a poopy on Lindsay's backpack. He politely offered a few tissues and to help clean it up, but having been told about a scam where people throw something on you, claim its bird poo, help you clean it and steal all your stuff, we politely declined his assistance. It took some convincing to get him to piss off and leave us alone, so our insistence became less polite.

Another lady came past making very animated dry reaching sounds and saying "Ew, poopy" was probably designed to make us feel more panicked about the situation, then another man started throwing water at us to "help" us clean up.

Once we escaped their "help", we stopped a bit further up the road and discovered that these a******s had covered our backs in a spray of a foul smelling concoction, something half way between automotive oil and off mayonnaise that they hoped we would mistake for bird s***. After working our way through a large number of tissues, we managed to get enough off to continue our way to the bus station, though now with little time to grab lunch like we planned.

A good half a packet of anti-bacterial wipes failed to remove the remaining residue of the stuff from our bags, clothes and Lindsay's hair. So, we prepared ourselves to sit on a bus for 17 hours in our stench. Our good friend Lisa once told us how she used a dab of Vicks under the nose to mask the smells of India as she travelled. Why didn't we bring any Vicks?!?!

Our bus was late, which only made us more anxious about the journey ahead, but once it arrived and we climbed aboard, the bus had its own slight stench, so perhaps we wouldn't be so offensive to our fellow passengers after all.

Off we went to a new country, Paraguay. While we missed a few things in BA we would like to have seen, we are planning to return to BA later in our trip. Hopefully when we do, we will be more accustomed to the South American way of life, and will be able to stay awake past midnight to actually experience some night life! It should also be summer then which we hear brings with it a much more lively atmosphere.

LAPFWT