After 19 hours and two flights we landed in Buenos Aires. The flight from Sao Paolo was rather bumpy well actually very bumpy as far as I was concerned; when did airlines stop putting sick bags in seat pockets? Surprisingly we got through immigration control and customs with no problems. An hour after arriving at our apartment Peter realised he had left his jacket with our phones in the taxi; opps so back we went to the airport. Amazingly we did get them back, but it took two hours and 2 more expensive taxi rides.

Our apartment is in a nice neighbourhood not far from the city centre with a balcony overlooking a small park. It has 2 bedrooms and rather strangely a cell like construction in the kitchen which is actually a 3rd bathroom, very odd!

The city sits on the banks of the River Platte (“River of Silver"). An optimistic name based solely on a few silver trinkets that were acquired from local Indians. It is said the city was founded twice. First in 1536 by the conquistador Pedro de Mendoza (scared off by Indians 6 years later he moved to Paraguay- what a light weight) and secondly in 1580 by another conquistador made of sterner stuff. This one lasted. The city quickly grew through trade with Europe and other S. American countries especially during the 18th century cattle ranching boom.Britain attacked Buenos Aires twice in 1807 (both unsuccessful), in an attempt to weaken Spain and gain New World colonies to replace the ones lost in the American Revolution. During the invasions Spain essentially left the city to its fate. The people of Buenos Aires were not impressed, understandably, and decided they had seen enough of Spanish rule so in 1810 they got themselves an independent government. 6 years later the country, led by Jose de San Martin gained independence. You would have thought Britain would have learnt its lesson by now but no it tried to take Buenos Aires again in the mid-1800 and failed again.

The first morning we set out to buy supplies and then headed over to the Recoleta Cemetery, which has some rather impressive mausoleums of some notable people, including Eva Peron, various Argentinian presidents, Nobel peace winners, the Irish founder of the Argentinian Navy (that’s a story in itself) and a granddaughter of Napoleon. Apparently some monks settled in the area around 1732 looking for a bit of peace and quiet. Unlike the Jesuits they were not interested in converting the local population. Their peace didn’t last long as the city grew so the monks gave up (more lightweights) and disbanded in 1822. Their cloister garden was converted into the first public cemetery in the city. The site is 14 acres and contains 4691 vaults, many going down 7 metres below ground.

One very impressive mausoleum was built by a mother in 1902, who thinking her daughter was dead, after an epileptic episode, buried her but later found out she wasn’t, dead that is, opps. Another dating around mid-1800 has two statures, a man and his wife facing opposite directions. The story goes that she was always out spending his money so he put an advert in the local paper telling creditors he would no longer pay her bills. She was furious and they had a big row and never spoke again, even in next world.

After this we tried to get a drink at one of the many lovely outside cafés. We sat down at a table that moment vacated by 2 nice looking ladies. They had left most of a large piece of gooey chocolate cake and if you haven’t already guessed Peter ate it; not sure where he got his table manners from! We never got to catch the waiter’s eye so after 15 minutes we gave up.

Next day we headed to Tierra Santa a religious theme park. What will they think of next! It claims to be the world's first. Scenes from the life of Jesus are depicted along streets of biblical Jerusalem. Every hour a 12 m high Jesus rises from behind a rock to the Hallelujah chorus at full volume. It was a bit twee and kitschy, although the roman soldiers were a bit of alright.

One of our tasks was to acquire a SIM card for my phone, easy you say, well I wish it was. We went to a total of 8 mobile phone shops. The first 4 had no cards, the 5th did but their computer system was down and they couldn’t process our information, the 6th didn’t have any, the 7th couldn’t sell one to foreigners, the 8th didn’t have any. Finally we went to a small newsagent type kiosk and they sold us one, few! Whilst searching for the SIM we came across a large closed store called Harrods. Opened in 1914 this was the only overseas branch of our own London Harrods. Shame it wasn’t still open as I bet they would have had Heinz baked beans.

Reading a bit of history you do feel sorry for Argentina. From the 1820s onward they seem to have gone from one political disaster to another starting with fights between Unitarians who favoured a central government in Buenos Aires and Federalists who preferred near-autonomy for the provinces. The 20th century was particularly turbulent what with the president or near Dictator Juan Peron and the anti-Peron military factions in the 40’s, the communists and right wing groups in the 70’s and the bloody military dictatorship of the late 70’s early 80’s. Talking of Peron we went to the Eva Peron museum. She seems to have been a pretty cool lady doing lots of good for the poor. After her death her body was removed from Argentinia by the military and I do remember something about them finding her body in an Italian cemetery when I was about 19.

One day we did a walking tour with a Brit who has lived here for 20 years and still watches EastEnders and Coronation Street. We met him at the Recoleta cemetery the day before and I had emailed him regarding a private tour. We walked for 5 hours with only 2 short coffee breaks. I was exhausted and couldn’t feel my feet but we did get a good insight into the city. My feet were still throbbing hours after. He took us to the Palace of Flowing Waters (Palacio de Aguas Corrientes) built in the late 1800’s. It is a massive French renaissance style building whose interior, designed by a British company, consists of 180 metal columns supporting twelve tanks capable of storing 72,000 tons of water. The exterior of the building is decorated with over 300,000 glazed, multi-colour terra cotta tiles imported from the Royal Doulton factory in Britain. Our next stop was a bookshop that started life in 1919 as a theatre: a very smart one. In 2000 the building was converted into the poshest bookshop I have ever seen. You can sit in theatre boxes and browse or have coffee on the stage. Even the crimson stage curtains are still in place.

A must visit in Buenos Aires is the Tortoni coffee shop founded in 1857 by a French immigrant. The interior is just lovely especially the collection of Tiffany lamps (not sure if they are genuine). I was very glad of a sit down at this point. After this we went to see the usual round of government buildings and the cathedral and ended up in San Telmo (or San Elmo; patron saint of seafarers) the oldest neighbourhood in the city. It has some impressive old buildings left over from the colonial days. It was abandoned in 1871 by all the wealthy residents following a Yellow Fever outbreak.One rather peculiar sight in the city center is a house on top of an apartment block. Some guy got fed up with commuting so built himself a copy of his house and garden right in the center of the city. At this point my feet had really had enough and so we called it a day and returned to the apartment for a well earned rest.

The next day called for the Argentinian equivalent of the Hop on Hop of bus as my feet were still sore. At San Telmo, on our way to La Boca, we saw our first Tango dancing in a local café. La Boca is a bit of a touristy place, rather hippy and colourful, bit like us!