The security check prior to our flight to Buenos Aires proved to be a slight problem as Heather was taken to one side and they discovered she was carrying a knife - Her explanation that it was for cutting meat for sandwiches, was accepted ….. But the knife was confiscated (no more sandwiches)!

We stayed in a room in Palermo, one of the better barrios in Buenos Aires, which by chance was located directly over one of the best restaurants in the city (bizarrely it had actually been recommended to us by an American in New Zealand).

We spent the next few days exploring the City, there were dangerous areas like La Boca, which is buzzing with tourists during the day but very much "no go" after dark. It is also the home of Boca Juniors one of the two major football teams in the city (Diego Maradonna's old team). San Telmo was another fascinating area with buzzing street markets, cobbled streets with live music playing along with impromptu tango dancing - Simply brilliant to sit with a bottle of wine watching it all happen.

The "Casa Rosada" (The Presidential Palace) is located in the Plaza De Mayo which is the main square in the city and the scene of Eva Peron's balcony appearances to huge adoring crowds back in the forties …. We had previously visited the Eva Peron museum and her Family tomb in the famous cemetery in Recoleta, where generations of Argentinian Elite lie in the grandeur they experienced in life. Standing in the square one could almost feel the scenes of yesteryear and the haunting strains of "Don't cry for me Argentina" echoed from somewhere in the distance.

One of the first things you learn in B.A. is to adjust your body clock, nobody comes out before 10:00 pm and 4:00 am is the norm for heading home ….. Once you adjust a whole new city opens up. We spent late nights in strange places, where live Latin bands played into the early hours and Tango Dancing is the language of the people - Meals are served and drinks are consumed to ease the night along - Before you realise that time has passed the night is over and like vagrant vampires the revellers return home before the dawn breaks.

We took the ferry to Colonia in Uruguay and stayed overnight. It is very strange when you arrive because every Cashpoint has queues of about 50 yards long and they remain congested until the last return ferry at about 4:00pm. The bizarre reason is that you extract dollars at the international exchange rate (about 5.2 to the Argentinian Peso) and sell them on the streets of B.A. for in excess of 9 pesos to the dollar. When the crowds had returned to B.A. we extracted some dollars of our own. On our return to B.A. we were a bit nervous about street trading currency but we were given an address and completed the transaction painlessly at 9.3 pesos to the dollar (an 80% mark-up)! It was too late in our trip to make a massive difference but had we known earlier our 6 weeks in Argentina would have cost us much less and our budget status much healthier. Despite its reputation for being a dangerous city we had a lot of fun in B.A. and stayed nine days instead of the planned four.