So, Monday in Buenos Aires. HOT day again. Took an alternative tour of the city, which was about the controversial, and brutal history of the city. The surprising thing was all the history was within the last 55 years. We visited the government building again, learnt a bit more about Evita, and what happened in 2001. Also learnt how the various military coups of the 20th century were stagesçd, and even saw evidence of bomb damage from a coup which overthrew Peron in 1953. I find all this brutal latin american historu very interesting, not least beacuse they say the CIA and the US government backed all the right wing military dictatorships in Latin America in the 70´s and 80´s to prevent another revolution and government like Castro in Cuba. Obviously Castro was a left wing government, sided with the Soviet Union in the 60´s and brought about the missile stand off between the states and the russians. Baically it was the cold war, and US didnt want any socialist governments in the Amercias, so sponosored brutual right wing coups, which would go on to wage dirty wars against it on people.

The dirty war of the 70´s and 80´s was a government campaign against it´s own people, or rether those in opposition to the government, but escalated out of control when the government started kidnapping and murdering anyone who could influence public opinion (teachers, musicians, journalists, student union members), and then anyone related to those be it family or even a contact number in their address book. This happened in Argentina (as well as Chile, Paraguay, Brasil, Uruguay), and there were 60 detention camps across the country. People were kidnapped, tortured, released, or killed. The thing was that it was a¨secret, according to the government at the time this wasn´t happening. For this reason a lot of the people murdered are still classified as missing, upto 30k Argentines it´s calculated. It is said the government dropped the bodies into the ocean to cover up the crime. Moreover, the government destroyed or covered over the detention camps. We visited the remains of one in Buenos, called Club Atletico. The government built a high way over it in the early 80´s, but 9 years, court eveidence discovered it was here and the government ordered it to be excavated (there are on going trials against the leaders in 70´s 80´s today). It was very sad to see, a place where lots of innocnet, and very young people were killed so recently.

Another part of the alternative tour was an Evita musuem and we saw the room where her body was embalmed and learnt about the pros and cons of her and Juan Domingo Peron´s governance of Argentina, peronism (which is still active in ARgentine politics today).

I have lots of pictures.

With an Australian girl I met, spent the afternoon gouing to a place called La Boca. A poor neighbourhood settled by immigrants in the early 1990´s. They were so poor that they had to build their houses with coorogated iron, and paint them with boat paint. The result of this is that you have some spectacualr looking buildings (today it is an open air musuem), against an amazing back drop of cobbled streets and tango music and dancing (picture http://www.cacheirofrias.com.ar/614caminito.jpg)

Again I have millions of pictures!!

And thats Monday!

Tuesday I spent ambling around town in the morning for a bit, and went off to explore Puerto Madero, the swish dubai area and had a tour in the afternoon. It was a bit a boring to be honest, but interesting nonetheless. We went out onto the River Paraná, surrounding Buenos, saw some very rich houses on islands in the river, and went to a town called San Isidiro, which is near to the city of a Tigre, another city in the province of Buenos Aires. A very rich, luxurious area. Spent the evening doing a pub crawl which was organised by the hostel which was greta fun! 6 different pubs until 3am!!! On the way saw lots of tango in the street!

On Wednesday, I once again went out of town to an Estancia, which is where the Argentione gauchos live. Its basically a big cow ranch. The one we went to was more or less a musuem, but was interesting to see how life was on the pampa over a hundred years ago. The estancias were set up to farm cows, which were let out to feed on the vast, flat, fertile open pampa, which was beautiful. Just green space for miles, and miles. We had a proper slap up lunch too, of asados (again lots of pictures). Asados are basically bbq´s cuts of beef, sausgae, chicken you name it. And I tell you, argentine meat is immense!!! This was then followed, as is tradition a dance and music show. The gauchos got up and sang and danced tango, their traditional folklore dances, including chacarrera or something. I´ve seen this quite a few times now, it´s obvious dancing is very important to Argentines. Even when they go out clubbing, they go out to ´dance´ "vamos a bailar", where as in the UK we don´t to that, we go to get trashed!!!

The weather wasn´t too great for the estancia, overcast and that night it thundered and tipped it down with rain! Luckily I stayed in the hostel and chilled that night! The weather in Buenos is a bit tempremntal, very hot in the sunny, but very muggy as well.

Spent Thursday, finishing up in town and having lunch with some people I met at the hostel. Again it was still raining!!! Then later on off to Retiro, the big bus station. And I mean BIG! Buses are the main ways of getting around in Argentina, and there hundreds of companies serving all parts of ARgie, Chile etc... And they are very comfortable. I go for ´Cama´ or ´Ejecutivo´ which is basically like first class on an aeroplane! You got food, drinks, and films. And osme cheesy music too! But it´s a great way to while away the hours (I´ve done bus rides of up to 26 hours before!!). Anyway, this bus station has over 100 platforms, and is usually packed. But it was Xmas eve, and pretty much a ghost town! So, yeh I had to spend Xmas eve and early part of Xmas day on a bus back from Buenos (14 hours). But when I got back to Mendoza, we had a xmas meal all togther (although traditionally the big event here is Xmas eve, at midnight).