Evita is everywhere in BA, much more than in the other cities we have travelled to the Argentina. She is a particular favourite of current (pro plastic surgery, anti UK) president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. In fact much like Evita, Kirchner splits opinions of Porteños - the free tour guide we had actively disliked her saying she was never at work and more interested in pursuing vanity projects than working for the people. The tour guide at the Casa Rosada - probably unsurprisingly - loved her - he gave a little smile and lit up inside every time he said her name. Much like Evita, Kirchner has been slated for a lavish wardrobe and spending so much time on her appearance. Since her husband (the previous president) died last year she has only worn black. In a dedication that would shame Claire back in the day, she has worn over 200 different black outfits in the last 6 months.

Kirschner gives her press conferences in front of a picture of Evita, and on the anniversary of her death, unveiled a 10 storey silhouette of Evita on the Ministry of Health building in the middle of the main city artery so she is looking over the city throughout the day and night.

Most of what I knew about Evita came from Andrew Lloyd Webbers musical, and the film version starring Madonna. Although Sir Andrew had clearly applied some artistic license to the story its reassuring to know that I had understood the basics- born poor, travelled to BA (in the Madonna film, with Jimmy Nail), was a famous radio actress and union member, met Peron, took over Argentina in the name of the people, did lots for the people, died very young. What was striking when we visited the Evita museum to check on these facts was the similarities in the political rallies and speeches with the right wing movement in Europe in the 1930s and 40s. To their supporters, the Perons transformed workers' rights, the rights of children and the elderly, and gave women the power to vote and hold office in Argentina. They ran the country for the people. To their opponents, the Perons ran a dictatorship, albeit a left wing socialist one, and were motivated by power. Workers' rights and votes for women were means to achieving that power, and anyone who disagreed would disappear.

What Lloyd Webber did not cover in his musical was what happened to Evita's body after she died - enough to make a whole other musical, albeit a rather ore morbid one. After the military coup in 1955 it was illegal to mention the Peron's in Argentina. Evita's body was sent to Europe and buried under a false name in Italy before Peron took it to Spain - where he was in exile - before bringing it back to Argentina with him in 1971 where he kept it in his dining room. He had remarried at that point, so you can only begin to imagine the conversation with his new wife - darling, I've invited someone over to dinner…

Evita's final resting place is in Recoleta cemetery, a city within the city of Buenos Aires. Argentinians have an interesting obsession with death. When Christina Kirschner's husband - the previous, much loved President Nestor Kirchener - died in 2010 he was given a state funeral and the queue to see his body in the Casa Rosada went back to the domestic airport, 7km away and lasted for up to a week. We visited the cemetery as part of a bike tour we did with Biking Buenos Aires which took us round the northern parts of the city, home to the parks and wide plazas that BA if famous for. We ended up having a private tour with the owner as no one else wanted to bike round the parks in BA at 9am on Monday morning. Will, who is from California but has been living in BA for the last few years, is living the dream. He runs a successful biking business which they want to franchise across South America, and gets to spend his whole day out on a bike meeting new people and enjoying this amazing city. It may not be our specific dream, but it was enough to make Jon and I think about why we have spent the last 10 years working in an office in London.

The mausoleums at Recoleta are like nothing we have seen before - some of them are bigger than your average Greenwich two bedroomed terrace. It's sad to see some of the families who were unable to keep up repayments on the buildings as some of them are in quite a state of disarray. But an interesting place to spend half an hour mooching around and bringing the Evita story that we heard so much about all week to an end.